Educational programs were provided as regularly as possible, in-order . . 

 to tell the C.G.C. enrollees of various wildlife problems. The entire personnel 

 of E.G. IT. camps were shown films depicting the work of heavers, showing measures 

 for the protection of elk, deer, and other Dig-game animals, and portraying the 

 need of sane, sensihle conservation methods, in order that the remnants of our 

 fast-vanishing forms of valuable wildlife might be preserved. Mimeographed 

 leaflets on wildlife- management studies were made up by district agents of the 

 Survey for the "boys in order that they might "be given as broad instructions as 

 possible in the protection and preservation of species that are an asset rather 

 than a liability to man's interest. It has been the attempt of the Biological 

 Survey to make the rodent-control project a field laboratory for the education 

 of the enrollees in natural history and wildlife management, and the popularity 

 of the project among the boys attests to the wisdom- of this course. In many 

 camps more applications for places on rodent-control crews were received than 

 there were places to fill. 



Timeliness of Emergency Aid 



Fortunately, the E.C.I7. program came at the most opportune time. The 

 extreme drought throughout the ^est had forced rodents from the open lands into 

 adjacent irrigated valleys and mountain meadows, where they became especially 

 objectionable in their competition with livestock for the available forage. 

 Livestock and rodents together, during dry periods, have in many places almost 

 entirely denuded the surface soil of its vegetation. This has caused the begin- 

 ning of sheet erosion in areas where there would still be ample forage for live- 

 stock had it not been for the excessive numbers of rodents. On many areas, 

 grazing by livestock and rodents combined has practically eliminated the native 

 grasses, and these are now being replaced with weeds and poisonous plants. 

 Damage in some instances has amounted to at least 75 percent of the available 

 forage, and the average loss has probably been approximately 25 percent. 



On some of the Indian reservations of the Southwest, the condition has 

 been pitiful. On the Navajo Reservation, in particular, the Indians have car- 

 ried on a losing fight against drought and rodents. It has often been necessary 

 for them to replant their corn three and four times a season, since kangaroo rats 

 and other native rodents dig up the kernels as rapidly as they are planted. 

 Prior to the spring of 1936, there had been four years of drought, and this, 

 coupled with rodent damage, had reduced corn production to the point where the 

 Indians had ba,rely enough for the spring seeding. All were clamoring for aid, 

 and in order to save their last crop of corn it was necessary to detail a fore- 

 man with four or five E.C.T7. Indians to go from farm to farm and conduct rodent- 

 control operations. 



Eorost and Forage Protection 



The Forest Service is endeavoring to ca.rry on a reforestation program 

 throughout much of the cut-over area in the Lake States and the Pacific North- 

 west. One of the chief problems to successful reforestation is the control of 

 rodents, particularly the snowshoe hare. In the Olympic Forest in TTashington, 

 the snowshoe. hare has destroyed as much as 40 percent and damaged 70 percent 

 of the Douglas fir seedlings. In Michigan and Wisconsin, it was necessary to 

 carry on extensive rodent-control operations to permit the seedlings to survive, 

 -luch of this work would never have been possible but for E.C.TT. help. 



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