28 



MONTANA STATE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION 



a large mortality among- wild fowl attributed to a like cause. There have been 

 other outbreaks of waterfowl sickness in Montana and other places throughout 

 the country where sufficient investigation has not been possible so as to definitely 

 fix the responsible agency. The surveys made, however, would indicate that the 

 disease appearing in Oregon was not identical with that in Utah and at Lake 

 Bowdoin. Again, the attack at Priest Lake, Teton county, Montana, was not 

 identical with that observed at Malheur Lake, Oregon. 



Whatever the cause, the so-called duck sickness is a serious matter and one 

 worthy of careful investigation to the end that some solution may be arrived at 

 successfully to combat a condition that is annually robbing us of thousands of 

 migratory birds. 



Some conception of the magnitude of this loss may be gained by a few note- 

 worthy examples. 



The writer has the statement from an authoritative source that in one of our 

 western waterfowl sections an accurate count was made of dead fowl in a given 

 area and these astounding figures arrived at: For a distance of 50 miles of shore 

 line there were 57 dead birds to each rod. If these figures are correct, and there 

 is no reason to believe otherwise, it would mean that each mile would contain 

 18,240 dead birds, and that in the 50 miles covered the total would reach close 



to 1,000,000 dead fowl. 



A rather serious situation was encoun- 

 tered at Priest Lake, Montana, the latter 

 part of March and the fore part of April, 

 1926, when a large number of greater snow 

 geese died from some, not definitely deter- 

 mined, cause. The period over which the 

 birds were affected was, fortunately, quite 

 short — apparently not more than ten days. 

 An investigation of conditions was made at 

 Priest Lake April 17 and 18 and at that 

 time hundreds of dead geese lined the shores 

 of this little body of water. There was 

 scarcely a yard of shore that did not con- 

 tain one or more of these beautiful birds, 

 and in places one could hardly step without 

 tramping on the bodies, so thickly were they 

 strewn. On one little sandbar, about .'50 

 feet long by eight feet in width, moi'e than 

 70 dead geese were discovei'ed. Priest Lake 

 covers about a section of land so that it was 

 possible to make quite accurate count of the 

 dead fowl. 



The tally was as follows: 

 Greater snow geese 1546, lesser snow 

 goose 1, Canada goose 1, golden-eye duck 1. 

 mallard duck 1,. baldpate widgeon 11, pintail 

 Section of .-tlnin line at Priest Lake, duck 9, a total of 1570 dead waterfowl. Un- 

 Tcton cniintii, strewn with^ hmlieft of doubtedly some birds were carried away and 



the qreater white i/oose. These hinis ,, , , j.- • „ ; , ,, 



,. ,■ , ,, , , , • , •, in jr others escaped observation in various ways 

 (lied l>y tlK hidnlreds in Aiinl, V.l.'U. ' . 



Uardea Mnshhaeh is shown at the so it is evident the total mortality was in 

 left. excess of these figures. 



