Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work

Ch. 13: Game Methods (1928-1932)

13 "Game Methods: The American Way" (1928- 1932) IN T A KIN G charge of the game survey for the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Leopold stepped into a conservation movement maelstrom. There was no science of game management to speak of in the United States. Zoologists studied game and nongame wildlife, but rarely with an eye toward conservation. "Wild life" itself was still a two-word term used mainly by sportsmen, naturalists, and outdoor writers. Animal ecology was only a rudimentary science, and barely connected to its sister science, plant ecology. Although lacking a solid scientific base, wildlife conservation did not suffer from a lack of interest. On the contrary, interest was so great that the major conservation groups argued long and bitterly over the best way to pursue it. In one corner were the established east coast organizations, led by the National Association of Audubon Societies, the American Game Protective Association, and the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey. In the other corner were the so-called protectionists, still led by that indomitable scourge of polite discussion, William T. Hornaday. 1 Throughout the 1920S, the clash of their philosophies focussed on the question of how best to protect waterfowl. After the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918, waterfowl populations experienced a sudden, but brief, rise in numbers. The treaty eased the gunfire, but it could not moderate the economic boom of the 1920S, nor counter the attendant loss of waterfowl habitat. Prosperity brought good roads, automobiles, improved firearms, more leisure time, and millions of new sport hunters. Simultaneously , agricultural expansion expropriated breeding, feeding, and rest259 WISCONSIN ing grounds across the continent. The shrinkage of habitat was especially acute in the northern wet prairies, where vital marshes, potholes, river bottoms , and peatlands were being drained off the map. Whatever gains the 1918 treaty had yielded were being overwhelmed by these sweeping environmental modifications. To make matters worse, drought was beginning to dry up the northern breeding grounds. In the absence of facts-no one knew the exact extent of these changes -opinions ruled debate. Hornaday was the most outspoken, sounding his trumpet and warning of imminent extinctions, but he still knew how to play only one note: the solution was to restrict hunting. He ignored considerations of habitat and regarded basic research as a waste of time. His approach, however simplistic, was effective; Hornaday always made for good news copy and the public could easily grasp his argument. The major conservation groups, led by the American Game Protective Association, championed the alternative view that the fate of the waterfowl depended on preservation of habitat. Accordingly, these groups cooperated in support of federal legislation to establish a system of national game refuges. Their perennial efforts had still not succeeded as of 1928, when Leopold began his game survey, but they had been cause for some spectacular internecine bloodletting. The conservation groups pushed for a combined refuge-public hunting ground system; Hornaday pressed for reduced bag limits and shortened hunting seasons. When the smoke finally cleared, Hornaday was out of his position as director of the New York Zoological Society, John B. Burnham, the head of the AGPA, had lost credibility , and neither faction's efforts had gone anywhere. In the course of events, Hornaday had produced documentary evidence revealing the blatantly "unsportsmanlike and selfish purposes" of the arms and ammunitions companies in their connections with the AGPA. In the fall of 1926, the companies withdrew their financial support of AGPA, in part to improve the association's image, but also to back out of a losing proposition. After fifteen years of pouring money into the AGPA, the sponsors had yet to see any real returns, whether counted in dollars or ducks. Meanwhile, the game situation remained precarious. Populations continued to decline, habitats continued to shrink, and solid facts were still lacking. The human observers, Leopold included, quite literally had no real idea what they were talking about. Leopold watched these battles from afar. First in New Mexico, then in Wisconsin, he tried to split the difference between the two factions, arguing in support of both the refuge plan and reductions in the federal waterfowl bag limit.2 Living in the Midwest, he was able to avoid personality clashes - a good thing since he knew most of the parties involved. On the other hand, he saw a continuation of the pattern evident in the QueticoSuperior case: as conservationists bickered, their nonconservationist oppo260 [18.191.186.72] Project...