OCR Text |
Show By Ted Kesting Don't make my duck pond a ref uge! Why hoard ducks on refuges where we are not allowed to shoot? Statements like that, coming from a great many duck hunters, prompted promp-ted Albert M. Day of the Fish and Wildlife Service to publicly defend their program. Their gdil is to avoid the situation of ten short years ago when it locked as though the sport of waterfdwl shooting would be loft to our sons. The take by hunters Is still lm-1 portant Annual regulat'ons provide i the one device that can quickly keep the kill below the annual in-crease, in-crease, and send more birds back to the breeding marshes each spring But In addition to regulating the take, they now think also In terms of restoring and Improving the environment. Since 1935. abcut 3Vi million acre In the U. S. have been restored. Improved and set aside for waterfowl. water-fowl. The 1 to 1"4 million dollars annual Income from the sale of Duck Stamp?, together with Congressional Con-gressional appropriations, made thl3 possible. In Canada the provincial government, aided by American -.portsmen through Ducks Unlimited, Unlimit-ed, brought bwk many thousands of acres and converted them into productive marshes. Breeding refuges are not enorgh. Thev are highly Important, but the birds must have a place to go after urvlvlng th3 hazards of nesting, j -redators, bo'u'.ism and accidents, until they are developed enough to lake wing. Then they must run the gauntlet of 1 million hunters scattered across the lines of flight like a defending army, all the way from Maine to Washington and! Morlda to California. Sanctu-ries spotted strategically ilone the fwEnt piths are highly , Important. They are an advantage to the huners and the birds at the same time. The feed provided ls necessary to the very existence of 'he ducks, while the attraction of something to e"at and a place to rest In Fa'ety holds the flocks In the vicinity of the shooting In ad-' 'acent fields and marshes. j Refuges are only a part but a very necessary part of the balanced balanc-ed management plan that will keep ducks ancT geese and shoreblrds forever for-ever on the wing. |