As development— draining wetlands, mining, 

 large-scale land use changes, for example— eats away 

 at natural habitats, private as well as public refuges 

 become increasingly important. But the refuges can 

 have their problems, too. David Lee of the state's 

 Museum of Natural History notes that disease can be 

 a threat to waterfowl which are concentrated on the 

 refuges, but he adds that, unlike the Midwest, North 

 Carolina has not yet had serious problems. 



"If we had it to do over again, we'd try to do it a dif- 

 ferent way," says Donnelly. In effect, the refuges 

 have been too successful and gregarious birds will not 

 disperse. "We've put too many birds in small areas," 

 Donnelly concludes. 



Another issue is whether it is unfair to bunch birds 

 up in refuges so hunters know where to find them. 

 Opinions differ on how well the birds handle the 

 threat of hunters near refuges. Lee says that the 

 birds learn to fly high over the borders and spiral 

 down once they are in safe territory. 



Of course, clustering birds also affects hunters. 

 Since the birds are no longer spread over such wide 

 areas of natural habitat, hunters have smaller areas 

 in which to shoot. William E. Hollan, past state 

 chairman of DU, says that with increasing numbers 

 of hunters and decreasing hunting area, waterfowl 

 hunting isn't as easy as it used to be. 



The bad guys' 



While Lee says management seems to be working 

 for the most part, he says the "bad guys" of 

 hunting— the unsportsman-like hunters— "shoot 

 everything that flies." Because of violations, he says, 

 the real kill is "many fold more than what's report- 

 ed." A North Carolina hunting guide says the most 

 common violations are shooting over bait or after 

 hours, exceeding the limit and shooting species on 

 which the season is closed. 



Enforcement is carried out by both federal and 

 state officials. The problem is that so many of the 

 violations are almost impossible to detect unless an 



officer is staked out in the marsh watching individual 

 hunters. With fewer than 100 state and federal en- 

 forcement agents in North Carolina's coastal area 

 such monitoring would be difficult since there were 

 about 26,000 duck hunters in the state last year. 



Though 425 waterfowl violations were prosecuted 

 last year, Donald E. Curtis, chief of enforcement for 

 the Wildlife Resources Commission, acknowledges 

 that not everyone is caught. But he says that given 

 the personnel at hand enforcement is good. 



Conservation 



Hollan says there is growing sentiment for conser- 

 vation. For example, he says sentiment at last year's 

 Wildlife Resources Commission public hearings on 

 hunting restrictions was decidedly in favor of return- 

 ing to stricter bag limits rather than continuing the 

 more generous point system. Under the point system, 

 individual species are assigned a point value and 

 limits are based on total points rather than total 

 number killed. 



Though he says it's too late for some states farther 

 north to do much to replace habitat, Otto Florschutz, 

 state waterfowl biologist for the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, says North Carolina can still defend and im- 

 prove waterfowl habitat. Furthermore, he says the 

 courts are more consistently backing up enforcement. 

 So, despite waterfowl population fluctuations, he 

 thinks waterfowl hunting will continue to be enjoyed 

 in North Carolina "with a little bit of far-sighted- 

 ness." 



The University of North Carolina Sea Grant College 

 Newsletter is published monthly except July and 

 December by the University of North Carolina Sea 

 Grant College Program, 105 1911 Building, North 

 Carolina State University, Raleigh N.C. 27650, Vol. 5, 

 No. 9, October, 1978. Dr. B. J. Copeland, director. Writ- 

 ten and edited by Karen Jurgensen, Mary Day Mordecai 

 and Virginia Worthington. Second-class postage paid at 

 Raleigh, N.C. 27611. 



University of North Carolina 

 Sea Grant College Program 

 105 1911 Building 

 North Carolina State University 

 Raleigh, N.C. 27650 



Second-class postage paid at Raleigh 

 N.C. 27611 



