“ While this year's harvest is our 
fifth crop of rice I have never been 
able to discover any material damage 
that the ducks have done. In my 
opinion the rice which the ducks eat 
is that which has already been knocked 
out of the head by the blackbirds.” 
(T. W. K. Brown, Mgr. Moulton 
Irrigated Lands Co.) 
Apparently, blackbirds are more of 
a menace on the east side near Gridlev 
Bt 
and Biggs than are the ducks. Cer- 
tain it is, that hundreds of rice grow- 
ers have never had rice injured by 
ducks. 
Growers in the vicinity of Willows 
« 
and Maxwell and W. H. Mortimer 
with holdings at Dos Palos, Merced 
County, have sustained real loss as a 
result of the depredations of ducks. 
DUCKS EAT RICE 
Plenty of evidence was obtainable 
that ducks eat both the ripe growing 
rice and the harvested rice when it is 
in the shock. Green rice is not damaged. 
Certain conditions usually exist when 
the growing rice is attacked. A patch 
of open water or thin rice in the 
rice fields and a moonlight night is 
the usual combination. Damage is 
most apparent also beneath a regular 
fly-line followed by ducks leaving the 
loafing grounds for feeding grounds. 
A few birds drop into open water 
in a rice field or into thin rice and 
start feeding. They are soon joined 
by many others until thousands of 
birds are often congregated together 
in an area of two or three acres. 
Wherever the water is deep enough, 
the birds pull down the stalks and 
strip the ripened kernels from the 
head. When thus working, the splash- 
ing and gabbling of the birds makes 
a sound very much like running water. 
i' 
Afterwards the field has a whitened 
appearance easily recognized. Quan- 
tities of thick standing rice is often 
crushed down by the hungry birds 
encroaching from the thinner stand. 
An investigation of the place of Mr. 
Bismarck Harden near Maxwell, 
showed the following damage: 
20 acres at 10 sacks 
3 acres at 20 sacks 
15 acres at 12 sacks 
2 acres at 12 sacks 
40 acres at 1 0 sacks 
10 acres at 10 sacks 
4 acres at 25 sacks 
04 acres averaging 14 sacks per acre. 
Inspection of Haakim Kalin's place 
just west showed: 
3 acres at 20 sacks 
60 acres at 12 sacks 
On the Fallamon ranch near Grid- 
ley about thirty acres of thin rice 
along the sloughs had been destroyed 
by ducks up to the end of September 
in 1918. 
It is doubtful if any other rice 
growers suffered greater damage than 
these men in 1918. What the real 
damage was in 1917 is hard to de- 
termine because of exaggerated state- 
ments. Much rice reported as dam- 
aged by ducks would not have been 
harvested had the ducks not injured 
it owing to high water or other diffi- 
culties in harvesting. 
I’///. 4. A splendid stand of rice in- 
jured by trampling. The duel's began 
working in this rice , and then en- 
croached: on a thick stand causing 
considerable damage . Ranch of Bis- 
marck Harden , near Maxwell , Colusa 
County , Cal. 
Damage to rice in the shock is 
sometimes severe, the birds dropping 
into a field knocking down the shocks 
and stripping off the kernels. On 
moonlight nights damage is greatest. 
Gleaning in the fields cannot be con- 
sidered as an injury to the rice 
grower. The total damage by ducks 
to growing rice in 1918 in the Sac- 
ramento Valley could not have ex- 
ceeded 30 acres. A large part of this 
was thin rice hardly worth harvesting. 
One hundred and forty-five thousand 
acres were planted to rice in this 
section in 1918. 
KINDS OF DUCKS 
The pintail is the duck caus- 
ing most damage. Very few other 
species of ducks are to be 
seen in the rice fields and damage bv 
such ducks as the mallard and green- 
winged teal is negligible. The mud- 
hen, however, is to be found in con- 
siderable numbers and owing to its 
habits may prove to be a worse men- 
ace to rice crops than the pintail. 
The mudhen cannot he herded from 
the fields like a duck. Instead of 
flying it hides in the growing rice. 
Red-winged blackbirds are fond of 
rice in the milk and destroy large 
quantities on the east side where a 
growth of tides furnish suitable rest- 
ing sites and cover. In the newer 
lice fields of the west side blackbirds 
are not numerous. 
FACTS BEARING ON THE 
PROBLEM 
The presence of ideal loafing 
grounds in the vicinity of the Marys- 
ville Buttes causes a concentration of 
a very large number of ducks in the 
rice-growing district. On the west 
side thousands of ducks loaf on what 
is locally termed “the trough” just 
cast of Colusa. These birds usually 
fly to t he westward to feed at night. 
Thus, rice fields lying beneath the 
fly-line naturally form an attraction 
for these birds. 
Rice farming is carried on in an 
extensive scale and one man often 
plants several hundred acres. hauler 
these circumstances either the damage 
done is largely overlooked, or the 
owner has to suffer considerable dam- 
age because unable to protect so large 
an area. 
IM PRACTICAL METHODS OF 
CONTROL 
Among the suggested means of con- 
trolling the situation have been an 
earlier open season, market hunting 
and sale of birds, and indiscriminate 
hunting by outsiders. 
Fairness to others outside of the 
rice growing district as well as the 
need of conforming to the Federal 
Migratory Bird Law brands an earlier 
opening of the season as an imprac- 
tical method of solving the problem. 
The throwing open of hunting to 
market men would not only be op- 
posed by most of the growers, but 
would be adverse to the general prin- 
ciple that the sale of game leads 
quickly to extermination. Further- 
more, the enforcement of the game 
laws in this district would become 
difficult because the market hunter is 
known as the worst of the game law 
violators. 
Fig . 5. Night bombing in the rice 
fields. The photograph shows the ex- 
plosion of a bomb in mid-air. Ranch 
of Bismarck Harden , near Maxwell, 
Colusa County, Cal. 
