page_title: Wildlife management
section_title: Game laws
hierarchical_section_title: Wildlife management / History / Game laws
context_page_description: Wildlife management attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include gamekeeping, wildlife conservation and pest control. Wildlife management draws on disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology and geography to gain the best results.
  Wildlife management aims to halt the loss in the Earth's biodiversity, by taking into consideration ecological principles such as carrying capacity, disturbance and succession, and environmental conditions such as physical geography, pedology and hydrology. Most wildlife biologists are concerned with the conservation and improvement of habitats; although rewilding is increasingly being undertaken. Techniques can include reforestation, pest control, nitrification and denitrification, irrigation, coppicing and hedge laying.
  Gamekeeping is the management or control of wildlife for the well-being of game and may include the killing of other animals which share the same niche or predators to maintain a high population of more profitable species, such as pheasants introduced into woodland.
context_section_description: The history of wildlife management begins with the game laws, which regulated the right to kill certain kinds of fish and wild animal (game). In Britain game laws developed out of the forest laws, which in the time of the Norman kings were very oppressive. Under William the Conqueror, it was as great a crime to kill one of the king's deer as to kill one of his subjects. A certain rank and standing, or the possession of a certain amount of property, were for a long time qualifications indispensably necessary to confer upon any one the right of pursuing and killing game.
  The Game Act of 1831 protected game birds by establishing close seasons when they could not be legally taken. The act made it lawful to take game only with the provision of a game licence and provided for the appointment of gamekeepers around the country. The purposes of the law was to balance the needs for preservation and harvest and to manage both environment and populations of fish and game.
  Early game laws were also enacted in the US; in 1839 Rhode Island closed the hunting season for white-tailed deer from May to November. Other regulations during this time focused primarily on restricting hunting. At this time, lawmakers did not consider population sizes or the need for preservation or restoration of wildlife habitats.
caption: The Game Act 1831 protects game birds in England and Wales
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