Game 



The kings of England formerly had their forests to hold the king's game for sport or food, 

 sometimes destroying villages to create or extend them; and I think they were impelled 

 by a true instinct. Why should not we, who have renounced the king's authority, have 

 our national preserves, where no villages need be destroyed, in which the bear and panther, 

 and some even of the hunter race, may still exist, and not be "civilized off the face of the 

 earth" our own forests, not to hold the king's game merely, . . . but for inspiration and 

 our own true recreation? Henry D. Thoreau, The Maine Woods, 1864. 



ZOO WITHOUT CAGES . . . The sight of a bear cuffing her cubs 

 into hiding in the willows, the laugh of a loon on the lake at twilight, the 

 whistle of the bull elk as he seeks his mate these and a thousand other 

 sights and sounds of the wild creatures enhance the charm of the forest. 

 It is infinitely more pleasant to observe wildlife at large in natural sur- 

 roundings than cooped or caged. The camera sportsman, the collector, the 

 fisherman, the hunter, the Boy and Girl Scout, the Campfire Girl, the 

 naturalist, the camper, and the sightseer each finds in forest wildlife a 

 special interest, and often the transition from mere observations to a closer 

 study gives one a new interest, a new source of enjoyment. 



At first we thrill just to hear the slap of the flat, broad tail of the beaver 

 as he dives from sight. Later, however, when we explore the home and the 

 dam he has built, we discover that the beaver is a prime conservationist, 

 storing water for dry periods, and flooding a willow swamp to insure food 

 for himself. The moose feeds on the forage growth thus stimulated, and the 

 deer or elk, too, when snow is deep. Noting this, we begin to gain some 

 understanding of the interdependence of all forest life, animate and inani- 

 mate. 



Initial interest in deer may arise at the sight of them bounding grace- 

 fully away into a Wisconsin cedar swamp, white flags erect. As interest 



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