CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 363 



February 14, 1934. Binarsen wrote that this survey was quite suc- 

 cessful although he imagined that certain districts which were missed 

 would have swelled the total count, but that roughly there was an 

 abundance of brant on that date and they were still particularly numer- 

 ous in the Straits of Juan de Fuca near Dungeness. Due to the fact 

 that Einarsen severed his connection with the Department the day 

 following the census taking, no detailed and itemized report was pre- 

 pared, but in his letter to me dated July 17, 1934, he wrote that there 

 was considerable enlightenment in this survey for certain districts 

 which had been considered as highly favored by brant produced very 

 small numbers. This can be accounted for by the fact that the shoot- 

 ing season had closed and it was not necessary for them to be isolated 

 into the&e districts but they could migrate into areas that during the 

 open season would have been disastrous for them to occupy. The result 

 of this census provided a total of approximately 30,000 birds for the 

 State of Washington for that day, which it is interesting to compare 

 with the grand totals for Oregon and California, respectively 3000 

 approximately and 29,986. It seems strange that the numbers for the 

 State of Washington approximately equal our count for California for 

 the former state is so favored with inlets and bays supporting growths 

 of eel grass that seem to afford ideal feeding places for this species 

 that I should think its waters could support far larger numbers than 

 can our few suitable California bays. 



1 regret very much that pressure of other work preceding the 1934 

 brant census taking time prevented my contacting the British Columbia 

 Game Department and friends residing along the coast of that Province 

 relative to cooperating with our work to the extent of counting the 

 brant in their respective localities on the dates designated. I did 

 address Kenneth Kacey, West Vancouver, British Columbia, in this 

 regard and he was so kind as to take a census of the brant in this 

 vicinity on February 10 and 11. On the first day, Mr. Eacey 

 visited Sea and Lulu islands where no brant were noted although a 

 small flock had been reported there in November. The next day he 

 noted a flock of from 50 to 60 birds in the Sound about a mile northwest 

 of Crescent Beach. Stewart Loutit, an experienced hunter and a relia- 

 ble observer, at Mr. Racey's request, kindly made observations on the 

 brant present near Point Roberts on February 11, 1934, where he 

 noted but 150 birds lying in flocks of from 30 to 40 each about a half 

 mile off shore. Mr. Loutit stated that there had been about 1500 brant 

 in this locality at the beginning of the hunting season and that most 

 of these birds moved down towards Birch Bay on the American side of 

 the international boundary and that only between four and five hundred 

 individuals wintered about Point Roberts, Boundary and Mud bays. 

 Racey wrote that there has been a great reduction in the number of 

 brant in this locality during the past two years which he attributes 

 principally to damage to their principal food, eel grass, by excessively 

 high tides and the silting in of channels. 



CONCLUSION 



In conclusion I wish especially to acknowledge with sincere appre- 

 ciation the assistance of those who cooperated with the 1934 census 

 taking and without whose help this work would have been impossible. 



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