Game Gossip

When the Department of Agriculture wonders about the habits of U. S. birds and animals it asks the Bureau of Biological Survey* to report. Chief of the Bureau is tall, spare Paul G. Redington, who spends his time traveling through the wild gamelands of the U. S. and Alaska. Last week at the 16th annual American Game Conference in Manhattan, Chief Redington told some 200 game commissioners and sportsmen about an experiment the Bureau had made to determine how far migratory wild birds fly each season. First, 100,000 birds were captured and numerically leg-banded. During the subsequent seasons 15,000 of these were recaptured or shot, their numbers sent to the Bureau.

It was learned that wild ducks and geese fly about 10,000 miles a season. Long distance champion is the Arctic tern, which wings some 20,000 miles per season, nesting in the Arctic, wintering in the Antarctic. Chief Redington declared that the number of migratory game birds is fast dwindling in the U. S. Every citizen has a right to kill them in season (some states allow 25 such killings a day). Modern hunters use modern mass-destruction methods, such as automatic and repeating shotguns, live decoys, baited ducking grounds. Ducks die by the million from improper refuges like the Bear River marshes near Great Salt Lake, Utah, where alkali permeates the duck ponds. Chief Redington recommends more sanctuaries. Last April Congress voted $8,000,000 to buy and restore land and water preserves.

Apropos recent cases in which game wardens have been shot by hunters caught out of season, Chief Redington said, "In some of the most important wildfowl concentration areas in the country we have repeatedly noticed . . . groups of individuals recruited directly from the lowest criminal element of our larger cities."

These men, he declared, are often murderous; impelled by the high prices obtainable for ducks and geese, they will even kill wardens from ambush. Chief Redington's suggestions prompted the conference to send a resolution to Congress asking that game wardens be protected as are federal police.

Chief Redington's administration has been widely assailed by U. S. sport journals for opposing the reduction of the bag limit. In October, Outdoor Life said: "We place the blame for the situation squarely where it belongs--on Paul G. Redington . . . who in failing to recommend a reduction has . . . laid himself open to the serious charge that he is under the influence of a clique of influential duck hogs who do their shooting in states where ducks concentrate, and . . . want the highest possible bag limit. . . .* We condemned the survey's widely publicized duck census because . . . Redington was using counting-the-ducks as a smoke screen to hide his true motives for opposing the reduction."

*Until 1896 called the Department of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy.

*Duck-shooting members of the federal government include Secretary of State Stimson, Attorney-General Mitchell, Senators Robinson of Arkansas, Shipstead of Minnesota, Reed of Pennsylvania. No duck hogs they.

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