212 FOREST OUTINGS 



shared in the progress. Private landowners often have permitted the use 

 of their property by wildlife at considerable cost and inconvenience to 

 themselves. The tremendous increase in public interest in wildlife during 

 the last 25 years has been reflected in improved legislation, both National 

 and State, and in increased financial provisions for fish and game manage- 

 ment and research. There is now general recognition that wildlife, in the 

 present status of our social, economic, and industrial development, can no 

 longer shift for itself. It has become a major problem for study and guidance 

 and organized administration on a common-sense basis. 



A Conflict of Interests between sportsmen and those who dislike killing 

 anything was noted in chapter 1. Much energy and emotion is wasted by 

 high-pitched contention; much remains to be done to harmonize the atti- 

 tudes of various wildlife groups. One group places complete reliance on 

 restrictive legislation; it wants nothing killed and would remove man's 

 influence entirely from the wildlife picture and restore what they call 

 Nature's balance. Others confine their interest to special groups such as 

 songbirds, or hawks and owls, or predators, or some other important 

 sector of the entire wildlife population, each seeing in the preservation of 

 its particular interest the solution of the whole problem. Some of these 

 demand that the rest of the animal kingdom be subservient to the needs of the 

 class in which they are interested. Certain trout fishermen want all otter and 

 all fish-eating birds exterminated. There are sportsmen who see only the 

 game and do not recognize the need of food and cover, and fox hunters who 

 want no foxes killed no matter how detrimental they are to upland birds. 

 Much of the difficulty in applying sound principles has come from a 

 failure of the friends of ..wildlife to see eye to eye as to methods. But public 

 attention now is focused on the problem; more wildlife administrators are 

 stressing management of the environment; and these things can result only 

 in fuller public understanding of the problem as a whole. An increasing 

 and intelligent interest of the millions of forest visitors — sportsmen, campers, 

 boy and girl adventurers, and picnickers — in the wildlife they see or hear 

 on a trip to the woods will have a tremendous influence on the wildlife 

 policies of the future. 



