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"The possibility of a healthy relationship between people and the rest of the natural world
has been steadily pulled apart."
The Land Report
Judging by the attention that U.S. environmental protection laws are being given today, it would seem that the
country's focus on wildlife protection has just begun. In fact, confronted with diminished wildlife species due to increasing populations and extensive hunting, the United States began
protecting wildlife and their habitats legislatively in the nineteenth century. By 1870 game animals were rapidly disappearing, elk were almost extinct throughout the country, and buffalo
were all but gone.* Conditions had become so bad that in 1886 the U.S. Cavalry was called into Yellowstone Park to protect wildlife from poachers. At the same time that protective legislation was being enacted at the national level, state legislation, specifically game laws, were being adopted to protect the productivity of birds and animals. For the most part, the past and present laws and regulations governing wildlife treat animals, birds, and fish as harvestable resources, much like trees: they limit the amount of wildlife an individual can take at one time in order to protect and maintain the species' reproduction process. However, there are significant undertakings that have been initiated to protect wildlife habitat and biodiversity.
Wildlife and biodiversity issues in Texas, their problems and solutions, can be divided into six categories:
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