THE GAME BREEDER 



73 



REFLECTIONS ON GAME BREEDING. 



By Aldo Leopold 



[We take pleasure in printing the following article, taking exception to what the writer 

 seems to think is our attitude towards restrictive game laws. The magazine is open at all 

 times to those who wish to express their opinion. The best possible way to arrive at any just 

 conclusion is to hear both sides. We are not opposed to laws prohibiting the sale of game and 

 provding for short seasons and small bags. We believe the bags must be made smaller and 

 the seasons shorter as the game continues to vanish and that the closed seasons for terms of 

 years or forever are exactly right where no one looks after the game. We believe the farmers 

 cannot be induced to look after the game simply by the promise that the state will furnish 

 licensed trespassers to shoot up the farms. All that we ask is that profitable game production 

 be permitted and not prevented by the game laws which have not kept quail and grouse shoot- 

 ing open on the farms. We believe that sportsmen of small means can have good and inexpensive 

 shooting on many of the posted farms if they be permitted to sell some of the game they pro- 

 duce. We have no objection to licensing the dealers and requiring them to sell only the game 

 from game farms and preserves, but in countries which permit free shooting it is a fact that 

 market gunners also can sell the game they shoot. We are opposed to applying the prohibitive 

 laws to game breeders. We have said repeatedly we will not oppose a thousand more laws if 

 they be not applied to producers. The addition of Section 12 to the migratory bird law pro- 

 tecting game breeders put an end to our opposition to that law. Our ideas are well expressed 

 in said Section 12. — Editor.] 



I have followed with much interest 

 the policy of your magazine, and in par- 

 ticular the editorial utterances of your 

 April issue. Your program of nation- 

 wide game farming embraces many con- 

 structive and really helpful proposals, 

 which you are hammering into the mind 

 of the public with the most commenda- 

 ble energy. This very fact, however, in- 

 tensifies my regret over what appears to 

 me as an unfair attitude toward certain 

 highly important questions. 



Take, for instance, the question of 

 markets. You will hardly deny that it 

 was the open market which, more than 

 any other one thing, originally destroyed 

 our natural supply of wild game. By 

 dint of twenty years of hard fighting, 

 our sportsmen have at last succeeded in 

 closing this market. Comes now the 

 Game Breeder, and wants the market 

 reopened ! 



[There are two kinds of markets. We favor 

 the market which induces production and keeps 

 game abundant — not the market which causes 

 extermination. We hope you will see the 

 difference and how you misunderstand our 

 attitude. — Editor.] 



Of course nobody will deny the right 

 of the game farmer to market the prod- 

 uct of his licensed game pens, duly 

 marked in accordance with the law. But 

 there is more than a veiled hint that 

 the Game Breeder considers this mark- 



ing, this distinction between wild and 

 private game, as more or less of a nui- 

 sance, and that eventually the markets 

 should be thrown wide open to all game 

 alike.* 



• 



Now what would become of our real 

 game with the ranks of sportsmen divid- 

 ed over the market question ? The gour- 

 mand-hotel-pothunter combination is 

 hard enough to beat with a solid front — ■ 

 do the game farmers now propose to 

 split that solid front and reinforce the 

 common enemy? If so, what would be- 

 come of our wild game? It would evap- 

 orate. Such an outcome would profit the 

 game farmers, but disgrace the country. 

 What are the game farmers going to 

 do about it? 



It may well be that I misinterpret your 

 proposals, and misjudge their probable 

 future results. If so, I think there are 

 many sportsmen like myself who would 

 appreciate enlightenment through the col- 

 umns of your magazine.! 



*We have no objection to licensing dealers 

 and to requiring the identification of the game 

 sold. The best game breeding is done in fields 

 not in pens. When game is bred in fields 

 much of it escapes and is shot beyond their 

 fences. Penned game often suffers from dis- 

 eases. 



t Game breeders can get better prices for 



