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 capable of producing shootable surpluses 
under the impact of clean farming, over-grazing, drainage, power equip- 
ment, 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 are 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 Service, and cooperating State 
Fish and Game Commissions. 
The program is based on requests for assistance from State Con- 
missions 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, relation- 
ship to agriculture, ability to withstand heavy hunting pressure, and 
the possibility of competition with game species native to the United 
States. Modest, carefully-planned trial introductions of these species, 
utilizing wild-trapped individuals, carefully quarantined before ship- 
ment are then carried out in cooperation with interested State Fish and 
Game Commissions. Unplanned or "hit and miss" introductions are actively 
discouraged. 
