“Hey, Dad... 
what's a mallard?’ 
Don't laugh. 
Because one of these days a lot of fathers are 
going to need the answer to that question— 
unless something happens right now. 
Maybe not the fathers of this generation. 
But maybe the fathers of the next. 
And how would you explain it, if you were 
in their shoes? 
Well, you might begin by showing your son 
pictures of these wonderful game birds. In great 
flocks. And you might try to tell him what it 
‘was like to hunt them—how you looked for- 
ward to going out after them year after year. 
Maybe even show him some pictures from your 
personal scrapbook. 
And maybe he’d get the idea. 
Then you might want to tell him what hap- 
pened—why there’re so few around that he’s 
never seen one. Why there’s no longer any 
hunting season on ducks. 
You might get at the heart of it by telling 
him about the great nesting areas in Canada 
that (way back in 1967) supplied 4 out of 5 
ducks available to America’s sportsmen. 
You might tell him that those Canadian 
waters were life itself to the ducks: too much 
water—from flooding, or too little water—from 
drought or drainage, and the ducks would die. 
By the millions. 
And that’s how it all happened, you could 
say—in spite of a non-profit group of U.S. and 
Canadian hunters and conservationists that did 
their best to prevent it. An outfit called Ducks 
Unlimited. 
And if you know all the facts, you’d know 
that between 1937 and 1967 the members of 
Ducks Unlimited financed the construction of 
more than 800 ‘“‘duck factories” on over a1 
lion and a half acres of controlled water 
Canada... restored over 8,000 miles of y 
productive shoreline . . . planted thousand 
acres of waterfowl foods . . . and banded c 
140,000 ducks and geese. 
In one year—1967— Ducks Unlimited t 
on the largest project in its history: the 512, 
acre Mawdesley (Del-Mar Lakes) Project ; 
east of The Pas, Manitoba. Here, on w 
would have been a flooded marshland, | 
built one of the most important duck-nest 
areas on the North American continent. / 
that was in addition to almost 40,000 m 
acres in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Albr 
(all of these lands made available to DU at 
cost by the citizens and government of Cana 
You could say all that. And you’d be rij 
Or you might avoid the whole question. 
By joining Ducks Unlimited yourself. N 
Today. 
Send your tax-deductible check (most m: 
bers give at least $10) to Ducks Unlimr 
Dept. H, P.O. Box 66300, Chicago, Ili 
60666. 
Then when your grandson asks, ““What 
Mallard?” you can answer, “‘Let’s go huni 
and I’ll show you!” | 
(This message was donated by this magai 
as a service to America’s sportsmen, and a ¢ 
tribution to Ducks Unlimited.) 
mallard (mal’erd), n. [OF. mallart.] 
The common wild duck (Anas platy- 
rhynchos), of either sex, of the Northern 
Hemisphere. 
