322 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



rapid grower in the altitudes. But, as martin ap- 

 proaches extinction, quick work will be needed to 

 stop and turn the downward tide. 



Opportunity to regain in our Federal Lands a 

 little of the wealth of wild life we threw away so 

 recklessly during so many years is still large. To 

 this end even the culls of the Public Domain may be 

 applied if only we get about the business of recovery 

 energetically and at some speed. Admirable as its 

 career has been in the past, the Biological Survey 

 has before it still a greater possibility of future 

 achievement, in leadership. 



"Several herds like the 40,000 deer on the Cali- 

 fornia National Forest/' wrote Smith Riley in 1928, 

 "or the 26,000 deer on the Trinity National Forest, 

 both in the northern coast range of California, are 

 striking instances where deer have increased under 

 regulated use of hunting. The steady increase of 

 deer in Pennsylvania under intense use, where they 

 have been provided suitable breeding places and am- 

 ple food, proves beyond question that these animals 

 thrive and are vigorous under constant use. On the 

 Kaibab National Forest in Arizona, which has been 

 rigidly protected as a National Game Refuge for the 

 past seventeen years, mule deer have increased from 

 six thousand or less in 1906 to a present herd of 

 thirty thousand, and are adding five or six thousand 

 fawns a year to their number. As the range has be- 

 come overstocked, this refuge presents an adminis- 

 trative problem in the disposal of the surplus that is 

 taxing the minds of game administrators. 



