The legal sanction for control work by the Federal Government is
contained in congressional direction in annual appropriation acts for
the Department of Agriculture and in a special enactment authorizing a
definite control program. The appropriation acts making funds available
for the use of the Bureau of Biological Survey since the year 1915
have provided for investigations, experiments, demonstrations, and
cooperation for the control of wild animals injurious to agriculture,
horticulture, forestry, animal husbandry, and wild game, and for the
suppression of rabies in predatory wild animals. The special program
of control, which was called for by the Seventieth Congress, was drawn
up by the Department of Agriculture to cover a 10-year period, and was
approved by the Seventy-first Congress (Public Act No. 776, of March 2,
1931).