Intelligent shooting with a rifle in infected areas is one of the few remedial 
measures at man's command, hut promiscuous shooting by hunters whose main ob- 
jective .is to kill "birds is quite a different thing. 
i / VJ - • ' ; s 1 
To those true sportsmen who have viewed the real tragedy of botulism 
among wild fowl or have experienced the regret that comes from close contact 
with an outbreak 'of devastating proportions, the reaction is quite different. 
In compliment let it be said that there are those whom the sickening sight of 
botulism has induced to lay aside the gun. At times of such crises, often 
sudden and unavoidable, the toll of even one added gun is worth saving. 
In the summer of 1910 a mysterious malady, demonstrated in later years 
to be botulism (l)f±/, took a disastrous toll from waterfowl dwelling in marsh 
areas adjacent to Great Salt Lake , Utah. That calamity first attracted na- 
tional attention to a disease that is today considered one of the most de- 
structive natural checks on migratory waterfowl and shore birds dwelling in or 
migrating through the States west of the 100th meridian. Still fresh in the 
minds of men who hunted for the market in those days are the impressions of 
that epizootic. There are stories of how one could walk for miles along the 
shore of Willard Spur and Bear River Bay at the northern end of Great Salt Lake 
stepping from one dead body to another, and when wind and waves had drifted 
them ashore, dense windrows of carcasses marked the edge. As the season ad- 
vanced the accumulating bodies created a veritable wildlife shambles, and the 
resultant decay made it almost impossible to inspect some areas. No one wit- 
nessing the devastation that year felt the need or desire of counting the dead. 
"Millions" seemed so fitting an estimate that the extent of mortality usually 
was considered cn that basis. 
It was not until later years, when attempts were made to improve sani- 
tary conditions by gathering and disposing of the bodies, that actual counts 
were made of the dead. In each of two successive years (1912 and IS 13) more 
than 40,000 birds were ricked up in a month at the mouth of Bear River, Utah 
(5). In 1914, 8,000 to 10.000 dead ducks were found on a 2-mile stretch along 
one of the lower channels of the Weber River, and in 1S32 a conservative esti- 
mate placed the season's mortality at the northern end of Great Salt Lake at 
more than a quarter of a million birds. Interpreted, this is equivalent to 
the present 1-day bag for each member of an army of more than 25,000 huntersl 
Although the marshlands bordering Great Salt Lake have been the scene 
of more extensive outbreaks of botulism among wild fowl than any other area 
of equal size, the disease has been reported from the Prairie Provinces of 
Canada to New Mexico, Arizona, and the Imperial Valley in California; and from 
southwestern Minnesota., western Nebraska, and the Panhandle of Texas to the 
west coast. TTnat appears to have been the same malady has also been reported 
from Mexico, Uruguay, and Australia (JL, pp. 31, 32; and 2). 
2/ Numbers in parentheses refer to the Literature Cited on page 8. 
