Something to consider

Preservation vs. Conservation

The terms preservation and conservation are often confused, but there is a difference between them.

Preservation implies complete protection, with little human disturbance. It is a necessary tool of conservation in some instances. Wilderness and certain unique habitats for wildlife must be kept intact. On such areas man can acquaint himself with unspoiled nature and scientists can study the complex ecology of natural communities. Animals threatened with extinction must be totally protected so that man can continue to enjoy and learn from them.

Conservation, however, means the wise use of a renewable resource. Like trees of the forest, game animals are a renewable resource. There is an annual surplus that can be harvested safely by man.

Wildlife cannot be stockpiled. Each unit of land has a certain carrying capacity for each species, a limit to the number of that species it can support. A land unit may temporarily support an excessive population (like at the end of the reproductive season), but mortality factors will inevitably cut the population back. Protection will not alter this basic law of population biology.

In animal populations safety does not lie entirely in numbers. Wildlife sometimes can be overprotected. Rampantly reproducing muskrat populations are occasionally subject to decimating hemorrhagic disease. Overabundant muskrats may "burn out" a marsh by eating so much vegetation that almost none is left to support a muskrat population. The results of allowing a deer herd, deprived of its natural predators, to multiply beyond the carrying capacity of its range have been documented all too often. Poor growth, weakened physical condition, and starvation are sure to follow, with the smaller, less competitive fawns the first to fall victim. The severely damaged range takes many years to recover, reducing its value for not only deer, but other wildlife as well.

The reproductive potential of all animals, game and nongame, exceeds the carrying capacity of their range (more animals are born each year than the habitat can support). If untouched by humans, the surplus is removed by mortality factors such as predation, starvation, disease, or other natural causes. If used wisely by humans, the surplus can be harvested without risk to the next year's population.

Conservation implies management...of the animals, their habitat, and the people who use them.

Aldo Leopold, one of America's foremost conservationists and the father of modern wildlife management said: "We have learned that game, to be successfully conserved, must be positively produced rather than negatively protected....

We have learned that game is a crop, which nature will grow and grow abundantly, provided only that we furnish the seed and a suitable environment."

All subsequent experience has verified this observation.