slope steeper than that of the dam 

 wherever soil conditions will per- 

 mit, and root stock of durable food 

 plants should be used to provide a 

 dense vegetation covering. The 

 watershed or flow into the pond, as 

 well as the size of the spillway, 

 should be adjusted so that the water 

 level remains fairly constant, with a 

 rise of not more than 6 or 8 inches. 



Stocking Depleted Areas 



Some part of practically every 

 section of the United States is 

 adapted to the raising of muskrats. 

 There are many extensive areas on 

 which few or no muskrats occur, 

 owing in most cases to outbreaks 

 of disease, destructive floods, high 

 tides, overtrapping, or prolonged 

 droughts at some previous time. 

 Many of these areas have the neces- 

 sary food and water and, if stocked 

 with muskrats and carefully man- 

 aged, could be made to pay the 

 owner good dividends. 



Muskrats should be stocked only 

 after careful study. The wide vari- 

 ation between the several races re- 

 quires serious thought on the many 

 angles involved : differences in size, 



S>r and pelt quality, litter size, 

 reductive capacity, adaptability, 

 and temperament. The possible in- 

 troduction of parasites and diseases 

 must also be considered. 



Many commercial shipments of 

 muskrats for stocking purposes 

 have been made in past years to 

 various parts of the United States 

 and Canada, as well as to points in 

 the Old World. Some have been 

 desirable and successful, others 

 have had poor or questionable re- 

 sults. One firm in Maryland sold 



some 50,000 wild muskrats for re- 

 stocking purposes between 1915 and 

 1944. Undoubtedly, the size of 

 some of those shipments greatly re- 

 duced local muskrat populations. 



The introduction of 22 pairs of 

 muskrats {Ondatra z. zibethicus) 

 from Michigan to the Tule Lake 

 (Calif.) area in 1930 and their 

 rapid increase in less than a decade 

 (31,252 were trapped in the 1939-40 

 season on the Tule Lake National 

 Wildlife Refuge) is an outstanding 

 example of the effectiveness of re- 

 stocking when combined with good 

 management. About 700 pairs of 

 muskrats involving both the brown 

 and the black-and-tan color phases 

 were placed on a 1,500-acre marsh 

 near Moyock, N. C, in 1936; more 

 than $5,000 worth of pelts were 

 trapped off the area 3 years later. 

 The muskrats came from near 

 Church Creek, Md., and were of the 

 same race, Ondatra z. macrodon^ as 

 those that had formerly occupied 

 the North Carolina marsh. The 

 financial returns would probably 

 have been even greater had only the 

 black-and-tan color phase been re- 

 leased, as the "Maryland black" 

 normally commands a better price 

 than the brown. 



LIVE-TRAPPING MUSKRATS 



Numerous attempts to obtain 

 muskrats for stocking purposes di- 

 rectly from trappers during the 

 open season have had disappoint- 

 ing results. Animals caught in 

 steel traps usually tear loose and 

 injure a leg or the shoulder muscles 

 so severely in struggling to escape 

 that they finally die. Skinning re- 



36 



