Reports of Field Agents 413 



What has been gained by the drying up of Lower Klamath Lake? The idea 

 of the Reclamation Service was to bring irrigation water from some other place 

 and use the land for agriculture. Examination of the soil shows that it is so 

 filled with alkali that little or nothing can be grown, even with a great amount 

 of irrigation. 



Formerly, Lower Klamath Lake subirrigated a part of the surrounding 

 country, producing a large amount of wild hay land. These sections have now 

 reverted to a desert. The great bird colonies were of inestimably more value 

 to the Pacific Coast and to the whole country than the wide alkali flats. Every 

 person and every organization in the country should protest to Franklin K. 

 Lane, Secretary of the Interior, to open up the dykes and restore Lower Klamath 

 Lake. If this could be done the fires now burning in the tule marsh could be 

 extinguished. The bird multitudes would likely return next spring to their 



YOUNG EGRET IN COLONY NEAR MALHEUR LAKE RESERVATION, ORE. 

 Photographed by William L. Finley 



ancestral homes. II this is not done, Klamath Lake Reservation is gone forever. 



The protection of our wild birds is not only a National, but an international 

 question, in which we are bound by treaty with Canada. The real factor in 

 conserving wild fowl is saving their breeding-places from destruction. Here is 

 the destruction of wild fowl on an enormous scale by a department of the Federal 

 Government. The public, as a whole, has a right to know whether the destruc- 

 tion of this federal wild-bird reservation, which is a great natural asset to the 

 country, can ever be recompensed for by the effort to cultivate the alkali 

 flats of what was once Lower Klamath Lake. 



The case of Malheur Lake Reservation is somewhat the same as Lower 

 Klamath, except that this is not a project of the Reclamation Service. Malheur 

 Lake Reservation is in the lowest part of Harney Valley. The diversion of the 



