60 CONSERVATION OF WATERFOWL 



found by sad experience that much of the game they give away is wasted. 

 Many on whom they bestow these gifts will not take the trouble to dress 

 and prepare the game, and it eventually finds its way into the garbage. 



We need to devote some time and thought to making our sport more 

 difficult and in realizing the greatest recreational value from each bird 

 taken. After we kill a duck we cannot return it to its native environment 

 as we can a trout after we have had the thrill of playing, but I believe 

 that we can develop something similar. I know many hunters who have 

 directed their waterfowling somewhat along the lines of grouse hunting. 

 They use no blinds; they jump shoot entirely; and match their skill 

 against the waterfowl. These men get few birds but an enormous satis- 

 faction out of those they do collect. I am not recommending this as a 

 procedure for everyone to follow but I am suggesting it as a type of 

 thing we duck hunters should think about. 



With the increasing number of hunters and the limitations on the 

 possible crop imposed by the available environment, there are not now 

 and probably never will be enough migratory waterfowl to furnish the 

 kind of shooting that was available to earlier generations. W T e now have 

 better guns, faster transportation, and a greater average range for the 

 hunter. All of these factors work against the waterfowl. The total 

 area for them to live in is much smaller than it was and there is a con- 

 sequent greater crowding of the birds. Formerly only a relatively small 

 number of people took the time and trouble necessary to get to the 

 ducking grounds with the means of travel then available. Modern trans- 

 portation has changed the situation and there are thousands of gunners 

 who now go long distances to hunt where there were only dozens a few 

 years ago. This puts an additional drain on the migratory waterfowl 

 and stacks the odds against them. 



One of the ways by which you and I as individual duck hunters 

 can help most in this program is to visualize these problems and try to 

 adjust our standards of sportsmanship to meet the conditions. 



A second important contribution that every duck hunter can make 

 toward maintaining our stock of migratory waterfowl is to exert every 

 effort to retrieve cripples. It is a poor sportsman who lets a cripple go 

 with little or no attempt to retrieve it in order to shoot yet another bird. 

 At best crippling losses are heavy in hunting any kind of game with the 

 gun, but allowing preventable crippling losses is sheer waste of the re- 

 source on which we depend for our sport. 



It is better yet to avoid making cripples by knowing the range of 

 the gun and by refraining from making long shots in the hope of luckily 

 bagging an occasional bird. A distant fowl lightly hit, later dying of the 

 wound, is a total loss. Such checks as have been made indicate that 

 careful hunters who know their guns and use them intelligently lose 

 less than one in ten birds knocked down. The careless or incompetent 

 gunner may lose as many as one out of two. Here is a chance for each 

 duck hunter to help conserve our waterfowl population, both by per- 



