Forest and Stream, October 1, 1919

VIRGINIA GAME SANCTUARIES

Natural resources -- Conservation - GameTourists and sportsmen -- Field sports - Hunting : Bird

VIRGINIA will soon have a system of game sanctuaries, if the plans of Commissioner of Game and Inland Fisheries, F. Nash Bilisoly, are carried out, the result of which will keep the state well stored without danger of depleting the supply of birds.

Proceeding somewhat upon the principle that as the department's activities for the protection of game and wild life are dependent for support upon the licenses collected from hunters, Commissioner Bilisoly believes it to be only right and proper that the hunters should have game to shoot. He therefore proposes a plan which he thinks will be a practical success and hopes to put it into effect in time to have the coveys replenished from the new stock he intends to put down in the preserves, scattered throughout the state, next Spring.

It is the Commissioner's idea to arrange with owners of tracts of from 200 to 400 acres, situated one in each of 400-odd magisterial districts in the state, to give the Commonwealth exclusive shooting privileges on such tracts, which will immediately be posted and the mated pairs of quail, 4,000 of which he is arranging to secure from Texas, will be placed on these farms. Each of the owners of these game sanctuaries will be given police power as a game warden.

The quail will be fed for the first few weeks on the preserve but allowed to go in the outlying territory, upon which they may be hunted. They will speedily learn the places where they are not disturbed and will return to them. The Commissioner holds that it is safe to allow a reasonable amount of hunting, for, until the coveys are broken up, the birds lead a family life and do not mate.