Animals: Money for Ducks

If, for two successive Sundays, every family in the U. S. had a wild duck for dinner, the wild duck would be as extinct as the passenger pigeon. In 1886 the same number of U. S. citizens could not have extinguished the wild duck population if they had eaten duck for a fortnight. But ducks had already begun to decrease and it was in that year the Bureau of Biological Survey was created to study U. S. wild life. As the Bureau grew bigger, the U. S. game bird population grew smaller.

The Bureau, tottering along on meagre appropriations, had not been able to make much progress in the direction of Conservation when, in 1934, President Roosevelt finally gave ear to the agonized howls of 7½ million sportsmen. He appointed a Committee on Wildlife Restoration. The Committee promptly recommended that $25,000,000 be earmarked for the restoration of lands suitable for wild life preserves. It was not forthcoming, but famed Cartoonist-Conservationist Jay Norwood (“Ding”) Darling passed the hat around to various Government agencies before he resigned as Chief of the U. S. Biological Survey, had managed to scratch up $8,500,000. From o.ther sources a total of $21,000,000 was finally obtained. In Denver, at the annual convention of the Western Association of State Game & Fish Commissioners, Ira Noel Gabrielson, rotund present chief of the Survey, hefted himself to his feet to explain what had happened since his bureau took the money, largely drawn from relief and work-making budgets, and really moved into action.

Said he: “Already we have more than 3,000,000 acres in States like the Dakotas and Nebraska, which were once the normal breeding grounds for the dm 5, which we are restoring to the natural state of marshland. We have already spent $20,000,000 on the program. Ultimately it will cost about $50,000,000.” Goal: a minimum of 7,500,000 acres of Federal duck preserves.

Drainage of U. S. breeding lands had another effect. It left those regions completely vulnerable to floods and droughts. Flood and drought control measures now-being executed with CCC and WPA labor are, fortunately for sportsmen, ideal for restoring duck grounds, and vice versa. Principal engineering problem is to impound and regulate waters in rivers, lakes, marshes. Equally important is the planting of trees to help prevent erosion. Thus in the past three years 200 duck refuges have been created on previously useless land. Last year, for the first year in many, more ducks returned to the breeding grounds than in the previous year.

Until last week the Bureau’s 7,500,000-acre program was largely a hope in the heart of Mr. Gabrielson and fellow duck shooters. One sure source of income was from the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of 1934. In its first two years that brought about $1,000,000. Then, after much dallying. Congress unanimously passed the Pittman-Robertson Federal-Aid-to-Wildlife Bill to appropriate to the various States the 10% excise tax on sporting arms and ammunitions. It assured the program an annual $3,000,000 as a friendly President signed it at Hyde Park last week.