Opportunity for Public Service 115 



control over the wild life on his land because he can prevent trespass, 

 but if it should go beyond the boundaries of his tract he cannot 

 recover it as in the case of domestic animals. The wild life resource 

 within a given state does not represent the aggregate of property 

 owned by individuals in the state but it is an asset of very great value 

 owned by the people as a whole. There is therefore a direct respon- 

 sibility on the part of the public to safeguard and perpetuate it. 



The existence of private preserves and the efforts of individuals 

 to protect the wild life upon their property through the trespass laws 

 and to increase it through special measures are of great assistance. 

 Many private individuals find that the benefits, financial or other- 

 wise, derived from having an abundance of wild life upon their 

 property are such as to induce them to take measures for its con- 

 servation. Such private efforts are not, however, in the aggregate 

 sufficient to insure the perpetuation of the wild life resources. Greed 

 and selfishness, indifference and unintelligence are still operating to 

 deplete and in some places actually exhaust the fish and game and to 

 make necessary stringent laws and a much more effective adminis- 

 tration of them than is general in the country today. 



Very frequently we make reference to the former days when the 

 forests abounded in game and the streams with fish. We are only 

 just beginning to realize that we now face very different conditions 

 from those existing when there was a wilderness of greater or less 

 extent in nearly all regions of the country. The wilderness is 

 rapidly vanishing. Everywhere we are building roads to make acces- 

 sible the most remote parts of the country. The very movement for 

 outdoor recreation which we are encouraging in every way is increas- 

 ing the difficulties in the conservation of wild life. Under these 

 conditions we have the task not only to maintain the wild life with- 

 out further depletion but also the problem of restoration and rebuild- 

 ing where wild life has been exhausted or is approaching exhaustion. 

 Still again the advance of industry, of agriculture, of stock raising 

 and other phases of land utilization, is in many instances restricting 

 the natural home of wild life and frequently the land formerly used 

 by game for winter feeding grounds and for breeding is now occu- 

 pied for industrial activities. 



The old idea that a little protection is all that is needed for the 

 perpetuation of wild life is no longer applicable. This is a tradition 

 from frontier conditions when the population was still so small and 

 the wilderness so large that the balance of nature could easily be 

 maintained or, if impaired, could be restored. Nature is very pro- 



