UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION No. 115 
Washington, D. C. A April, 1931 
INFORMATION FOR THE GUIDANCE OF FIELD MEN AND COOPERATORS 
OF THE BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL SURVEY ENGAGED IN THE CON- 
TROL OF INJURIOUS RODENTS AND PREDATORY ANIMALS 
Prepared under the direction of Paut G. Repineton, Chief, Bureau of Biological 
Survey, in the Division of Predatory-Animal and Rodent Control, STANLEY P, 
Younes, Principal Biologist, in Charge 
CONTENTS 
Page Page 
BrLTOdrCtion se aes ere eee ee 1 | Animals on the control program—Continued. 
Necessity for control of wild-animal pests_ 1 Other forms subject to control__-_----._- 4 
Control functions of the Bureau of Bio- Instructions regarding field practices_---____ 4 
PICA OULVOY~ Sooo. See Ee eens 2 HE ODICCUVG:...- 2222 eee $ 
Legal authorization for control work__-_- 7. Conservation, State laws, and coopera- 
Instructions previously issued ______-_--- 3 tions <4 ee 4 
Animals on the control program ______--.--_-- 3 Precautions in handling poisons_-._-_----- 4 
The injurious rodents____----.----------- 3 Rodent-control operations _____-.-------- 5 
‘Ehe predatoryanimals..--.-_~-.-=..-..+- 3 Predatory-animal control__.--.----.----- é 
INTRODUCTION 
NECESSITY FOR CONTROL OF WILD-ANIMAL PESTS 
The demands made upon the Federal Government some years ago 
for aid in suppressing those wild animals of the public domain that 
continually spread out into areas that had been placed under cultiva- 
tion or used for grazing purposes produced the first Federal coopera- 
tive efforts toward the control of predatory animals and injurious 
rodents. The settler who saw the profits of his early work wiped out 
by the incursions of wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and bobcats 
from the public domain into his stock ranges, and of prairie dogs, 
ground squirrels, pocket gophers, jack rabbits, and other rodents 
into his cultivated fields, had no recourse other than to ask the aid 
of the Government whose lands served as breeding reservoirs from 
which these predators and rodents came. Otherwise they would 
reinfest his stocked and cultivated acres in spite of all that he could 
do to prevent them, either single handed or with the aid of his 
neighbors. 
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