Monday, Aug. 10, 1931

Duck Moratorium?

"Only about half the normal number of ducks will fly south this season. This is the third consecutive disastrous breeding year. Unless we have what might be called a moratorium on wildfowl shooting in this year of crisis I am afraid the ducks will go down into extinction."

Thus last week spoke Dr. Thomas Gilbert Pearson, president of the National Association of Audubon Societies. He said reports were being wired in from all parts of the U. S. Northwest and Canada almost hourly, asking his Societies to take action. Therefore he last week proposed that Secretary of Agriculture Arthur Mastick Hyde decree, as he is authorized by law to do, that there shall be no open season at all this year for duck-hunters. Duck-hungry gunners, their season already shortened, their bag already restricted (TIME, July 13) glowered in Dr. Pearson's direction, yet stroked their chins when they thought of a world shot completely out of wild fowl.

Reason for the duck scarcity is continuing drought, which has dried up the sloughs and ponds in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Montana, chief North American breeding-places for ducks. Several yards from a marshy place on the prairie, the mother-duck builds her nest, lays in it from ten to 18 eggs. When these hatch, she leads the ducklings immediately down to the water. In ordinary times, duckling mortality is high. Turtles, hawks and even large fish consume many. In drought times mother & brood may find no water at all and so perish of thirst, or else they have to cross great stretches of mud, open to their natural enemies.

U. S. and Canadian conservation officials gathered twice last month, first at Edmonton, Alberta, then at Bismarck, N. Dak. At the second meeting a resolution was passed urging: 1) that the open season be limited to 30 continuous days, instead of eight or ten weeks; 2) that the daily bag be restricted to ten ducks instead of the present 15 (formerly 25); 3) that ducks in possession be kept down to 20; 4) that all baiting of hunting grounds be prohibited.

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