24 MONTANA STATK FISH AND GAME COMMISSION 



ENABLING LEGISLATION NEEDED 

 FOR MONTANA 



By IRA N. GABRIELSON 



Chief of U. S. Bureau of Biolog^ical Survey 

 Washington, D. C. 



(Note: No more poignant or significant message to Montana sportsmen 

 could have been received than that from Mr. Gabrielson titled, "An Open 

 Letter To the Sportsmen and Conservationists of Montana," which was volun- 

 teered in order to present an exact picture of the restoration battle now being 

 waged by the Bureau, with the co-operation of states and their sportsmen, 

 in behalf of migratory waterfowl.) 



"I wish to thank you first of all for your splendid cooperation in connec- 

 tion with this year's migratory bird regulations. Sportsmen have generally 

 accepted the situation with good grace, and the cooperation in Montana and 

 throughout the States was excellent. 



"The shooting regulations for 1936 were drafted out of exigencies that 

 have to be met if the sport of wildfowiing is to be perpetuated, or, in fact, 

 if the birds themselves are to be preserved. We ask the public to realize 

 that the condition of the birds and their relative abundance or scarcity is the 

 factor which determines whether open seasons may be short or extended and 

 whether bag limits may be small or large. This consideration must take prec- 

 edence over the v/ishes of the individual sportsman who does not always 

 comprehend the extent of the decrease and may ask for more shooting than 

 the resources can stand. 



"Thanks to the support which the sportsmen have given in bringing about 

 a reduction of the total kill of birds, we have a real gain in the restoration 

 battle. But reduced bag limits and seasons are not enough if we are going 

 to perpetuate the recreation. Regulations, no matter how well respected and 

 enforced, will not, in themselves, bring back the numbers of ducks and geese 

 and swan in sufficient abundance to provide a margin of safety against the 

 several factors which, in recent years, have threatened many species with 

 extinction. 



"I submit to you — the conservationists and sportsmen of Montana — that 

 the only sure-fire way by which the much desired restoration can be accom- 

 plished is by setting aside and properly developing adequate refuges on the 

 flyways, the wintering grounds, and within the hereditary breeding ranges of 

 the birds which migrate to the northlands each spring. Small scale, incubator 

 methods will not do it. In addition to sensible shooting regulations, suitable 

 protected breeding grounds are needed in which waterfowl may, in complete 

 safety, exercise the tremendous reproductive capacity with which nature has 

 endowed them. 



"We already have a good start on the job. Your waterfowl restoration 

 program is today a reality — not merely a . bundle of abstruse theories but an 



