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THE AUDUBON Ue Ease 
Other Friday speakers were Richard Hoger, with slides of his wildlife 
center and injured or ailing birds he has rescued in his DuPage county 
wildlife hospital work; Guy Hughes of Joliet, of the Outdoor Motor As- 
sociation of America, reporting on the vast increase in boating supplies 
sales in recent years; and Royal McClelland, executive secretary of the 
Illinois Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, discussing the cost of hunting 
and fishing with annual yield to the state of more than $9,000,000 in license 
fees. Bob Cary of the Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers told of 
the continuing battle his organization is waging to halt stream pollution 
and dumping of refuse along banks of streams. Jim Helfridge of the State 
Conservation Department spoke of the 75 state parks, memorials and con- 
servation areas Illinois already has and the determination of the Depart- 
ment to enlarge these and create more. 
The Friday evening session was a symposium on the prairie chicken, 
with Dr. Ralph Yeatter an I.A.S. director and member of the Illinois 
Natural History Survey, Urbana, discussing the status of the bird in the 
state. The decline in the market for red top hay, a late maturing grass, 
has been the major factor in the bird’s approach to extinction. Earlier 
maturing hay does not give the bird the cover it needs to raise its young. 
Wide row corn cultivation is being tried in some areas with cover crops 
planted between the rows in experiments to save the bird in the few parts 
of the state where it still survives. 
Oswald E. Mattson, Wisconsin Department of Conservation, told of the 
successful preservation of prairie chicken colonies in Wisconsin, where the 
shorter growing season has made the problem less acute than in Illinois. 
Frank King of the Wisconsin Department said sportsmen in that state have 
enthusiastically supported efforts to preserve the prairie chicken, using 
hunting license fees to finance the efforts, though well knowing that the 
chicken probably can never become numerous enough to be a game bird 
again in their area. Leasing of 40-acre plots to be preserved as booming 
grounds is one of the principal methods used to protect the prairie chicken. 
Thomas Evans of the Illinois department of conservation, supervisor of 
game management, said the high cost of farm land in Illinois virtually 
prohibits such action in this state. State areas where prairie chicken has 
been protected are subject to insistent demands for field dog trials, which 
doesn’t help the chickens. The state has cut out spring dog trials. Attempts 
to import prairie chickens from Nebraska to rebuild Illinois flocks have 
been unsuccessful in that they hatch but do not thrive in captivity. 
The Saturday morning session included reports on the Volo and Wau- 
conda bog preservation drive by Dr. Robert A. Bullington of DeKalb; the 
problem of the lamprey eel by Frank Wilkinson; status of the bald eagle 
by Elton Fawks, the drive to save the last section of the Indiana Dunes 
as a National monument, by Walter Necker of Gary; and status of the 
mourning dove, by Charles Kossack of Barrington. 
Wilkinson said interstate studies of the lamprey and cooperation with 
chemical companies have developed poisons that in controlled tests have 
killed 90% of lamprey larva with virtually no discernible damage to other 
forms of wildlife except crustaceans; fish are unharmed and no evidence 
