GAME 207 



of treating wildlife as a renewable crop to be held to the food capacity of 

 the "farm" been given full effective use. 



Grazing by domestic livestock, production and use of the timber, and 

 use of the water resources for domestic or industrial purposes, all on the 

 national forests must be coordinated with the needs of wildlife. In some 

 areas, use of game and domestic livestock compete for earth room and sus- 

 tenance. In this the national forests of the East are not involved because open- 

 range grazing by domestic stock is not commonly practiced. Likewise in the 

 West there are more than 46 million acres of national-forest land which 

 because of cover types, roughness of topography, lack of forage, lack of water, 

 or inaccessibility, are not usable by domestic livestock. To this must be added 

 nearly 6 million acres of usable grazing land set aside in virgin, botanical, 

 wilderness, and wild areas where domestic livestock are not permitted. 

 Much of this area is admirably suited to game use. 



On lands properly grazed by livestock, there is ordinarily abundant 

 cover and sufficient forage to maintain a reasonable stocking of wildlife. 

 Here competition is minimized by the fact that different classes of livestock 

 and different species of game normally feed on different types of vegetation. 

 But on areas such as the ranges adjacent to Yellowstone Park, competition 

 between game and domestic livestock for forage gives rise to sharp con- 

 flicts. Upon most national forests such problems are not unsurmountable 

 if the desires and needs of the various interests are given full consideration 

 and there is maintained a fair attitude of give and take. 



Conflicts between wildlife and timber use are relatively easy to solve 

 once the problem is correctly understood. Although any timberland will 

 support wildlife of some kind, not all timberlands are suited to the repro- 

 duction of big game. In places the timber cover is so dense that herbiv- 

 orous game animals can find little feed. On other areas the cover may 

 have been completely destroyed by fire, and reforestation by planting may 

 be required. Here the rabbit population may become so heavy that active 

 control measures are essential for a few years if the forest is to be restored. In 

 other instances, the winter deer population may be so heavy in cedar swamps 

 that the reproduction will all be eaten and both the future forest and the 

 game-food supply jeopardized. Here again control of numbers is indicated. 



