GAME AND WILD-FUR PRODUCTION AND UTILIZATION 49 



for a large area is 1 deer per 200 acres and 1 wild turkey per 130 

 acres. 



FARMER-SPORTSMAN COOPERATIVES 



In efforts to open lands closed to public hunting, sportsmen's 

 clubs have made cooperative agreements with farmers. These pro- 

 grams do not involve a rental fee. The clubs agree to furnish 

 additional protection in the form of posters and patrols. Patrol- 

 men are customarily farmers within the cooperative, paid by club 

 funds. The common procedure is to permit only club members to 

 hunt, but in a very few instances the lands are open to the public. 

 One of the essentials of such cooperatives is close personal and social 

 relationship between the hunters and the farmer. Thorough under- 

 standing and tolerance on the part of both groups is necessary. 

 To assure success, an extensive educational program is also necessary. 

 The restrictive element is tempered in this type of controlled area 

 which is seldom as satisfactory to the farmer as some of the plans 

 previously discussed. 



These programs are generally successful only on the less inten- 

 sively cultivated and less valuable lands. The plan does not afford 

 as complete protection as some others and may prove inadequate 

 where the demand for hunting is exceptionally great. It generally 

 is loosely administered and requires the continued stimulation of an 

 influential local leader. The farmer receives nothing that he was not 

 already entitled to without the necessity of organizations and agree- 

 ments. The sportsmen gain hunting privileges on additional lands, 

 often for their exclusive use. 



STATE-MANAGED LANDS 



State-managed lands, or "controlled shooting areas," are sponsored 

 by State conservation departments. The plan gives the farmer no 

 direct remuneration but supplies additional patrol and certain other 

 advantages. The prestige and law-enforcing prerogative of the de- 

 partment give this plan a more official status. The object is to reopen, 

 or forestall the closing of, lands to public hunting use, or to im- 

 prove the game production on the managed areas. 



The shortcomings are comparable to the limitations of the pre- 

 ceding plan. The procedure invariably provides for the use of the 

 land by the general public and so does not have the restrictive 

 elements. Without rigid supervision and continued vigilance by the 

 game department, the protection afforded the landowner will prob- 

 ably be ineffective. Nothing is included in the restrictions which 

 would not be practiced in the name of good sportsmanship any- 

 way. Although the working of this plan is in part education by force, 

 the principal advantage is the influence on the sportsman. It places 

 the game department in the position of protecting the farmers' 

 rights and of making sportsmen conscious of the fact that hunting on 

 private property is a privilege and not a right. 



The cost of such undertakings has been relatively high. In one 

 State the game commission spent 50 cents an acre to start such a 

 program. This did not provide for paying the landowner for im- 

 proving wildlife conditions or permitting public hunting. State offi- 

 cials estimated that it would cost 35 cents an acre per year to 



