Description of the specimen (s) or part (s) or derivative (s) of specimen (s), including any mark (s) affixed: *This stamp voids this permit for further trade purposes, and this permit shall be surrendered to the Management Authority. There is enclosed a draft bill "To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to assist the States in controlling damage caused by predatory and depredating animals; to establish a program of research concerning the control and conservation of predatory and depredating animals; to restrict the use of toxic chemicals as a method of predator control; and for other purposes," to which the President refers in his Environment and Natural Resources State of the Union Message transmitted to you today. We recommend that this bill be referred to the appropriate committee for consideration, and we recommend that it be enacted. Predatory animal management has been a vexing problem from the time of the early settlers. Existing Federal programs are carried out pursuant to the Act of March 2, 1931 (7 U.S.C. 426-426 (b)), which directs that we "conduct campaigns for the destruction or control of (predatory) animals." Through the years, however, attitudes toward predatory animal control have changed. Of particular recent concern has been the use of non-selective poisons to kill predatory animals because significant numbers of beneficial animals are vulnerable to the poisons used to control predatory animals. An advisory committee, reporting to the Secretary of the Interior and the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality in January of 1972, recommended a prohibition against the use of poisons in predatory animal destruction, and expanded research to determine the economics and ecology of predator losses. Following receipt of recommendations from the 1972 report, President Nixon on February 8, 1972, issued an |