The National Wildlife Refuge System in the United States has a long and distinguished history.
By Executive Order of March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, along Florida's central Atlantic coast, as the first unit of the present National Wildlife Refuge System. It is misleading, however, to conclude that this was the genesis of wildlife sanctuaries in the United States.
There is no clear ...
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The National Wildlife Refuge System in the United States has a long and distinguished history.
By Executive Order of March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, along Florida's central Atlantic coast, as the first unit of the present National Wildlife Refuge System. It is misleading, however, to conclude that this was the genesis of wildlife sanctuaries in the United States.
There is no clear documentation of just when the concept of protecting wildlife through habitat preservation was born, but as long ago as the mid-1800s, diaries of early western explorers, pictorial records and reports from journalists and speakers familiar with the West brought a public realization that the unrestricted slaughter of wildlife for food, fashion and commerce was systematically destroying an irreplaceable national heritage.
The first Federal action aimed in part at protecting wildlife resources on a designated area appears to be an Act of Congress...
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