On-line Book
cover to Fauna 1
Fauna Series No. 1


Cover

Contents

Foreword

Approach

Methods

Analysis

Conspectus

Suggested Policy



Fauna of the National Parks
of the United States

FOUR STEPS IN SURVEY'S PROCEDURE

The first step is to reconstruct the picture of the fauna of the area as it existed in its undisturbed environment before white men came. This logically is the first thing theist must be known, because the object of all subsequent work will be to study the changes which have occurred in the meantime and to restore or maintain, as the case may be, the faunal part of this early picture.

The second step is to study the history of the area under man's dominance. This serves to reveal the causes for the present maladjustment of many species. Roots of existing conditions are often buried deep in the past, and before they can be understood and corrected these roots must be dug out.

The third step is so obvious that it requires little comment. It involves a complete survey of the vertebrate life as it exists in the park at present, inclusive of systematics, life history, and ecology, with a complete treatment of man as one of the environmental factors.

The fourth step is to draw up an initial broad management plan that will guide wild-life administration towards the general objective, which is to approach as nearly as possible the picture set up in the first step. This plan should be elastic and must be subjected to constant revision on the basis of future studies or it will soon become obsolete.

Thus, in any park, the determination of original conditions will provider the goal of management. Study of the historical past and of present circumstances will provide the working data upon which the management plan of the future can be built.


NEXT> THE PRIMITIVE WILD-LIFE PICTURE



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