From 'Our Heritage of Wild Nature' part of CHAPTER
14
A National Wild Life Service
WE have seen in earlier chapters that under the conditions
of modern
life the only way to preserve as much as possible of our native
vegetation and the lower animals that inhabit it is to set aside or
reserve areas—Nature Reserves and National Parks—representative of the
different types of woodland, heath, grassland, fen and moorland, and
provide expert management, where this is required, as it generally is.-
But we also saw that the higher animals, the warm- blooded vertebrates,
cannot be adequately protected and regulated in this way, partly
because they are often very mobile and cannot be confined to reserves,
and partly because some of them are actively harmful to various
interests, sectional or national. The problem here is to regulate or
control the numbers of the various species, aiming in each case at a
suitable density of population in different parts of the country. At
one extreme there are species, such as the brown rat, which no one
wants to preserve at all, and here we should aim at extermination,
while at the other extreme there are certain rare birds and mammals,
and here everything possible should be done to provide protection and
satisfactory conditions of life so as to encourage multiplication. But
with most species there is a desirable density of population, to attain
which sometimes means considerable destruction and sometimes protection
and encouragement.
The necessary pre-condition of this work is knowledge,
as thorough and
complete as possible, of the lives, habits and breeding conditions of
the animals concerned, and to acquire this knowledge and keep it up to
date continuous research is essential. Many of the older naturalists
amassed a great deal of this kind of knowledge in an unsystematic way,
and the Royal Scottish Museum organised work of a very high standard on
mammals and birds at the end of the last century and the beginning of
this. But what is wanted now is systematic research over the whole
range of important species. This is the modern study of animal ecology,
which is the organised development of the best work of the older
naturalists. A considerable amount of excellent research on these lines
has been done during the past twenty-five years, notably by the Bureau
of Animal Population at Oxford under Mr Charles Elton's direction. This
organisation has particularly studied the remarkable cyclic
fluctuations of the populations of rodents and other animals in various
countries. The knowledge so acquired has been turned to very useful
account in the fight against rodent pests during the present war. An
outstanding example of what an individual naturalist can do in the
field of animal ecology is seen in Dr Fraser Darling's fascinating work
on the Highland red deer and the grey Atlantic seal.' Systematic
observation of our native birds has taken a conspicuous place in this
recent activity. Individual observers too numerous to mention have
contributed to it, and the Edward Grey specialising
in different
branches of the work, and they would have to maintain close cooperation
with one another.
The work of the Service would include many aspects.
In the first place
it would be scientific—pure ecological research—and that would be the
essential foundation. The knowledge so obtained could be applied to
various purposes—to conservation and control, to education, to the
increase of public amenities, to the promotion of the interests of
agriculture and forestry. And when it was found necessary to destroy
large numbers of the higher animals the officers concerned with mammals
and birds should ascertain and suggest methods of destruction which
were humane as well as effective—a matter which deeply interests
humanitarian societies such as the Universities' Federation for Animal
Welfare, and which should be a general concern of civilised man.
The relation of such a Wild Life Service to the administration
of
National Parks and Nature Reserves is matter for consideration. There
is a good deal to be said for amalgamating the Service with the control
of Nature Reserves, since these would be indispensable places for a
considerable part, though by no means the whole, of the work of
research by the service officers, and their ecological knowledge would
be exactly what is required for enlightened administration of a
Reserve. On the other hand since the primary functions of the Service
Officers would be research and advisory it might be difficult or even
impracticable to burden them with the executive functions required of
the conservators or wardens of Nature Reserves. On the whole it seems
desirable to constitute a new Council under the Lord President of the
Privy Council—an Ecological Research Council parallel with the
Agricultural and Medical Research Councils and employing the research
officers and maintaining a central office to act as a clearing house
for ecological information. This Council might at the same time take
control of National Nature Reserves and any other existing or new
institutions concerned with ecological research of national scope.
