2 3 Sid Ercatchs 
| United States Department of the Interior, J. A. Krug, Secretary 
24 Vi/ Fish and Wildlife Service, Albert NM. Day, Director. 
P| Are 585 (OUR Rees Al | RON Se eneetemeee --- 
>i / “ : 
Wildlife Leaflet 311 
WILDLIFE TECHTOLOGY 
By t!, Le McAtee, formerly Biologist, Branch of Wildlife Research 
The livest, the most widespread, and perhaps the most socially signifi- 
cant activity inthe field.of American biology today is the technology ‘known 
as wildlife managemént.: This technology derives its importance not from the 
logic of present conditions alone but also from belated recognition by the 
American people oi the profligacy with which they have squandered their wild- 
life heritage. Originally unsurpassed by that of any other continent, 
American wildlife has been slaughtered and deprived of essential range until 
certain species have been exterminated and many others dangerously reduced in 
numbers. . : 
The famed wild or passenger pigeon, once present in what were considered 
inexhaustible myriads, is now only a memory. The buffalo, once. existing in 
herds so filling the plains that they were never out of sight of pioneers on 
the march, day after day, for weeks on'end, exists now only in Parks and on 
Special reservations’ Viildfowl once’ covered the waters, as pigeons filled the 
air, but in many areas they no longer appear and in all they have but a frac- 
tion of their. former abundance. These are merely symbolic cases; all wildlife 
has suffered in’ the same way, if not to the same extent. 
At Last, and -in:some cases, as we know, “too late, in others we hope, in 
time, the American people have realized that provision must be made for wild- 
life if it is to continue to exist. Such provision must include not merely 
better protection, but adequate allotment of lands on which: wildlife. may find 
refuce and safety for rearing its young, and finally intelligent and .sympa- 
thetic management, so that all facilities that can be devoted to wildlife. 
shall have the createst possible effect. A brighter day for wildlife seems 
to have davmed, and wildlife management already has a.well-defined part in 
such new national cares as land-planning, rural resettlement, and erosion: 
control, as well as in the revitalized general conservation movement. 
ORIGIN AND PRESENT STATUS OF VTLDLIFS TECHNOLOGY 
Wildlife technology hud its origin in the search for better methods of 
game restoration on private estates, hes been contributed to by most-of the 
' 

NOTH.--This leaflet supersedes Wildlife Leaflet BS-161 issued by the 
Bureau of Biological Survey in May 190. 
