Land Planning Report 



materials for the wood that was formerly used in con- 

 struction of all kinds, and the slow growth of mer- 

 chantable timber suggests that in planting operations 

 the potential values of wildlife as well as of timber 

 values should be given consideration. 



Large game animals, as well as beavers, porcupines, 

 rabbits, and other smaller forms, are apt to become too 

 abundant and destructive to the forest. In places the 

 competition between unregulated game and domestic 

 stock for forage has become acute and the range per- 

 mancntlj- impaired. Serious problems thus tend to 

 arise. 



Wilderness Preservation and Restoration: Conditions 

 even appro.ximating the primeval wilderness can hardly 

 be maintained anywhere unless the areas available are 

 extensive. Wilderness, or natural, areas typical of the 

 principal kinds of land surface and landscape aspect, 

 includuig humid and arid, forested and unforested, 

 should be preserved in the various parts of the country 

 for values that cannot readily be measured in dollars 

 and cents. The fauna is dependent upon the flora, 

 and typical samples of both should be perpetuated. 

 Such a plan contemplates, as examples, the setting 

 aside for posteritj" of suitable tracts of such divergent 

 character as the great forest of the Olympic Peninsula 

 of Washington, the Everglades of Florida, and the 

 giant cactus desert of southern Arizona. The areas 

 should to well-rounded units and include, as far as 

 possible, both summer and winter range for game, and 

 should function as wildhfe preserves of the highest 

 type. In such areas modifying human influences 

 should be limited to such emergency measures as fire 

 and flood control and the reduction of excessive num- 

 bers of large game and predatory animals. Suitably 

 distributed wilderness or natural areas should be 

 maintained in the national forests; several in the larger 

 national parks might be so designated, and others 

 might be carved from the unreserved public domain. 

 It is probable that few typical areas of the long-grass 

 and short-grass prairies that played so prominent a 

 part in our national development remain unmodified, 

 but some might be restored to an approximation of 

 their original condition. As such, and supporting 

 suitable wildlife, they would be of surpassing interest 

 to posterity. Some suitable prau'ie areas would 

 probably have to be acquired by purchase. 



The present limited system of refuges. Federal and 

 State, designed for the perpetuation of particular 

 species, as the buffalo, should be extended to provide 

 more amply for other animals, including the antelope, 

 valley elk of Cahfornia, the peccary, and others. 



Human capacity to transform the land surface and 

 to render it imfit for habitation by wildhfe, especially 

 game, has been clearly demonstrated. That a reversal 

 of the destructive process can bring about an amazing 

 restoration of game has also been amply attested. It 

 foUows then, that in manipulation of the environment, 



game should be given due consideration as a natural 

 resource in all plans for land utilization. Game must 

 be subject to appropriate control measures, but it will 

 often be found highl.y profitable to encourage its pro- 

 duction along with other land uses. 



Relations of Big Game, Predators, and Livestock: 

 Large game animals, as deer, antelope, and elk, often 

 compete directly with domestic stock for forage. To 

 maintain the food-producing capacity of a given area 

 may require a reduction in the numbers of either or 

 both. Adjustment of the conflicting interests of game 

 and the grazing of domestic stock, and the relation of 

 both to predatory animals, is a compUcated problem 

 on the national forest and the public domain. Or- 

 ganized predatory animal-control operations are carried 

 on by the Federal Government, largely on national 

 forest areas and the pubhc domain but also on State 

 and private holdings in cooperation with the States. 

 The direct objective is the protection of the domestic 

 stock for which grazing fees on the national forest are 

 collected by the Forest Service. The work is financed 

 jointly by the Federal Government, which through the 

 Biological Survey is charged with the direction; and 

 the States or stock associations, which furnish the larger 

 share of the funds required. This seems an equitable 

 arrangement, as the States are heavily interested in 

 the stock industry both on and oft' the forest, while the 

 Government is the principal landowner. But the same 

 national forests are the principal reservoirs of our 

 larger game, especially deer, and a heavy toU is nor- 

 mally taken every year by mountain Uons, coyotes, 

 and bobcats. \Vhile mountain hons are the more 

 notorious deer slayers, each year kiUing great numbers 

 of deer in sections where abundant, the inroads of 

 coyotes, especially on fawns and the smaller game 

 species, are usually more serious, owing to the greater 

 number of these wild members of the dog family. 



Predatory animal control, undertaken primarih' in 

 the interest of domestic stock, now incidentaUy extends 

 similar protection to game, which only a few years ago 

 became threatened with the actual danger of local extinc- 

 tion. On many of the domestic stock ranges of the 

 West, notably in the national forests of central and south- 

 eastern Arizona, deer, antelope, and elk have become 

 overabundant and threaten the forage supply for both 

 stock and game. This maladjustment is due partly to 

 the creation of game refuges that are far too large, and 

 partly to lack of adequate provision for the harvesting 

 of the game crop. In such places, where hunters are 

 unable to utilize the game, projects of predatory 

 animal repression should be pressed only as necessary 

 to prevent serious injury to local economic interests. 



Buffalo and Other Big Game: The herds of wild and 

 semidomesticated buffalo that range in an isolated part 

 of Yellowstone National Park and the larger herds in 

 Canada, together with numerous groups under fence, 



