History of the National Wildlife Refuge System

The National Wildlife Refuge System in the United States has a long and distinguished history.

In January, 1902, a plan was hatched by members of the Boone and Crockett Club to create a system of wildlife refuges across the United States with support of fellow member Theodore Roosevelt. And by Executive Order of March 14, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, along Florida's central Atlantic coast, as the first unit of the present National Wildlife Refuge System. It is misleading, however, to conclude that this was the genesis of wildlife sanctuaries in the United States.

There is no clear documentation of just when the concept of protecting wildlife through habitat preservation was born, but as long ago as the mid-19th century, diaries of early western explorers, pictorial records and reports from journalists and speakers familiar with the West brought a public realization that the unrestricted slaughter of wildlife for food, fashion and commerce was systematically destroying an irreplaceable national heritage.

The first Federal action aimed in part at protecting wildlife resources on a designated area appears to be an Act of Congress on June 30, 1864, that transferred the Yosemite Valley from the public domain to the State of California. One of the terms of the transfer was that State authorities "shall provide against the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within the said reservation and against their capture and destruction for purposes of merchandise or profit."

Yosemite Valley was later returned to the Federal government. In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established, primarily to protect the area's hot springs and geysers, but again, the "wanton destruction" of wildlife was forbidden. Establishment as a national park did not, however, produce the desired wildlife protection effect until passage of the Yellowstone Park Protection Act of 1894.

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