Restoring America S Wildlife

Fittingly, the Act's chief sponsors were a Senator from Nevada, Key Pittman, and a Representative from Virginia, A. Willis Robertson. The Pittman-Robertson Act, as it came to be called, sped through Congress and was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on September 2, 1937. From a modest beginning, the Pittman-Robertson program has grown with the economy and the human population of our country. By now it has channeled nearly $1.7 billion in Federal excise tax receipts, augmented by some $600 million from the States, into activities to restore wildlife. The projects include State acquisition of acreage needed to bring wildlife back, research into wildlife requirements and problems, active management of habitats, and development of scientific ways to enable wildlife and people to share our land in harmony. The program has strengthened State governments and built wildlife management into a respected profession.

There was a lot of wildlife in America when the first European settles came. Reports from that era depict an Atlantic coastline replete with shorebirds, falcons, waterfowl, and such. The eastern deciduous forests were alive with white-tailed deer, wood bison, wild turkey, black bear, ruffed grouse, passenger pigeon, cougar, timber wold and other animals.