Hee AwUsDtU BAO Ne «BULL Eet-DN 11 
Approval has been granted by the Secretary of the Interior after consul- 
tation with officials of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Although news 
of this encroachment on federal waterfowl lands by construction projects 
has caused alarm in some circles, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
does not feel that the facts justify the furore which the project has 
created. 
According to J. Clark Salyer II, chief of the division of wildlife 
refuges, an intensive study of all potential effects of the construction 
work has been made and conclusions were that the construction activities 
will enhance rather than impair the usefulness of the refuge. The primary 
reason for this is that the new roadbed will provide a far more adequate 
dike against flood waters than those maintained by the Service and will 
tend to aid in the stabilization of water levels during the breeding season. 
Excellent cooperation has been given by the New York Department of 
Public Works, which will install water-control structures, fences, and 
other needed facilities along its right-of-way. It will also provide turn- 
out areas along the highway traversing the marsh where travelers may 
stop to observe the waterfowl. Experience has shown that moving traffic 
has little disturbing effect on brooding birds. Only 20 acres of a 1,000 
acre pool will be removed from waterfowl use. Since 1938, the Depart- 
ment of Public Works has turned over to the Service to use for refuge 
purposes approximately 600 acres of marsh and swamp. In the face of 
these facts, the Fish and Wildlife Service felt that it had no alternative 
other than to approve the project. F. C. Edminister of the Soil Conser- 
vation Service has investigated this area and recommends that conser- 
vationists drop their objections. 
ft i i 
Botulism Control Program: All persons interested in waterfowl owe 
a debt of gratitude to Utah’s Fish and Game Department and its emergency 
botulism control program which is beginning to salvage stricken ducks 
from the alkaline marshes of this state. A control program initiated with 
the aid of Pittman-Robertson funds is expected to save the lives of 
hundreds of thousands of ducks during the next three years. 
Game technicians retrieve affected birds and take them to a hospital 
area where they are given inoculations of botulism anti-toxin and pro- 
vided with clean food and water until they have recovered sufficiently, 
when they are banded and released.. Water manipulation programs are 
carried out to lower or raise water levels and thus keep the birds away 
from stagnant fringe areas of decayed aquatic vegetation. 
Botulism is similar to food poisoning in human beings and is caused 
by bacteria present in rotting aquatic vegetation. Warm, shallow, stagnant 
waters of high alkaline content create ideal conditions for the growth 
and development of the bacteria. Such conditions are prevalent in Utah 
waters during the late summer with the diversion of mountain streams 
(which formerly provided an adequate fiow of oxygen-laden water to the 
marshes) to irrigation projects and reservoirs. As a result, thousands 
of ducks have fallen into death traps at the stream deltas. The Bear 
River National Wildlife Refuge and state refuges at Ogden Bay and 
