Action on the Blue Ridge 



589 



customed to hunt in the area. The sup- 

 port of the citizens has been important 

 in the prevention of illegal hunting and 

 other forms of trespass on the units. 



A major problem at first was the 

 free-roaming, self-hunting dogs. The 

 managers often captured the animals 

 within the wildlife areas and returned 

 them to their owners, with a courteous 

 request that they be restrained. Some- 

 times sterner measures became neces- 

 sary, but mostly action was prompt and 

 complete when the people came to 

 understand the efforts of the manager 

 to reestablish wildlife in the mountains. 



The resident wildlife manager is not 

 a law-enforcement officer in the usual 

 sense, but his presence day and night 

 on the unit has strongly deterred 

 would-be poachers. When he is con- 

 fronted with a violation of game laws, 

 he does not hesitate to summon the 

 violator to court, but he usually sends 

 a copy of the summons to the county 

 game warden, who assumes responsi- 

 bility for prosecuting offenders. The 

 manager's work is related to that of the 

 enforcement officer, but it is even more 

 closely related to land management 

 and animal husbandry. The tools of his 

 profession are principally the brush 

 hook, pruning saw, and planting hoe, 

 rather than those of the police officer. 

 His philosophy is that wildlife is a prod- 

 uct of the land and that the key to wild- 

 life restoration lies in restoration and 

 maintenance of satisfactory habitat. 



As the wildlife restoration program 

 developed in Virginia, strong emphasis 

 was placed on creation and mainte- 

 nance of favorable wildlife habitat as 

 a prime responsibility of the forest 

 workers. With public interest and de- 

 mand for timber, water, and other 

 forest resources sharing with wildlife 

 in the need for better management and 

 utilization, the value of a well-rounded 

 program of multiple-use forest man- 

 agement became clearly evident. 



Shortly after the cooperative wild- 

 life work began, a new stimulus was 

 developed in the Pittman-Robertson 

 Federal-aid program. Each year since 

 1940 Federal-aid projects have helped 



finance environmental improvement, 

 including planting, pruning, and re- 

 leasing game-food trees and shrubs, 

 planting trees and shrubs for wildlife 

 cover, creating and seeding clearings 

 for game, and restoring old clearings, 

 fields, orchards, and similar habitats 

 of special value to game animals. This 

 type of development work has brought 

 a third agency, the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, into the Virginia program. 



Guidance from the Cooperative Wild- 

 life Research Unit, which was formerly 

 maintained at Virginia Polytechnic In- 

 stitute at Blacksburg, helped materially 

 in solving the numerous problems that 

 arose during the early years of the 

 program. Similar assistance was later 

 provided by the Virginia Cooperative 

 Wildlife Station, also located at Blacks- 

 burg and supported by the Virginia 

 Polytechnic Institute, the Commission 

 of Game and Inland Fisheries, and the 

 Wildlife Management Institute. More 

 recently the United States Fish and 

 Wildlife Service has again entered the 

 picture and the Cooperative Wildlife 

 Research Unit has been restored under 

 a Federal-aid program. 



One of the immediate and direct 

 benefits of cooperative wildlife man- 

 agement has been an improved level of 

 law observance in the national forests. 

 The presence of resident wildlife man- 

 agers on the major management units 

 has gone far toward creating respect 

 for closed seasons, bag limits, and other 

 regulations in behalf of wildlife. The 

 exercising of management prerogatives 

 under the cooperative program has, of 

 itself, brought the wildlife resource a 

 more respected position among sports- 

 men and local residents. 



Restocking formed an important 

 part of early wildlife-restoration efforts 

 under the cooperative program. An 

 early analysis of the fragmentary deer 

 population on the cooperative area re- 

 vealed the need for numerous well- 

 distributed spot plantings of deer on 

 unoccupied areas of the range. By 

 utilizing funds from national forest 

 stamps, Pittman-Robertson contribu- 

 tions, and funds from the Commission 