Institute of Ornithology at Oxford has initiated and
carried out a
number of important surveys and studies.
But even with all this work of the past quarter century
our ignorance
of the life and habits of many of our birds and mammals is still very
great. In order to extend and organise such knowledge and to apply it
to the problems of conservation a national service is necessary. The
Nature Reserves Investigation Committee (see pp. 38, 41) asked that
`the Government should take formal responsibility for the conservation
of native wild life, both plant and animal', and the claim for
unequivocal recognition of nature conservation as a national interest
is the theme of the present book. Such recognition cannot be
implemented in respect of birds and mammals simply by the establishment
of National Parks and Nature Reserves. The organisation must be
extended over the whole country, and there is very much to be said for
making it co-extensive with all wild life and not restricting it to the
higher animals. The whole of the plant and animal populations forms a
great web with the most complex interrelations between its different
strands, and increased knowledge of parts of this web is continually
throwing light upon other parts. Vegetation forms the foundation of the
whole. Nearly all animals depend upon it for shelter and very many for
food also. Even the carnivores depend upon it for food indirectly
because it is the herbivorous animals which furnish their means of
subsistence. And the interrelations between different animals and
plants are of the most various kinds. Of these the effects of insect
and fungal pests upon plants, of parasites upon the higher animals, and
the relation of predators and prey are the most conspicuous, but there
are many others, some of them extremely subtle, often only discovered
by chance and needing to be fully elucidated by long continued research.
For these reasons a service embracing the whole of
the country's wild
life, vegetation and animals alike, is highly desirable. Its officers
would have to be trained experts in their subjects and their primary
function would be that of research into the problems of wild life.
There would have to be a central organisation which would act as a
clearing house of all relevant information about wild life and register
the results of research as they accrued. Such an organisation would be
in a position to answer questions from Government Department: Local
Authorities and other executive bodies, and bona fide enquiries from
responsible individuals. It should also be its duty to tender
observations and advice on its own initiative, where these seemed
called for. The research officers would have to be specialists, for the
details of their work would differ considerably The habits and density
of a population of mammals or birds, for example, present very
different problems from the control of vegetation or of populations of
invertebrates. But a broad foundation of natural history in the field
would be a necessary preliminary training for all such officers, just
because of the complex interrelations between animals and plants and
between different species of each, which is such an essential and far-
reaching phenomenon of nature. In other words they would all have to be
good general field ecologists, though specialising in different
branches of the work, and they would have to maintain close cooperation
with one another.
The work of the Service would include many aspects.
In the first place
it would be scientific—pure ecological research—and that would be the
essential foundation. The knowledge so obtained could be applied to
various purposes—to conservation and control, to education, to the
increase of public amenities, to the promotion of the interests of
agriculture and forestry. And when it was found necessary to destroy
large numbers of the higher animals the officers concerned with mammals
and birds should ascertain and suggest methods of destruction which
were humane as well as effective—a matter which deeply interests
humanitarian societies such as the Universities' Federation for Animal
Welfare, and which should be a general concern of civilised man.
The relation of such a Wild Life Service to the administration
of
National Parks and Nature Reserves is matter for consideration. There
is a good deal to be said for amalgamating the Service with the control
of Nature Reserves, since these would be indispensable places for a
considerable part, though by no means the whole, of the work of
research by the service officers, and their ecological knowledge would
be exactly what is required for enlightened administration of a
Reserve. On the other hand since the primary functions of the Service
Officers would be research and advisory it might be difficult or even
impracticable to burden them with the executive functions required of
the conservators or wardens of Nature Reserves. On the whole it seems
desirable to constitute a new Council under the Lord President of the
Privy Council—an Ecological Research Council parallel with the
Agricultural and Medical Research Councils and employing the research
officers and maintaining a central office to act as a clearing house
for ecological information. This Council might at the same time take
control of National Nature Reserves and any other existing or new
institutions concerned with ecological research of national scope.
