S.WIXCx THE DL'CKS AXD GEESE 



375 



helievable stories are told of the thou- 

 sands of mallards sent to market by single 

 gimners. 



wiikre; the greatest slaughter takes 



PLACE 



There remains for consideration the 

 coast of Louisiana, which at present is 

 the leading factor working for the ex- 

 termination of those species that have a 

 high market value. The whole coast 

 from the mouth of the Mississippi to the 

 Texas border abounds with lakes and 

 marshes and offers most alluring winter 

 attractions for ducks. 



Here congregate thousands and tens 

 of thousands of mallards, accompanied 

 by teal, widgeon, shovelers, and red- 

 heads, with a large number of geese of 

 several species. The best feeding is in 

 a comparatively narrow strip along the 

 coast, and this region fairly swarms with 

 waterfowl. 



Here are collected on a few hundred 

 square miles the ducks that during the 

 breeding season have been scattered over 

 many hundred thousands of square miles. 

 They begin to arrive early in the fall, 

 remain until late in the spring, and 

 throughout this whole long season they 

 are the easy prey of the market hunter, 

 for the State game law allows duck shoot- 

 ing during the entire winter. 



It is extremely difficult to make the 

 inhabitants of southern Louisiana grasp 

 the idea that such conditions are excep- 

 tional, or that there is any possibility that 

 their winter sport can endanger the game 

 supply of a continent. Yet a careful 

 census in 1910-1911 of the ducks killed 

 in Louisiana during that one winter 

 totaled so many hundreds of thousands 

 as to be almost unbelievable. 



Is it any wonder that spring after 

 spring the hunters in the upper Missis- 

 sippi Valley report the migrating flocks 

 as becoming smaller and smaller? 



So loth are ducks and geese to relin- 

 quish their choice feeding places that they 

 return there day after day in spite of 

 incessant shooting, and it is estimated by 

 good authority that at every shooting 

 ground frequented by market hunters, 

 both on the North Carolina coast and in 

 southern Louisiana, at least 50 per cent 



of all the ducks that winter there are 

 killed before the remnant depart in the 

 spring. 



Xo class of birds can stand such 

 slaughter, especially when there is added 

 to this 50 per cent all those .shot during 

 the spring and fall migrations. 



r.IRl) KKSKRVATIONS WILL SAVE THE 

 WATERFOWL 



The immediate end to be sought is the 

 stopping at once of any further inroads 

 on the already badly depleted ranks of 

 the ducks and geese. To effect this, reg- 

 ulations should be made which will 

 • shorten' the open season and eliminate 

 the m^^rket hunter. . Later the task will 

 be to restore the old-time abundance of 

 waterf6\vl, at least as far as is consistent 

 with the development of agriculture. 



Fortunately this work can be turned 

 over to the ducks and geese themselves. 

 They have high reproductive powers in 

 natural, undisturbed surroundings, and 

 take kindly to any good oft'ers of safe 

 nurseries for ducklings. Hence has arisen 

 the idea and ])ractice of setting aside 

 certain parts of the national domain as 

 bird refuges or bird reservations. 



The first of these — Pelican Island, 

 Florida — was established by the execu- 

 tive order of President Roosevelt. March 

 14, 1903, and in the nine years to Feb- 

 ruary 21, 1912. 56 such reservations had 

 been segregated (see map. page 369). 

 They are scattered over the possessions 

 of the United States, from .\laska to 

 Porto Rico and from Florida to Cali- 

 fornia and Hawaii. They vary in size 

 from Hog Island, Wisconsin, which con- 

 tains only two acres — the home of a large 

 colony of gulls — to the Hawaiian Island 

 reservation, which extends over more 

 than five degrees of longitude and in- 

 cludes the breeding grounds of more than 

 a million sea birds. 



Some reservations — Breton Island, 

 Louisiana, for instance — serve for the 

 winter protection of waterfowl : others, 

 as the two in Xorth Dakota, are in the 

 center of the best duck-breeding grounds 

 still left in the United States. The Yu- 

 kon Delta reservation includes the largest 

 breeding colonies of ducks and gee.se in 

 Alaska, and with its several hundred 



