THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
1934—1935 
Ducks Without Shooting 
Shooting Without Ducks 
By F. R. DiIcKINson 
During the past decade any disinterested observer of wild life, familiar 
with existing conditions in the nesting areas of United States and Canada 
and with the destruction of wild fowl along the Mississippi “flyway” and 
the Atlantic seaboard, can hardly have failed to conclude that the extinction 
of several important species of ducks is at hand. Whether the prime cause 
of this approaching disaster is the continual drouths in Canada, the length 
of the open shooting season, or the abuse of baiting, may soon be an 
academic question; for once the number of a species has been reduced 
below a certain point correction of one or all of these adverse factors will 
come too late. Natural enemies, inbreeding, and the sheer inability to find 
mates, will finish the work already done by drouth and man. 
The whole subject of migratory bird conservation is so filled with 
confused thinking, not to mention honest doubt or political consideration, 
that one sometimes despairs of a sane solution; yet in this day we can no 
longer plead ignorance after seeing the passenger pigeon and the bison dis- 
appear almost over night; and it would seem that with public interest 
aroused, as it certainly is, and with a fore-knowledge of what we may 
expect in the absence of immediate measures, a satisfactory answer can 
be found. . 
Possible means to preserve and increase the stock of migratory fowl 
must aim at five problems: 
(1) The increase of breeding area. 
(2) The maintenance of. protected areas along migration routes. 
(3) ‘The maintenance of protected wintering grounds. 
(4) The control or elimination of baiting. 
(5) The control or temporary elimination of open seasons. 
With reference to increase of breeding areas, much will have to de- 
pend on natural conditions beyond human control. Charts recently ex- 
hibited at the annual meeting of the American Ornithologists’ Union 
graphically reveal the startling reduction in such areas, particularly in 
