I have this vision of what a possible future for wild game as a sustainable food source could look like in practice. In this future most people who owned property of more than 2 or 3 acres would be actively managing their land for a high calorie production of wild game. They would be using mostly permaculture techniques to do this. In Permaculture a property is usually divided into zones 1-5. Zone 1 is intensely managed for annual plants like a vegetable garden. Zone 2 is a little less intensely managed but still pretty high think generally livestock and some orchard species are managed here. In zone 3 it is common to grow what is called a “food forest” which is a forest planted with edible species, but grown in a way that mimics a natural forest so it can be self sustaining. Livestock can also be periodically ran through zone 3 areas for light grazing. And then zone 4 is usually a semi-wild area that is very lightly managed for various reasons and zone 5 is considered unmanaged wilderness. In my ideal system for wild game management it would be some zone 3, but mostly zone 4 that we would be using. On a property of 20 acres this area would possibly use about 15 acres the rest being used within the first 3 zones. On larger properties this could be up to 99% of the total land area. Any zone 5 areas would be places that either already contain ideal wild game habitat or they would be areas that haven't been managed yet.
In my vision most people in rural areas would have something resembling a small garden for vegetables, a small orchard, a food forest area with a more wild growth pattern for fruits, nuts and other plant foods, and also maybe a few livestock such as chickens for eggs and meat and maybe a few other livestock species. And then the rest of their property would be lightly managed wild game habitat mostly for meat production. Ideally this last area would be unfenced allowing wild game to pass through to other properties with a similar setup, while the other zones could be fenced to keep out game from browsing gardens/orchards etc.
If implemented on a large scale among most landowners this could have some interesting consequences. For example in the great plains region, vast areas managed for cattle ranching and monoculture crops could instead be turned into habitat for bison, elk and antelope. These game species would be free to once again roam across the plains unimpeded by barbed wire and each landowner would be managing their properties to draw in these animals by producing the best game habitat they can so that they could hunt them and acquire meat. To me this seems like it would be a way more sustainable system than the one we currently have with cattle ranching and monoculture crops being the dominant land use. I believe that if a system like this were set up then everybody could potentially produce their own food fairly cheaply and easily. I think it would be easier, cheaper, produce healthier food, and be better for the environment than our current food production system. And best of all I think once people realized the benefits of managing land in this way then people would voluntarily decide to use this system on their properties. So no government would be needed to force people to manage their land in a way they wouldn't want to. There obviously would still be people who would want to manage their land for cattle or corn or wheat using more modern methods but if enough people decided to manage their property in the way I talk about then those people would be the outliers. Instead of bison being a rare meat, it would become as common as beef is today and beef would actually be the rarer meat. To me this system would be much more sustainable in every way you could think of.
While some wildlife habitat destruction today can be contributed to urban sprawl and the expansion of cities and towns, the vast majority of wildlife habitat has been destroyed through conventional farming and ranching practices. In places like Iowa more than 90% of the land is grown as monocrop of corn, beans etc. And many other states are in similar situations. Iowa used to be prairie and savanna that was habitat for very large numbers of wildlife such as bison, deer and elk, but now all that exists is a few pockets of steep wooded terrain along rivers that are home to white tailed deer.
Another huge benefit of this system would be it's resiliency. Once established this type of land management strategy would be able to go along with very few inputs. All that would be needed would be periodic disturbances such as cutting down trees or small managed fires to create a more early successional habitat. This would be an extremely easy system to maintain and would cut down massively on the use of energy leading to cost savings and an improved environment.
This would also be a better system for meat production because the wild game would feed and take care of themselves and all you would need to do is harvest them. This would be opposed to raising livestock which is very costly because of the need for feed, shelter and other costs associated with taking care of domesticated animals.
In this future I think many modern problems could be solved/helped this way including malnutrition, obesity, wildlife habitat destruction, pollution, environmental degradation, etc. It would turn America into a giant eden with plentiful food and clean air and could even encourage people to move out of cities and back into the country to get their little slice of heaven which could help encourage better social environments and small communities.
There is obviously a lot of speculation here because nothing like this has ever been implemented before, but I'm excited to use this land management strategy on my property and encourage and help others to do the same and then we will see if a system like this could be implemented on a larger scale.
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