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Show This changed view became an active part of water resource policy on August 14, 1946, when the amended Fish and Wildlife Act was passed. This act was designed to promote more effectual planning and cooperation among Federal, State, public, and private agencies for the conservation and rehabilitation of wildlife. Among other things, this act provides that the Fish and Wildlife Service shall study water control projects upon authorization to determine how fish and wildlife would be harmed or benefited. Under the law the Fish and Wildlife Service is justified in re- questing project changes so that wildlife resources and their environment will be preserved rather than damaged or eliminated. Recommended changes are not always made, but where they have been, fish and wildlife dividends have resulted. In its study of water development, the Fish and Wildlife Service plans or provides many facilities and services. Refuges and fish hatch- eries and public shooting grounds are fitted into the pattern of stored water. Fish ladders around dams and protective screens around diversion canals, penstocks, and spillways are planned where they can be useful. Log jams and ob- solete splash and mill dams may be removed to open streams to migratory fish. Small areas, critical to threatened species, may be fenced, diked off, or compounded, and provided with food and cover crops. Research is undertaken on the nutrition, habits, and habitat requirements of fish, and the effects of stream pollution on aquatic life. Records are kept on stream flows and temperatures at stra- tegic places. Changes of design or operating procedures are devised and recommended. Biologists in other Federal agencies such as the Soil Conservation Service, Forest Service, and National Park Service also participate in many projects and programs of direct or indirect significance to wildlife and fish. Federal xvork with wildlife is best carried on in close coordination with State conservation agencies. Most problems of nonmigratory game and fish are the responsibility of State govern- ments. Tlie States control, conserve, and har- vest the game within their boundaries according to their own regulations, insofar as these are in agreement with international treaties and Fed- eral law. Whenever migratory waterfowl are in- volved, or where Federal or federally licensed projects or Federal land enter into the wildlife picture, the Fish and Wildlife Service is obliged to participate. It also has a supervisory interest in State research and habitat improvement pro- grams which are financed largely with Federal funds from an excise tax on guns and ammuni- tion (the Federal Aid to Wildlife Program). While it is highly desirable to keep fish and wildlife conservation programs as closely related to the local area as possible, a fish and wildlife conservation program is essential if wildlife is to hold its own with other aspects of national re- sources development programs. Under existing budgets, however, the Fish and Wildlife Service finds it impossible to examine critically all planned projects. Wildlife and Water Rights Maintenance of wildlife is considered a benefi- cial use of water in only a few States. As a result of this situation wildlife and those who benefit from it have no way of competing with develop- ments and demands which have legal claim to water. In the Central Valley of California over a mil- lion acres of first-class habitat for migratory wa- terfowl have been drained or irrigated. (Total drained land in the Central Valley counties was 1,917,000 acres in 1940.) Only 90,000 acres of nonagricultural waterfowl habitat remain in the valley of the San Joaquin. This area is now receiving sufficient water from the Friant Dam to flood it at such times as necessary and thus maintain temporarily some of its usefulness for wildlife. However, as soon as the complete system of irrigation canals goes into operation, there will be no water available to the area. The Fish and Wildlife Service has studied this prob- lem closely in cooperation with the State of Cali- fornia. It has requested sufficient allotments from the Bureau of Reclamation to allow the waterfowl area to remain productive until such time as other sources of water are available. 260 |