he "build it and they will come" approach carries a lot of weight when promoting wildlife. One of the main reasons certain areas hold little value as hunting venues is that the conditions required by many game species are absent. The loss of habitat to development and clean farming practices has historically lead to a great reduction in many game species population. To fully reverse that trend and jump-start the recovery of these species, man must proactively engage in alteration of the land through re-introduction of plant communities and re-establishment of environments that favor wildlife.
In a successful field sport venture, a focused agricultural program works hand-in- hand with a wildlife/hunting program by fostering the necessary habitat to support native, as well as introduced wildlife species. Crop and timber management practices, modified to be more sensitive and beneficial to wildlife, result in healthy, productive populations of game and non-game animals. The challenge is to strike a balance in the cost/yield equation. In the case of resorts or multi-use facilities it is also paramount that a sympathetic approach to land use be developed between the wildlife/hunting program and all other outdoor activities.
Overall, the plan should involve the alteration of the site's topography, hydrology and vegetation to create suitable environments for each desired species. In some cases this may merely require monitoring of currently conditions as they evolve. In others, a complete retooling of existing site features may be in order. In between the two extremes are processes and applications such as setting aside field edges for native plant communities, introduction of 
warm-season grass species and soft mass plants, developing impoundments, and instituting integrated pest management and a controlled burn programs. In fact all of these, and many other prescriptions, will likely comprise a successful wildlife husbandry effort.
Many hunting programs go beyond fostering native fauna through habitat enhancement. In the case of upland bird hunting, for many years preserves and other hunting venues' bread and butter have come from released hunts and driven shoots. Here, both native and exotic species are raised in captivity on-site and released into areas where hunts will soon occur. While the existence of conditions symbolic of the prey's natural habitat enhances the experience, it is by no means mandatory. In fact, in the case of true or simulated driven shoots where the game is manually encouraged to fly toward a battery of stationary hunters, the shooting stations themselves can be decidedly unnatural. In either scenario, the over-riding land stewardship ethic of the property manager and hunter inevitably results in an environmentally superior situation and net gain in wildlife populations.
FSC's experienced professionals can offer expert guidance in habitat development and management and hunting programs for a variety of wildlife. The following is a list of the projects on which affiliates have worked in the past:
Adirondack League Club, Old Forge, NY
