America's elk, pronghorn and wild turkeys were brought back from the edge by men who wanted to eat them, and those men paid for it themselves. By 1900 the market hunters had all but emptied the country. Elk were down to about 41,000. Pronghorn were down to about 13,000. The wild turkey had gone from most of the states it once filled. In 1937 the sportsmen backed a law that took the federal tax on their rifles, shotguns and ammunition and handed it to the states for wildlife. This was the Pittman-Robertson Act. A congressman from Virginia added a clause that any state spending hunting licence money on anything else would lose its share. No conservation law in history has done more. There are now more than a million elk and about a million pronghorn, turkeys gobble in every state but Alaska, and the deer are on the lawns. To this day hunters and anglers pay for about 59% of what America's state wildlife agencies spend. The birdwatcher pays nothing. In the 1990s the agencies asked him to. A plan called Teaming With Wildlife proposed a tax of 5% or less on binoculars, birdseed, tents, backpacks and hiking boots, which would have cost the average buyer under $10 a year. The outdoor industry fought it, and it never found a single sponsor in Congress. The men who paid are getting old. In 1980 about 1 American in 15 bought a hunting licence. Now it is 1 in 21, and the average hunter stops buying one at about 65. Wisconsin's wildlife department has already warned of a $16m hole. The animals were saved by people who wanted them on the table. The people who only want to look at them were asked to chip in once, and said no.