Relation of Wild Life to tJie Public 379 



and zoological exhibits is the Canadian Rocky Mountains Park at 

 Banff, where Mr. Harlan I. Smith has written the best handbook 

 so far published by any park museum ('14). 



ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS OF WILD LIFE 



The administrative aspect of the wild life in our parks is a large 

 and important subject. The problem of properly caring for and 

 using wild life to the best advantage in our parks is becoming in- 

 creasingly more serious and difficult. With the increasing number of 

 park visitors new problems are coming up all the time. As intensive 

 use threatens to wear out the parks recovery can be secured through 

 decreasing the congestion — by enlarging the parks, or by temporarily 

 closing parts of them. With increasing population there is always 

 a tendency to encroach upon the wilderness. Thus to maintain 

 park wildernesses can only be accomplished by a struggle, and the 

 eternal vigilance needed to preserve our liberty is the same price 

 that must be paid for the free, wild nature of the wilderness. The 

 wilderness, like the forest, was once a great hindrance to our civili- 

 zation, but now the tide has turned and wildernesses and forests 

 must be maintained, even at much expense, because human society 

 needs them. Not infrequently have I talked with enthusiastic friends 

 of our parks, who feel that in this struggle the odds are so much 

 against the parks and their wild life, that there is perhaps no use 

 to continue what they feel to be a losing fight. But it seems to me 

 that this is only another aspect of that constant struggle for any 

 high ideal — ^the only kind worth striving for; this is not at all a 

 peculiar feature of our park and wild life problems. 



European experience furnishes us with a number of notable 

 examples of wild areas highly valued because so little of the original 

 conditions remain there. For in spite of the unfavorable situation 

 the appreciation of these original conditions has not yet died out. 

 This is worthy of special mention because of the fear one hears 

 expressed that this is a hopeless cause. In several European coun- 

 tries there are active organizations and endowments devoted to this 

 cause, and even governmental bureaus devoted exclusively to it 

 (cf. Ahrens, '21 ; Conwentz, '09). 



Some of the main administrative problems concerned with wild 

 life are : the maintenance of this resource, including the complete 

 protection of the associated vegetation ; the formulation of poli- 

 cies; and the education of the public on wild life iaterests and the 

 perpetuation of their ideals. 



