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, in- 
creased use of insecticides and herbicides, scientific forestry, urban- 
ization, 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 in- 
tensive hunting pressure. For these, new, adaptable species possessing 
a high hunting resistance should be sought, so that such areas might 
“provide greater hunting opportunities. This is the logic behind the 
foreign game introduction program as developed cooperatively by the 
U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, cooperating State Fish and Game Con- 
missions, and the Wildlife Management Institute. 
The program is based on requests for assistance from State Fish 
and Game Commissions following an ecological appraisal of their game- 
deficient habitats. After such information is in hand, biologists are 
assigned to make a careful study of game species occupying similar 
habitats and climates in foreign countries. From dozens considered, 
one or two may be selected on the basis of their characteristics, 
habits, reproductive capacity, resistance to predation and disease, 
relationships to agriculture, ability to withstand heavy hunting pres- 
sure, and the possibility of competition with game species native to 
the United States. Modest, carefully planned trial introductions of 
these species, utilizing wild-trapped or hand-reared individuals, 
carefully quarantined before shipment are then carried out in cooper- 
ation with interested State Fish and Game Commissions. Unplanned or 
“hit and miss" introductions are actively discouraged. 
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