The most direct approach to protecting wildlife is the 

 establishment of refuges. The National Wildlife Refuge System 

 now includes about 34 million acres in the contiguous States. 



half in Alaska and major concentrations in the pot- 

 hole region of North Dakota and along the Atlantic 

 Coast. Although the refuges were established pri- 

 marily to ensure adequate habitat for international 

 waterfowl populations, they also are critical for many 

 other birds and mammals that occupy the refuges and 

 the surrounding lands. 



In general, the approach of relying on absolute 

 prohibitions is expensive in that some of the signifi- 

 cant values that could be realized from forest and 

 range lands are foregone. The endangered red- 

 cockaded woodpecker of the South provides an 

 illustration. 



This bird requires large trees for nesting and a mix- 

 ture of age classes of mixed pines and hardwoods for 

 foraging within a short distance of its nest. These 

 requirements can be met in a forest managed for 

 timber products, but only at an economic cost. Har- 

 vest rotations of 80 years in loblolly pine and 100 

 years in longleaf pine may be necessary. Under a 

 management regime more concerned with the dollars 

 or jobs associated with commercial timber products, 

 at least two salable crops of trees could be raised in 

 the same time periods. Similarly, an economic cri- 

 terion would most likely discriminate against the 

 hardwood component of the forest and lead toward a 

 monoculture of pine. 



The general situation facing the manager charged 

 with multiple-use management or with coordinating 

 wildlife management with the management of com- 



modity products has been summarized in the context 

 of timber management on private lands:'^ 



"The management procedures that enhance 

 wildlife habitats are nearly all of a sort that 

 cut profits to the timber operator: leaving 

 strips or corners of mature trees uncut, leav- 

 ing snags and potential snags in the forest, 

 keeping clearcut blocks small, desisting 

 from excessive use of herbicides and pesti- 

 cides, maintaining some uneven-aged stands 

 when even-aged stands are simpler to man- 

 age mechanically." 

 On private lands, the loss of profit to the land- 

 owner is easily understood. On public lands, there is a 

 less apparent but still real cost because securing 

 wildlife-related values for society frequently requires 

 foregoing dollar returns and other resource values 

 that would be realized if emphasis were placed on the 

 wildlife. 



There is a continuous scale of possible trade-off 

 costs associated with the management of wildlife or 

 fish. On the small-cost end are those activities that 

 have little impact on the production or use of other 

 resources. Removing logs from streams to allow free 

 passage for salmon, installing nest boxes for water- 

 fowl, and transplanting bighorn sheep are examples. 

 At the large-cost end of the scale are activities that 

 severely reduce the values derived from other re- 

 sources. These activities would include fencing live- 

 stock away from streambanks or removing them 

 entirely, reserving buffer strips of old-growth timber 

 along streambanks for cavity-nesting birds and to 

 minimize stream siltation, and closing forest roads to 

 recreationists to minimize disturbances of wildlife. 



In all but the unusual situations where extraordi- 

 narily high values (such as those associated with an 

 endangered species) are at stake, the preferred man- 

 agement position is somewhere between these ex- 

 tremes. Historically, most activities modifying wild- 

 life habitats on forest and range lands have been 

 carried out in conjunction with grazing, logging, or 

 road construction. In some instances, careful plan- 

 ning can insure that wildlife and other resources can 

 be simultaneously enhanced without additional cost. 

 In other instances, there is a modest cost, as when 

 logging costs are increased because the required 

 spacing of clearings and residual timber stands 

 requires a somewhat longer haul or slower pace. 



38 Leopold, A. S. Wildlife and forest practice. In Wildlife and 

 America. H. P. Brokaw (ed.) Council on Environmental Quality. 

 Washington, D.C. p. 108-120. 1978. See separate chapters in the 

 same book by Burger, G. V. and by F. H. Wagner for comparable 

 discussions concerning conflicts between wildlife and agriculture 

 and between wildlife and livestock management, respectively. 



141 



