CONSERVATION OF WATERFOWL 61 



sonal example and by education among those of his acquaintance who 

 for any reason are careless about crippling or leaving wounded birds. 



There is still a third contribution all sportsmen can make toward 

 the maintenance of wildfowling, and that is obeying the shooting regula- 

 tions themselves and insisting that others do so. It has been a heartening 

 thing in my present work to observe the increasing number of sportsmen 

 who are willing to give to constituted authorities information on viola- 

 tions of the regulations. 



A growing body of sportsmen no longer consider it smart to violate 

 the game laws. More and more gunners are coming to realize that game 

 laws and game regulations are made for only one purpose the per- 

 petuation of their sport, and that the game warden and the authorities 

 who make the regulations are working for the interest of the sportsmen. 

 They are trying to make sure that there will be something to be harvested 

 in future seasons. If the sportsmen of the country will fully cooperate, 

 it will be possible to have greater populations of migratory waterfowl 

 as well as other types of game. We have set as our present goal the 

 doubling of the existing population. We believe that there are at least 

 twice as many migratory waterfowl of all kinds on the North American 

 continent as there were at the low point in 1934. We believe that there 

 is room for at least twice as many as we now have. Having that capacity 

 to care for the birds, it seems only common sense to try to build up our 

 breeding stock to the maximum. When that has been accomplished we 

 can hope to have a somewhat more abundant crop to harvest but w r e can 

 never, without disastrous effects, go back to the good old careless days 

 when we shot with no thought of the future. 



