6 THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
Canada by drouth; a situation already known to the officials of the U. S. 
Biological Survey through investigations of their own representatives. 
Acquisition of drained lands in our northern States, with a view to restor- 
ing them as breeding grounds, is now under way, and as far as it goes 
will help in the right direction. The fiasco at Lake Malheur, where thou- 
sands of acres of ideal breeding grounds were drained for farm land, found 
practically worthless, and then devastated by fire, will soon be corrected, 
and that great area will be restored to usefulness. Much more could prob- 
ably be done along this line but for the reluctance of the Federal govern- 
ment to cooperate in State-owned projects, owing to the prevalence of 
local politics which would prevent efficient management. After the emer- 
gency program of land acquisition has been completed, it may be that some 
plan for Federal cooperation in State-owned bird and game refuges can 
be evolved. 
The second item above mentioned, maintenance of protected areas 
along migration routes, is also receiving the attention of the Biological 
Survey. Suitable waters along the Mississippi flyway and elsewhere are 
being purchased and developed with emergency funds; and this winter con- 
siderable quantities of grain will be available for feed at strategic points 
where conditions demand it. ‘These duck tourist camps will be administered 
by Federal wardens with whom it is not safe to tamper. 
The third problem, maintenance of protected wintering grounds, 
where adequate feed is available, is met to some extent by refuges already 
in existence on the Gulf Coast, particularly in Louisiana, where many 
thousands of acres have been withdrawn from shooting. The Paul J. 
Rainey Wild Life Sanctuary, for example, owned and operated by the 
National Association of Audubon Societies, has done much for the pres- 
ervation of our mallards, pintails, scaups, and ringnecks, and affords feed- 
ing ground for large flocks of blue geese. If some arrangement could be 
made by which large sections of the Gulf and south Atlantic Coasts would 
come under Federal control, so far as migratory wild fowl are concerned, 
much of the poaching now prevalent in unprotected or poorly administered 
districts would cease. Market hunting in these regions, as everywhere else, 
is perhaps the most serious of all menaces with which enforcement officers 
have to contend. 
The control or elimination of baiting, next to the closed season, is 
perhaps the most controversial of all of these related questions. Members 
of private duck clubs will tell you that without baiting there would be no 
shooting worth going after. Members of the general hunting fraternity, 
who belong to no club, are apt to term it murder, and talk about “baiting 
ducks for five days and blowing them out of the water on the sixth and 
seventh.” Here again the Biological Survey is studying the problem, and 
hopes, as a result of current investigations, to have soon a basis for intel- 
ligent action. Two things appear to be clear: the practice of baiting on 
small, artificial ponds, where shootings are leased for profit, should be con- 
