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Animal Research 
      by Robert McCabe obtain from government in the  Deer have been recorded
for the 
 Today we are indulging a face of the impending holocaust. Arboretum for
at least sixty years, 
retrospective look at the University He privately and without fanfare but
it was not until the 1960s that 
Arboretum. As a benchmark we created a fund that made possible the number
of deer became 
start with Aldo Leopold's ideas studies on plants and animals that burdensome
to the plant 
expressed in the summer of 1934 were supported in no other way. communities
within the 
at the dedication of this  Among these early studies on Arboretum. After
experimenting 
outstanding appendage of our animals was a fifteen-year with several removal
schemes to 
campus. I wonder whether we investigation of the Arboretum reduce the herd,
the current 
would be focusing on that pheasant population. Indeed there program of shooting
and live 
presentation if A Sand County were two distinct populations in capture has
been effective in 
Almanac had not appeared to the early days of the Arboretum, controlling
deer numbers without 
arouse the dormant one in the east marsh and one in eliminating all deer.
Unless a 
environmentalists of the 1950s. the west marsh. The farmlands protective
fence discourages deer 
  My assignment is to deal with surrounding the Arboretum at that from entering
the Arboretum, 
the animal aspect of Arboretum time helped to support these particularly
from the southern 
activity. The earliest designation aggregations. The research showed border,
the control program will 
for the piece of geography on that about 70 percent of the young continue
to be necessary to protect 
which we now stand was born in any one year are lost by desirable vegetation.
University of Wisconsin the second winter that the average . 
An outstanding single species 
Arboretum and Wildlife Refuge. life span of a cock pheasant in an 
 * * monograph was based on research 
This was later but not officially unhunted area is 1.5 years and 
  in the HoNeeUm Pond area. The 
reduced to University Arboretum that the hens average 2.5 years.    . 
  American robin was the species 
then to Arboretum and finally in  A woodcock breeding 
  involved. Several of the more 
the vernacular to The Arb. population has been counted each * . 
  interesting research findings were 
 The wildlife program began spring for the past thirty-five that there is
apparently no 
during the CCC days when years, both as a teaching and a relationship between
nest success 
rabbits, woodcocks, waterfowl and research exercise. The average 
  and nest density; the annual 
songbirds were studied by an elite number of breeding birds per year    
* * 
  production of one pair is five or 
group among the camp corps is about eighteen. The areas used 
  six young, and those young suffer 
guided by a staff biologist. I as display sites for male 75 percent mortality
before 
suspect it is easy to be an elitist in woodcocks change slowly but are 
  migrating. 
natural history when stone hauling predominantly fen areas with 
and pond digging may be the scattered brush that tend to be  Along McCaffrey
Drive in the 
major alternatives, invaded by undesirable exotic area where the road skirts
Lake 
 Unfortunately, many of the data plants such as Tatarian Wingra, there is
a small cattail 
gathered by the CCC boys never honeysuckle and buckthorn. marsh. It is here
that several 
reached print. Most died in files  For 16 years (1948-1963) the projects
on red-wing blackbirds 
marked "field study." I saw this rabbits of the Arboretum were have been
undertaken. 
crew in action only once, in 1939, controlled and research data  In the Gardner
Marsh area 
but I was impressed with the skill obtained by a hunting group that small
mammal habitats were 
and comprehension of these young removed animals weekly during partitioned
by metal barriers and 
men soon to become soldiers, the winter months. The age ratio the number
of animals in the 
 One cannot speak of Arboretum among the shot sample was various compartments
was 
research, be it on plants or roughly 75-80 percent young each regulated to
examine the effects of 
animals, without doffing one's hat year, indicating rapid population population
pressures. Similar 
to Charles Bunn, Professor of turnover. The number of animals populations
of mice were studied 
Law. He understood in the early taken was a function of in mechanically partitioned
1940s that funds for research in population numbers and not of habitats in
one of the old CCC 
natural resources were difficult to differential hunting pressure. barracks.
In each case, in the field 
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