364 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME 



I feel especially grateful to those who helped in outside states and 

 provinces, for this brant census began as a California project of my 

 conception and it is certainly not my intention to attempt to make it 

 an annual affair all along the Pacific Coast. Last winter I had hopes 

 of securing a rather accurate record of the total number of brant on 

 the Pacific Coast north of the Mexican boundary at census taking time. 

 That we were successful in this as far as the United States is con- 

 cerned, seems assured, and I feel that had I been able to make more 

 requests to Canadians for assistance, we should also have secured a 

 fairly complete census for British Columbia as well. 



I feel assured that a fifth annual brant census will be taken in 

 California in February, 1935, for the cooperators all seem to Ix' in 

 sympathy with continuing this work. The dates will probably be the 

 same as were originally selected, for even though February 10 to 

 12 now seems to be too early to secure maximum brant concentration 

 in California (two or three weeks later would be better for this pur- 

 pose) this factor, to me, is overweighed by the desirability of con- 

 tinuing our counts on the same dates, now that we have the records 

 for four seasons. 



I fully appreciate the importance and desirability of periodically, 

 say every five years, taking stock as it were of all our Pacific Coast 

 black brant by taking coincident censuses wherever the species is kiunvn 

 to occur. In this way we could very definitely ascertain the trend of 

 this species. However, it seems useless to consider such an undertaking 

 and to again burden our indulgent northern neighbors with the riMiuest 

 for another census until means are devised for counting the black brant 

 wintering in Lower California where large numbers are known to resort. 

 This problem presents real difficulties, for transportation by road is 

 almost Impossible along the central part of the peninsula where the 

 birds are known to winter in large aggregations. To attempt to take 

 the census by boat, would, I fear, be more expensive than the results 

 would justify, so sea-plane, if the birds could be counted from one, 

 appears to be the only practical solution. If it develops that it is 

 practical to so count brant, I shall try to organize a party to do so and 

 hereby solicit help from anyone interested in this enterprise. If this 

 could be arranged, I would then advocate that a very careful count be 

 also made at the same time all along the Pacific Coast to the northward 

 as far as brant are known to winter and the accumulated results should 

 provide a fair estimate of the total number of birds wintering on this 

 side of the Pacific. Such information might become invaluable in the 

 event, for instance, of an eel grass shortage on the Pacific Coast such 

 as the one which has recently so seriously reduced the numbers of 

 Atlantic brant. — August 27, 1934. 



