Wildlife Stewardship and Recreation on Private Lands

Who owns wildlife? Two-thirds of lands are private and 85 percent of wildlife in the United States is found on these private lands, so how can governments carry out their common law duty to manage without encroaching on the property rights of landowners?

If that mission is restricted, how can landowners be encouraged to manage and preserve wildlife?Wildlife Stewardship and Recreation on Private Lands examines franchising systems that allow the public and private sectors to work together.

Through enfranchisement, governments can empower landowners with management authority and offer guidance for them to manage wisely.

The book considers ways governments and landowners can be good stewards by using recreation, tax advantages, and cost shares as incentives.Although any enfranchisement system will have problems, Delwin E.

Benson, Ross "Skip" Shelton, and Don W. Steinbach show that many of them can be overcome with cooperation and intelligent planning.

Relationships among governments, landowners, and recreational users should and can be based on trust and mutual respect.

The authors focus on ways that these three groups can come together in a system of shared costs and benefits.Conservationists, wildlife enthusiasts, hunters, land managers and landowners, wildlife professionals, and others interested in and involved with these issues will find this book an informative and indispensable guide to solving some of the problems of managing wildlife on private lands.