Managing American Wildlife: A History of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies

A continent without wildlife is like a forest with no leaves on the trees.

WILLIAM T. HORNADAY

THE first efforts of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies were modest in scope, uneven in result, and obscure in the overall scheme of contemporary history. But the organization made a hopeful, purposeful beginning nonetheless, playing out its role in a widening current of American thought and action.

The small band of state conservation leaders that convened at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone Park on July 20, 1902, came in response to the call of W. F. Scott of Helena, Montana. Not much is known about Scott, though he must have been an ambitious, progressive organizer. He was Montana's first state game warden, the office just having been created in 1901. In one year's time he had organized the state into districts headed by deputy wardens, advocated hunting and fishing licenses so that the users would support the protection and enhancement of their sport, and sought possibilities for useful action beyond his own borders.¹ Forest and Stream, a New York-based "Weekly Journal of the Rod and Gun" which covered the Yellowstone event and provides its only surviv

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