■bird "bulletins and leaflets dealt largely with fruits, the increase of which 

 would be helpful, but gave some attention to plants producing relished seeds 

 and to artificial feeding. From the former beginning has developed a publica- 

 tion on "Plants valuable for wildlife utilization and erosion control", which 

 treats the whole gamut of wildlife plant utilities including cover, browse, 

 herbage, mast, fruit, and seed. This presentation places at the disposal of 

 the wildlife manager basic information of a type essential to the success of 

 his work, but not heretofore available. The artificial feeding suggestions 

 have been expanded into a publication on "winter feeding of wildlife on 

 northern farms", and about all threads of environmental amelioration have "been 

 woven together in tho text of a Farmers' Bulletin "Improving the farm environ- 

 ment for wildlife." 



■ In the actual practice of wildlife technology, the environmental 

 improvement technique has developed into the covey-unit system of quail 

 management. This concept, taking into account also territorial requirements 

 of the birds, aims at the creation, by alteration of the environment, of 

 additional "territories" each having facilities for the year-round support of 

 a covey. Putting tho system into effect for a few years. has in some 

 instances, produced a larger number of coveys than had previously been seen 

 for 40 or 50 yea.rs. Intelligent application of the covey unit of range system 

 seems essentially to have solved the problem of quail management, and the 

 principles involved obviously have a place in the management of all relatively 

 sedentary forms of wildlife. Such species are the objectives of most upland 

 wildlife management, applied on farms, and on private and public shooting 

 preserves, procedure of financial and recreational interest to all farmers and 

 sportsmen concerned, and therefore of distinct social value. 



The technique of food-habits, research necessarily deals with injurious 

 as well as useful feeding habits of wildlife and thus has led to study of 

 material damage done to crops and other property and of methods of preventing 

 or controlling it. Prom this beginning developed all the control practices 

 that have been perfected in the Biological Survey, for years a major activity 

 of the Bureau. The wildlife manager, from time to time, has need for informa- 

 tion on control procedure, and it is ready made for his use in any emergency. 



Wildlife Technology in Conservation 



The technology of wildlife management pervades the whole field of wild- 

 life conservation. It is as necessary to success in pure conservation as in 

 management for use. Wildlife refuges, for instance, cannot serve their highest 

 usefulness if merely established and forgotten. Without attention they may 

 readily change into something quite different from what was planned. Unless 

 there is pruning and thinning, trees and shrubs will "take the place", thus 

 changing conditions vital for wildlife occupation. Animal populations will 

 fluctuate, and without attention to these changes in numbers and the resultant 

 effects upon the carrying capacity of a terrain and the interrelations of 

 organisms, the area, may turn out to be anything but a haven of safety for the 

 animals it was intended to benefit. 



The relations between wildlife and its habitat are dynamic, and where 

 the production of annual crops of wildlife, particularly production for 

 profit, is the object, unremitting attention tc the balance between environ- 

 mental factors, in a word the thoroughgoing application of wildlife technology, 

 is essentiad to success. Conservation in any degree can b^st be accomplished 



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