BROKEN TRADITIONS 



been able to put across during the past quarter-century. We who wish to 

 keep these breeding grounds must act with the same conviction, with the 

 same intelligent planning, as the drainage agents. For the wildfowler drain 

 age is more than a matter of good or evil, drought or flood, feast or famine : 

 drainage is the process by which succeeding generations, however rich in 

 wheat and barley, must lose their heritage of Canvasback, Gadwall, or Red- 

 head. 



Man, of course, is not by any means the only force changing the face of 

 the world. In the regular cyclic rise and fall of waters by which the levels of 

 Lake Manitoba and the Delta Marsh vary, there are important changes in the 

 marsh pattern, influencing waterfowl activity. In the most recent rise the 

 water of the Lake Manitoba basin has reached record-breaking elevations. 

 As a result the shallows at Archie's Point where the Whistling Swans fed 

 through so many Aprils have flooded so deeply that the swans can no longer 

 reach the bottom with their long necks, and they come there no more. Berg- 

 man (1951) tells how a traditional spring resting place of the Old Squaw 

 was changed because of a variation in ice conditions. Either flood or drought 

 may bring to a close nesting traditions of many generations. 



Besides the loss of breeding range, waterfowl have suffered from the 

 same kind of heavy gun pressure and market interests as shore birds. In 

 Ohio, Trautman (1940:47) described the techniques of market hunters who 

 combed "the swampy fields with dogs in order to capture the larger duck- 

 lings and adults in flapper stage." Richard Harker, a market gunner from 

 Spirit Lake, Iowa, recalls that "the law on ducks was out about the 15th 

 of August and we shot from then until freeze-up. ... It seemed that when 

 we were market hunting, every year ducks were just a little harder to get" 

 (Musgrove, 1949:198). 



The killing of local stock seemed unimportant in view of the vast num- 

 bers during migration. Even so great a conservationist as Theodore Roose- 

 velt (1927:41) wrote that flightless young ducks were "as tender and deli- 

 cious birds for the table as I know ... In these small ponds with little 

 cover round the edges the poor flappers are at a great disadvantage; we 

 never shoot them unless we really need them for the table. But quite often, 

 in August and September, if near the place, I have gone down to visit one 

 or two of these pools, and have brought home half a dozen flappers." The 

 tug of conscience was not strong enough to deter E. L. Brown, pioneer of 

 northern Minnesota, who wrote that he "flushed a duck from her nest, but 

 did not shoot her from a confused notion against shooting the females; 



253 



