16 U.S.C. § 701

The duties and powers of the Department of the Interior include the preservation, distribution, introduction, and restoration of game birds and other wild birds. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to adopt such measures as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this Act, and to purchase such game birds and other wild birds as may be required therefor, subject, however, to the laws of the various States and Territories. The object and purpose of this Act is to aid in the restoration of such birds in those parts of the United States adapted thereto where the same have become scarce or extinct, and also to regulate the introduction of American or foreign birds or animals in localities where they have not heretofore existed. The Secretary of the Interior shall from time to time collect and publish useful information as to the propagation, uses, and preservation of such birds. And the Secretary of the Interior shall make and publish all needful rules and regulations for carrying out the purposes of this Act, and shall expend for said purposes such sums as Congress may appropriate therefor.