8. Wildlife Services: Fiscal year 1970, $3,742,000; fiscal year 1971, $3,742,000; no change.

Program of Work: As a service function, Wildlife Services is responsible for projecting the Bureau's wildlife technical assistance capabilities to other agencies, organizations, and individuals, including:

(1) Providing animal management services to alleviate damage caused by wildlife.

(2)

Providing technical and planning assistance for a wildlife enhancement program on Indian and military lands; administration of the Wetland Referral Act; wilderness review; urban and rural services, and highway planning.

(3) Conducting a pesticide appraisal and monitoring program.

In the East, an extension-type program including offices on 11 university campuses is carried out under working agreements with virtually all State extension services. In the western portion of the Nation, the Division has an operational program with 700 cooperative employees.

Support functions, including improved planning, budgeting, and professional supervision, are of increasing importance at the Central, Regional and State office levels. Greater Congressional and Executive Branch interests, the inquiries of a more concerned public, and the need for increased liaison and coordination all require expanded supervisory and staff personnel to provide responsive services. There has been a steady decrease in manpower due primarily to inflationary costs during a period of relatively stable appropriations, as indicated by a drop in Federal man-years from 268 in F.Y. 1965 to 220 in 1969. Managing an expanding program with a reduced work force has only partially been overcome by training, improved manpower utilization, reliance on mobile forces, new techniques, and more careful appraisal of need.

(1) Animal Damage Control.

The objectives of the cooperative animal damage control program are to (1) reduce threats to human health and safety; (2) protect livestock and crops; (3) protect forest range and wildlife resources; (4) protect residential, business, and industrial properties.

Approximately 70 percent of the total funds for the western operational program are provided to the Bureau by States, counties, agricultural associations, other Federal agencies, and private individuals.

The methods used vary from simple repellents and frightening devices to toxic compounds. Potentially hazardous procedures require the employment of skilled professionals supervised by trained biologists. Extension and educational methods are used wherever practical.

Protection of human health and safety. In cooperation with local, State, and Federal public health agencies, the Bureau participates in programs of suppressing animal-borne diseases, principally bubonic plague and rabies, by reduction of the vectors. Widespread outbreaks of both diseases frequently occur in wildlife populations. Surveillance and control are a continuing function of our field force. A severe outbreak of rabies in San Diego, California, took the life of one child during the past year and has involved a number of other humans. In the past four years, cases and deaths from bubonic plague in humans have occurred in a number of western States, especially among the Indians. The objective is to reduce to zero the incidents of human infection; also, to reduce livestock losses from rabies.

Bird-aircraft strikes have increased steadily with the increase in jet engines and the increase in air transportation. For example, one airline company has published a figure of $2 million loss over a five-year period, and another reported 75

1950

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19

1969

1970

1971

engine changes due to bird strikes in 2 1/2 years. The Air Force reports 363 bird strikes in 1968--requiring 73 jet engine replacements and overhauls. Annual repair costs exceed $10 million. Bird strikes caused the deaths of one Air Force pilot in each of the years 1966, 1967, and 1968. The Bureau works with military and civilian agencies to prevent these strikes.

Crop and livestock protection. Nationally, losses to the 430 million sheep and goat industry amount to 6 percent of the total sheep inventory as a result of depredation, representing an annual yearly loss of over $25 million with the present level of control. Without control, losses are estimated to run as high as 10 percent, or $43 million annually.

These data reflect direct losses and do not take into account the loss of income from related industries, such as meat packing, garment manufacturing, and retail sales--and the negative impact upon the tax base.

Bird damage has been estimated to cost between $50 million and $100 million annually, primarily from damage to corn, sorghum, rice, fruit, and feedlot operations by blackbirds and starlings.

Ohio losses, based on current damage assessment studies, particularly to field corn, range from $1.5 million to $3.5 million during the past two years. In New Jersey, losses to corn run between $2.5 million and $4 million annually; rice losses in Arkansas approach $1.5 million; and about $3 million in damage is suffered by vineyards and corn in New York. California reports nearly $8 million in annual losses to over 1/2 million acres of crop land. Fruit growers in Michigan report losses exceeding $2 million from starlings. It is estimated that in Mississippi the total annual economic loss to blackbirds by the rice industry is $8 million. Some rice growers suffer as much as 60 percent loss in production.

As a result of the severity of losses, the Congress directed the Bureau to accelerate its bird control program in 1967. A plan was developed to attempt to significantly reduce crop-damaging segments of the continental blackbird and starling population. Numerous field tests are being conducted to determine effective and environmentally safe control methods. Blackbird damage in corn, rice, peanuts, and other field crops is being dealt with by selectively reducing damaging segments of the population. Populations are reduced by aerially spraying roosts and field baiting with toxicants.

Forest, range, and wildlife protection. The success of plantings for reforestations, range restoration, and watershed improvement projects usually depends upon a reduction of the rodent population at the time of planting. The service is provided on both public and private lands.

Additionally, protection is needed in maturing timber stands. In Arkansas, a cost evaluation analysis indicating a loss of $90,500 in timber and pasture was prevented by a $1,730 investment in beaver control. A recent study indicated that rodent damage in reforestation projects amounted to over $10 million annually during a 10-year period. In Washington and Oregon, it is estimated that forest animals destroy enough timber annually to build 20,000 homes and to support 2,660 man-years of employment to the local economy.

Assistance is provided to more than 15 State game and fish departments in protecting exotic and vanishing species and certain game species in areas where predation is a significant factor. Examples include mountain sheep and goat protection in Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho, and Colorado; the reduction of ground predators on refuges; and the protection of the Nene goose in Hawaii. A reduction of cormorant predation on Atlantic salmon smolts, in cooperation with the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, is a unique example of a restoration effort.