By J. Bishop Grewell
To the Reader
How to provide both quality wildlife habitat and hunting opportunities is an increasingly contentious issue in the West. In an effort to achieve these goals governments impose regulations that place restrictions on hunters, landowners, and recreationists. Yet, improvements in wildlife numbers and habitat have been scarce. As J. Bishop Grewell points out in this booklet, most regulations do not take the needs or incentives of landowners into consideration. If landowners are allowed to treat wildlife as an asset, they will take the necessary measures to ensure its protection.
J. Bishop Grewell is a research associate at PERC (the Political Economy Research Center). He has written extensively about wildlife issues including a previous PERC study, Hunting for Habitat, coauthored with Donald R. Leal. This was one of the first publications to describe the importance of providing landowners flexibility in how they manage wildlife on their property.