
THE FOREIGN GAME INTRODUCTION PROGRAM 
- Year. by year the number of individuals seeking relaxation 
through hunting is increasing. Yet the area available for this sport 
is slowly decreasing. Likewise, much of the habitat which mothers 
the game crop is becoming less and less able to produce shootable 
surpluses under the impact of clean farming, over-grazing, drainage, 
power equipment, increased use of insecticides and herbicides, 
scientific forestry, urbanization, and declining soil fertility. 
Faced with this situation, common sense dictates an all-out 
effort to increase habitat productivity. But there are many habitats 
which have- been so thoroughly changed by man that native game species 
can no longer maintain themselves therein in numbers sufficient to 
provide good hunting. Competing interests and the cost of reversing 
this trend are such that only a part of these lands can be restored 
to reasonable productivity in the foreseeable future. There are 
other coverts which never were fully occupied by native game birds 
or mammals possessing the characteristics requisite to survival in 
the face of today's intensive hunting pressure. For these, new, 
adaptable species possessing a high hunting resistance should be 
sought so that such areas might provide hunting opportunities greater 
than is now possible. This is the logic behind the foreign game . 
introduction program as developed by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries 
and Wildlife and its predecessor, the Fish and Wildlife Services and 
cooperating State Fish and Game Comméseecne: 
The program is based on requests for assistance from State 
Commissions following a detailed ecological appraisal of their game- 
deficient habitats. -After analyzing these, biologists are assigned 
to make a careful study of game species occupying similar habitat 
_and climatic niches in foreign countries. From dozens considered, 
one or two may then be selected on the basis. of their characteristics, 
habits, reproductive capacity, resistance to predation and disease, 
relationship to agriculture, ability to withstand heavy hunting 
pressure, and the possibility of compétition with game species native 
to the United States. Modest, carefully-planned trial introductions 
of these species, utilizing wild-trapped individuals, carefully quar- 
antined before shipment are then carried out in cooperation with 
interested State Fish and Game Commissions. Unplanned or "hit and 
miss" introductions are actively discouraged. 
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