TURNING WILDLIFE INTO AN ASSET

Wildlife management has always been difficult in theUnited States because of divided control. Public agencies—primarily, state game departments or wildlife agencies—are charged with managing wildlife, but private landowners have the best habitat. Conflicts arise as a re-sult. For example, landowners lose crops and forage to wild animals that they cannot control because of strict hunting laws. They may respond by making their land less hospi-table to wild animals. In addition, federal agencies, which control much of the land in the West, have policies that may not foster good habitat for wildlife. The U.S. Forest Service has tradition-ally concentrated on timber and the Bureau of Land Man-agement on grazing. More recently, wilderness values have dominated land management decisions. As concern about wildlife protection increases, state managers ’ jobs are becoming more challenging, not less. The good news is that policy makers can help wildlife, nongame as well as game species, become assets for both private landowners and the public. This handbook will of-fer four recommendations to help state governments ac-complish this goal