The harvest quota system was initiated in the Mississippi Flyway for 
the Mississippi Valley population of Canada geese in 1960. Because of the 
population decline as indicated in table 1, the Bureau, with consent of 
major States concerned, determined that the kill, excluding crippling loss, 
should not exceed 30,000 in 1960 in order to allow recovery. Since approxi- 
mately 90 percent of the total kill normally occurred in Illinois and 
Wisconsin, the States concerned, through the Mississippi Flyway Council, 
requested that quotas of 7,000 for Wisconsin and 14,000 for Illinois be 
established and that Bureau regulations provide for closure of goose hunt- 
ing in given counties in these States when the specified number of geese 
were taken. Thus it became imperative that accurate kill data be obtained 
for the major areas concerned. It was also essential that such data be 
collected on a weekly and finally a daily basis so that the cumlative kill 
and daily rate were known and the necessary closure action could be started 
prior to attaining the established maximum quota. The compulsory club 
license and daily reporting of goose kill in southern Illinois required 
only slight modification of procedures to meet existing needs. Procedures 
for obtaining current kill data in the vicinity of the Horicon National 
Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin are discussed in further detail. 
The intensity of kill surveys in the vicinity of major goose concentra- 
tion areas will depend upon local needs. The Illinois system and the Horicon 
plan are designed to give daily cumulative totals if necessary, where harvest 
quotas are established. In other areas, it may only be necessary to design 
@ sampling system that will give a measurement of total harvest after the 
end of the hunting season for annual reporting purposes. Depending upon 
hunting pressure, distribution of hunting activity, size of kill, and prompt- 
ness with which information is desired, various types of mail questionnaires 
may also give the information required with considerably less effort and 
expense. 
HORICON AREA 
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wisconsin Conservation 
Department entered into an agreement in the fall of 1953 which permitted 
the State of Wisconsin to conduct managed public hunting on a strip of land 
approximately 125 yards wide within a portion of the exterior boundaries of 
the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge (fig. 2a). This agreement is still in 
‘effect. Minor annual revisions have been made in operational procedures. 
Procedures were developed to close hunting on the area within 24 hours' 
notice when 15 percent of the average peak population had been harvested. 
In 1957, the opening of the goose hunt was delayed 2 weeks after the 
opening of the waterfowl season, and shooting was stopped at 2 p.m. Both 
regulations were designed to permit geese to establish definite feeding 
flight patterns, with the hope that this would increase the number of birds 
which could be harvested from the managed area. 
These measures were effective immediately, and in 1959 an excessive 
harvest of geese occurred requiring an early closure of the season. 
