Mr. DOWNING. I think Mr. Pelly's suggestion is timely. Mr. Kastenmeier and previous witnesses have stated that you intend to cut the goose limit to 14,000 this year. Is that correct?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. No, not specifically, and if I may, I would like to discuss another aspect of this total national waterfowl picture, which is more specifically oriented to the Mississippi Valley, and which involves this question of goose regulation in the State of Wisconsin.

Let me start by saying that the Mississippi Valley goose flock historically has been one of the great waterfowl phenomena of our country. Unfortunately, several years ago, that is to say, approximately two decades ago, by virtue of what we now are convinced was excessive shooting of this flock, it had been reduced to something less than 50,000 birds. We know from general reports that at one time it had been much greater than this.

The rather deteriorated status of this flock prompted a very serious look at the conservation measures needed to bring it back to a point where it could achieve something more nearly its optimum contribution to waterfowl shooting in the Mississippi Valley.

This project involved not only the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, but the concerned States all the way from Wisconsin to Louisiana.

Many ideas were suggested and tried, and ultimately it was concluded that, along with the provision of additional habitat to take the place of that which had disappeared through the development of our landscape, it would be necessary to establish more rigorous control over shooting, the principal problem areas being at that time in southern Illinois at a place called Horseshoe Lake.

The State of Illinois was willing to cooperate, and we began a program of reducing the kill, with the full cooperation of the Mississippi Flyway Council, but approximately 10 years ago we began to recognize that a phenomenon which is commonly called "shortstopping" in the waterfowl trade was occurring at our Horicon National Wildlife Refuge.

This refuge had been acquired in the early 1940's under then prevailing concepts. It consists of approximately 33,000 acres, of which roughly one-third is owned and operated by the Wisconsin Conservation Department, and the other 20,000 by our Bureau.

When this area was acquired, no additional land, other than the marsh itself, was bought. There was no peripheral ground which might be used for the production of feed crops.

The geese didn't know that Uncle Sam's boundary stopped here, and with protection they began to concentrate at Horicon in increasingly large numbers, but feeding not on the refuge, where there was little food except that of a natural type, but rather on the surrounding cornfields, and a very difficult problem began to develop with depredations.

A part of the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge was opened to hunting. Under the law not more than 40 percent may be opened, but this does not solve the problem. The entire area of the State's part of the Horicon marsh was opened. Still the birds came in. They had protection. They had free corn, free from their standpoint, and I guess ours.

Finally the populations were reaching and exceeding 100,000 birds in a relatively confined area, and I can assure you that many conflicts developed in this section of Wisconsin.

During this period, working in the Mississippi Flyway Council, a quota system was developed, which was designed to prevent excessive kill of these birds, so that the long-range objective which we share with the States in the Mississippi Valley, of trying to build this flock to something like 300,000 wintering birds within the flyway could be achieved.

Now, reference was made earlier to a conflict in objectives. It may appear that this is true, but our basic objective is to increase the size of that flock, but to try to do it in such a way that the problems of depredation and losses to individual landowners can be kept at a minimum.

In the last few years, the States of Wisconsin and Illinois would agree on a quota, and most recently this agreement was a target of 15,000 birds for the State of Illinois and 11,000 for Wisconsin.

Mr. DOWNING. Pardon me.

Has Wisconsin agreed to the 14,000 quota that you may propose? Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Not on a statewide basis, sir, but the point I was making was that when this quota was established, this was a quota which was agreed upon by the two States. I think this was 3 years ago.

The Illinois quota was larger because there are birds which come to southern Illinois by a route other than Wisconsin. Some of these birds come down through Ohio and across Indiana, and some come from Michigan down through Indiana and eastern Illinois.

I think it was 2 years ago in the discussion at the flyway council that the two States simply said, "Well, we can't agree, so we are going to ask you to make up your mind," and the quota ratios that were then in effect have been continued since that time, and this year are 20,000 and 14,000 birds.

The problem that caused the current difficulty was that we have been increasing our capability to determine kill, and it became apparent that, while we had a quota of 11,000 birds in the State of Wisconsin, the actual kill was very substantially greater than this.

Mr. Kastenmeier in his testimony indicated that we think it was in the vicinity of 35,000, rather than the 11,000 quota.

I accept the suggestion that we do not have a positive count of the number of birds killed. To accomplish this across the whole State, and even in the quota area around Horicon Marsh, would be a very expensive and difficult and challenging operation.

Mr. DOWNING. Is it my understanding that you are going to recommend a 14,000 quota for Wisconsin?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. That is correct.

Well, I say this: this is the recommendation of the staff, based on the target of trying to reduce the kill in the Mississippi Valley to the point where we can see that flock build up.

Now, the target is 300,000 birds. We have about 205,000 now. If we sustain a kill in the Mississippi Valley flock much in excess of 50,000 birds, we are not going to move that flock forward. We are going to hold it back. We are going to cut it down.

We are confident that we cannot shoot that flock much more than 25 percent of its total numbers without having an adverse effect upon the flock.

Mr. DOWNING. How do you propose to limit this kill to 14,000?