
SUMMARY OF HUNTING CONDITIONS 
Area available for public hunting 
Two different systems of management have been used on the 
Upper Mississippi and Mark Twain Refuges from their very incep- 
tion. On the Upper Mississippi Refuge the entire area of 194,000 
acres is administered by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wild- 
life. A series of strategically located closed areas or sanc- 
tuaries are spread throughout the refuge and all remaining lands 
are open to public hunting. Although from time to time there 
have been different patterns of closed areas on the Upper Missis- 
sippi Refuge, the basic approach has remained unchanged. As many 
as 19 closed areas have been in effect in the past. Prior to the 
hunting season of 1957 the closed areas on the refuge were radically 
changed as the result of many years of thought and study. ‘The 
original closed areas were often selected on the basis of ownership 
alone since the Bureau did not have consolidated control over 
bottomlands within the authorized limits of the refuge. With the 
consummation of the General Plan and Cooperative Agreement with 
the Corps of Engineers in 1954, refuge staffs were in a position 
for the first time to examine the refuge closed area program in 
the light of biological requirements instead of land ownership. 
The changes were accordingly made in the summer of 1957. The 
current plan provides for 14 closed areas. However, the propor- 
tion of "open" vs. "closed" areas has remained essentially the 
same. At present, the 14 closed areas include 40,775 acres of 
sanctuary, accounting for 21% of the refuge ownership; while the 
remaining 153,225 acres, or 79% of the ownership, is open to public 
hunting on a "first-come-first-served" basis. This no doubt con- 
stitutes one of the most extensive units of Bureau-controlled 
public hunting in existence today, at least as far as waterfowl 
hunting is concerned. 
On the Mark Twain Refuge an entirely different approach was 
used. There the Bureau retained control of lands in five separate 
units, while the remaining lands which were made available to the 
Bureau under cooperative agreement with the Corps of Engineers 
were turned over to the various States for management. The States 
are using these lands mostly for public hunting areas, although a 
few small sanctuaries are provided by them. In Iowa, 7,414 acres 
of open public hunting lands offered to the State were returned to 
the Bureau so that the latter agency is currently providing public 
hunting on that portion. . 
In the vicinity of the Bdtchtown and Calhoun Units of Mark 
Twain Refuge, the State of Illinois has instituted a system of 
rather close supervision over hunters. The State is assigning 
waterfowl blind space (although the successful applicants construct 
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