NWRS History | Chronology | 1900s

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Enforcement of the act becomes the responsibility of the Division of Biological Survey.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1903</b></td> <td valign=top>The first Federal Bird Reservation is established by President Theodore Roosevelt on Pelican Island, Florida, and placed under the jurisdiction of the Division of Biological Survey. Pelican Islands first game warden, Paul Kroegel, is paid a salary of $1 month by the American Ornithologists Union Bird Protection fund. Before leaving office in March 1909, President Roosevelt sets aside another 52 Biological Survey reservations to protect wildlife. Pelican Island is recognized as the first unit of what is now the National Wildlife Refuge System.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1904</b></td> <td valign=top>President Theodore Roosevelt issues an order sending a detachment of 20 marines to Midway Atoll to prevent the taking of birds and their eggs by Japanese nationals.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1904</b></td> <td valign=top>In his Annual Message to Congress, President Roosevelt urges Congress to authorize the setting aside of certain forest reserves and public lands as game refuges for the preservation of the "bison, wapiti, and other large beasts once so abundant in our woods and mountains and on our great plains, and now tending toward extinction."</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1905</b></td> <td valign=top>Audubon Society game warden, Guy Bradley, is killed by a plume hunter in Floridas Everglades.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1905</b></td> <td valign=top>Congress establishes the Bureau of Biological Survey in the Department of Agriculture. Clinton Hart Merriam is appointed as the bureaus chief.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1905</b></td> <td valign=top>The National Association of Audubon Societies is founded.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1905</b></td> <td valign=top>The American Bison Society is organized and William T. Hornaday is elected as its first President.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1906</b></td> <td valign=top>Congress passes the Game and Bird Preserves Protection Act (Refuge Trespass Act) to provide regulatory authority for managing uses on reservations administered by the Bureau of Biological Survey. The Act makes it a misdemeanor crime to disturb birds or their eggs in any manner on Federal wildlife reservations.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1907</b></td> <td valign=top>As a result of intensive lobbying from noted wildlife photographer William L. Finley, President Theodore Roosevelt establishes Three Arch Rocks, Oregon, as the first Federal bird reservation on the west coast. The following year, the President establishes the Klamath and Malheur Bird Reservations in Oregon after seeing Finleys splendid photography of the area. </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1907</b></td> <td valign=top>Under the leadership of its Director, William T. Hornaday, the New York Zoological Society ships fifteen of its healthiest bison (six bulls and nine cows) to the Wichita Forest Reserve and Game Preserve in Oklahoma. Congress appropriates $15,000 to erect a fence for the herd on the preserve. This event becomes an important milestone in the nations efforts to save the bison from extinction.</td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%"></td> <td ></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top><b>1909</b></td> <td valign=top>Congress appropriates funds for fencing to protect the bison herd at the National Bison Range in Montana.</td> </tr> </table><br> <hr noshade size="1"> <img border="0" height="20" width="77" src="../assets/site_prev.gif" alt="Previous."><img border="0" height="20" width="61" src="../assets/site_next.gif" alt="Next."> <p> <hr noshade size="1"><font size="1"> <a href="../over/over_main_fs.html">Overview</a> | <a href="chron_main_fs.html">Chronology</a> | <a href="../bio/bio_main_fs.html">Biographies</a>  <br> <a href="http://www.fws.gov/">U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service</a> | <a href="http://refuges.fws.gov/>National Wildlife Refuge System</a> </font></p> <p><font size="1"><a href="http://refuges.fws.gov/comments.html">Comments</a><br> Last Updated 12/8/99</font></td> </tr> </table> </body>