WILDLIFE SECTION 

 Game Management 1964 



Ontario offers excellent hunting opportunities. Sales of all types of resident 

 licences total 577,771 while sales to non-residents total 24,407. Hunting licence 

 sales for 1964 are contained in Table 1. 



Table 1 



Resident Moose 40,188 



Resident Deer 109,549 



Camp 261 



Dog 11,901 



Farmers Deer 14,372 



Regulated Hunting Camp (Lindsay) 85 



Resident Bear 414 



Resident ( Small Game) 361,483 



Groundhog 38,038 



Non-Resident Moose 7,639 



Non-Resident Deer 6,562 



Non-Resident Small Game 7,998 



Non-Resident Spring Bear 2,169 



Non-Resident Wolf 39 



Non-Resident Pheasant Preserve 85 



Licence sales continued to rise and with greater numbers of sportsmen afield 

 the proper management of the game resource becomes increasingly important. In 

 1964, field staff comprising 229 conservation officers and 39 biologists enforced 

 regulations made under The Game and Fish Act, obtained detailed information 

 needed for sound management decisions and completed management projects de- 

 signed to maintain or improve wildlife populations. The task of managing wildlife 

 populations covers a very wide range of activities. Inventories, collection of harvest 

 information, evaluation of habitat, law enforcement, stocking and habitat improve- 

 ment are some of the most important functions. A wealth of information is required 

 to provide the basis for sound regulations and to design programmes aimed at pro- 

 viding quality hunting. For example, harvest information was obtained from a high 

 percentage of the over 130,000 deer hunters in 1964; over 23,000 deer hunters 

 were interviewed at highway check points and another 22,000 were asked to for- 

 ward information by mail or telephone. Almost one third of the Province's moose 

 hunters also forwarded information last year. Staff in northern Ontario again flew 

 several thousand square miles of moose range censusing moose over 25 square 

 mile sample lots. Deer yards were mapped and habitat improvement cuttings 

 carried out in important deer yards across the eastern deer range. More adult 

 pheasants were released; seven public hunting grounds provided both upland game 

 and waterfowl shooting and additional important wildlife areas were purchased. 

 These were only a few of the many activities of Lands and Forests staff in the field 

 of game management. Although far from complete, the following resume further 

 discusses game management activities in Ontario in 1964. 



White-Tailed Deer 



The popularity of deer hunting in Ontario continues to rise and more than 

 130,000 deer licences were sold in 1964; an increase of almost 10,000 over 1963 

 sales. 



In general, Ontario's deer hunters enjoyed good hunting in 1964. Across the 



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