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Left: An attractive feeding area was produced by flooding a field of 

 grain sorghum 



Right: Migrant and wintering birds make heavy use of grain fields 

 planted for them on many of our wildlife refuges as part of the water- 

 fowl management program 



So, too, well-informed sportsmen support the regulation of 

 hunting flyway by flyway. Before the flyway concept was de- 

 veloped, waterfowl managers established hunting regulations on 

 a nationwide basis. This had the great disadvantage of forcing 

 hunting restrictions on all areas when they were actually needed 

 only in certain sections. Conversely, nationwide relaxations in 

 regulations permitted excessive harvest in some areas and of 

 some species that conditions did not warrant. Regulation of hunt- 

 ing by flyways not only benefits the ducks and geese, but it also 

 permits maximum hunting opportunity consistent with the local 

 waterfowl situation. 



Within a flyway, there is good reason to be concerned about 

 what happens in other parts of the flyway. On the other hand, ex- 

 cept for the common effort to make certain no abuse of the water- 

 fowl resource occurs, there is little reason for people in one 

 flyway to enter into management decisions elsewhere unless their 

 own waterfowl populations are also affected. 



How Waierfowl Councils Originated 



Once the flyway concept as a basis for hunting regulations 

 had been advanced by the Fish and Wildlife Service, it was not 

 long before the need for cooperative efforts in other fields of 

 waterfowl management and research began to receive greater at- 

 tention. Federal-State partnership in wildlife management re- 

 ceived its first real stimulus from the Pittman-Robertson Act of 

 1937, which created the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration pro- 

 gram. This Act established a close working arrangement between 

 Federal and State wildlife agencies. From such a fertile field of 

 common interest, cooperative efforts branched out rapidly, in- 

 cluding some work with waterfowl. 



5 



