
INTRODUCTION 
Cc. S. Williams 
One of the outstanding events in the wildlife field in recent years has been the 
collaboration of waterfowl workers to get facts about waterfowl breeding populations 
and the pooling of those facts to the benefit of hunting regulations. This cooperative 
effort has grown fYom an increasing recognition by the men and their respective 
agencies that the results of local investigations of migratory waterfowl and their 
habitats (1) normally cannot be projected to apply to other parts of the breeding range, 
and (2) attain their greatest management value when they are considered in the light 
of similar information from other areas and become a part of a broad picture of 
conditions. 
The summer of 1947 saw the first widespread attempt to get cooperative 
waterfowl breeding ground investigations under way. Flyway Biologists of the United 
States and Canadian Wildlife Officers that year undertook aerial and ground surveys of 
the important breeding grounds in southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The 
flyway men also sampled portions of the Dakotas and Minnesota. In addition, the results 
of individual investigations were received from some National Wildlife Refuges, the 
Maine Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, and the Wildlife Management Institute's 
wildlife station in New Brunswick. , 
That was a start, but the coverage, important as it was, actually involved only 
a small part of the breeding range. Since 1947, however, the cooperative breeding 
ground investigations have come a long way, achieving results which could not have 
been obtained by any other means. 
In contrast to 1947, the 1950 waterfowl breeding season saw workers getting 
management facts in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, the James and Hudson Bay 
areas, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, 
Maritime Provinces, Newfoundland, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, 
Utah, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, 
Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and 
Maryland. 
In 1950, the Fish and Wildlife Service had 6 aircraft and 15 men assigned to 
work in Canada with personnel of the Provincial Game Branches and the Canadian 
Wildlife Service. In the 28 States from which breeding ground information was 
received, most of the studies were conducted by State technicians operating under 
Federal Aid or Cooperative Wildlife Research Units. Not to be overlooked, however, 
were the contributions of individual cooperators in Ohio and the northeastern States. 
Broadly stated, the idea behind cooperative breeding ground surveys is to 
supply the regulation committees of Canada and the United States with information of 
a type which would best assure hunting regulations that conformed to the relative 
abundance of ducks and geese in the several major flyways. This involves getting 
appraisals of breeding population and production trends by the time the regulatory 
bodies meet. 
In the United States, regulation meetings this year were delayed approximately 
‘one month or until early August. This permitted a better appraisal of conditions on 
the various breeding areas and thus provided more accurate information on which to 
