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crop that he can plant in any given year, by the end of his season, his overall crop yield 

 will have increased. The same holds true for wetlands. Like water supplies results in 

 increased habitat acreage which results in increased bird use and increased wetland food 

 production. Although these improvements will eventually lead to increased Pacific 

 Flyway waterfowl populations, with only 3 years of implementation under our belt, our 

 discussion of habitat improvements has nothing to do with overall populations, but rather, 

 the fact that the existing population has access to much better and more suitable habitat 

 and increased food supplies, which results in the birds returning to the breeding grounds 

 in much better condition. Although, increased Pacific Flyway waterfowl numbers cannot, 

 at the moment, be attributed to CVPIA water supplies; the use of reestablished natural 

 habitat by Pacific Flyway waterfowl has increased sharply. This is largely due to 

 waterfowls' preference for natural habitat with high food values instead of poor quality 

 habitat substitutes, such as sewage treatment facilities and agriculture evaporation ponds 

 that migratory birds have increasingly been forced to use as natural habitats have declined 

 in significance. 



Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I do not know how many of 

 you are duck hunters. We are an unusual breed. We love to wake up at 4 am, get dressed 

 in the dark, drive for an hour or two, and sit in the wet and the cold for five hours at a 

 stretch. Probably, the majority of Americans would even think that your job as a 

 Congressman is better than what we love to do. Most of us can only do it eight or ten 

 times a year in the late fall and early winter, but we spend the rest of the year talking to 

 each other about the next season and telling stories about the last season. Although we 

 hunt for only a few days a year, our privately owned lands provide year round habitat for 

 hundreds of other species of wildlife, and we invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in 

 the management of this habitat. 



Frankly, Mr. Chairman, in recent years, it has been getting harder and harder for 

 us to hunt. Less water meant fewer ducks. With fewer ducks, bag limits have to be 

 reduced. When bag limits are reduced fewer people are interested in hunting. This is a 

 disturbing trend. Duck hunters are the original conservationists. We have imposed 

 "taxes" upon ourselves in the form of surcharges on sporting equipment through the 

 Pittman Robertson Act, and through state and federal duck stamp legislation - all of 

 which generate critical funding for wetland restoration. As interest in duck hunting is 

 reduced, so are these wetland funding streams. 



The Central Valley Project Improvement Act has been a significant and 

 substantial benefit to waterfowl and to sporting interests in the State of California. We do 

 not want to see the refuge provisions of the Act weakened, because we know they work. 

 We have approached H.R. 1906 with what we believe is a narrow but critical set of 

 principles which we have applied to the refuge and waterfowl provisions of the bill: 



