Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Yes, sir.

Mr. DOWNING. What about these shooting hours between sunrise and sunset? These gentlemen advocate 9 to 2, which would seem to me to be in the best interests of conservation.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I would like to try to put this whole problem in perspective. The problem we have had in Wisconsin is that we are confident that we are killing substantially more than the quota that has been established, that has been in vogue, in the past, and that we are killing this year. We can debate whether there were 35,000 birds or not. We know it was substantial.

In addition we have a very difficult problem of depredation with the surrounding farmers, and we feel an obligation to try to afford them some relief. In recognition of both aspects of the problem, the need to reduce the depredation on the one hand and the need to reduce the Wisconsin kill on the other, in order to promote the conservation of the Mississippi Valley goose flock, we are doing all we can to try to get the birds out of Horicon.

Now, we don't intend to move them necessarily in the absolutely shortest possible time, but what we are trying to do is to discourage Canada goose use of the Horicon Refuge. This is perfectly true. The season set from 9 to 2 permits the birds an opportunity to get out of the refuge at a time when they normally fly. That is to say, they will normally leave the refuge early in the morning, fly out and come back late in the afternoon. If we disturb them in the normal pattern of their behavior, there will be more of a tendency for these birds to leave. Mr. DOWNING. I don't know that I follow that.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Well, we are trying to upset their daily routine of use of the refuge.

Mr. DOWNING. You would upset it by opening the day at sunrise but you would get a greater kill.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Well, on this we rely on the quota system to give us our control of the total kill, but the real problem in relation to our Horicon situation is how to get these birds to leave Horicon in sufficient numbers that we can reduce this depredation problem, and I will admit to anybody that it is a very challenging affair to come up with a procedure that looks like it will do the job.

We have deliberately employed, sir, as these gentlemen have implied, we will have employed this year all of the tactics that we know of to try to discourage Canada goose use of Horicon Refuge. We still think that after we have done everything we can to get those birds to move south, that we are still going to have a great many geese at Horicon. If we could cut down the use at Horicon, we think then it would be possible to spread our season out a little bit longer which would be a much-desired objective from the standpoint of the management of the hunting. We don't want to see this slaughter.

I have had people from the Audubon Society at Milwaukee challenge me on this point. They say, "You call that a wildlife refuge. That is nothing but a slaughter pen for geese." After seeing the situation, I am almost forced to agree that there is some legitimacy to that kind of title. We have an obligation to try to get a better regimen of goose use and hunter enjoyment at Horicon. We have tried about everything that we can think of.

It is true, as this gentleman says, that the number of birds there was up last year to nearly 130,000. The Mississippi goose flock is not up by that amount. What is happening is that the goose concentrations in the late fall at Horicon, when they shouldn't be there, have climbed continously year after year, and I say when they shouldn't be there because it is creating an unnatural situation and the birds are foraging on adjacent cropland and creating a very difficult problem for the farmers.

Mr. RACE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DOWNING. Yes.

Mr. RACE. May I ask a question, sir? Have you ever been successful in moving flocks off and having them not come back? As the gentleman pointed out, you might move them off and they would eat the farmers' field even more than last year. Is there any proven method or way of doing this?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We have had success in limited situations where we employed not only hazing but also tried to discourage the birds with reduction in the food present and the other types of harassment.

Mr. RACE. We tried harassment last year in Wisconsin in the farmers' field, and they came back the next day, they became accustomed to cannons and guns and the different instruments that they used to try to discourage them and they came right back.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. It's a difficult problem. I have personal experience with it. I know it takes a great deal of patience. A Canada goose is a bird with firmly fixed habits, and they don't change their minds easily.

Mr. RACE. I would like to ask another question. Do you think it is good to get the season over with in 3 days? It that what you are trying to do by opening the hunting day at sunrise and closing at sundown?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. From the standpoint of providing the optimum public recreation and enjoyment, it is much better to have the kill strung out over a longer period so that you avoid these mass slaughter situations.

Mr. RACE. These gentlemen said that you were going to ask for a sunup to sundown.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Well, my next statement is that in this particular situation we are deliberately trying to interrupt and interfere with the established movement patterns of these geese. We have let them alone early in the morning and they have had a very fine situation there with no disturbance when it really counts. Most of those birds fly out early in the morning and come back in the evening. In the past they have flown out before they were shot and come back after they were shot, with enough of them remaining so that hunting could still take place in the middle of the day.

We are proposing to try to introduce another facet of harassment at a critical time in their daily movement patterns. This is another aspect. I wouldn't even want to challenge the statement that he made. We don't think it will have the result of killing these birds that much faster because we are expecting that on the refuge proper, which is where a lot has taken place, there will still be the quota system, there will not be unregimented invasion of the refuge by hordes of hunters.

There will still be a lot of hunting taking place outside the refuge, but on the refuge proper there will not be a great excess.

I doubt if this is going to have a catastrophic effect in increasing the kill rate.

Mr. PELLY. Will the gentleman yield?

Do you have just one flight a day on Canadian geese or two? Do they come off the water in the morning and go back and come out in the afternoon and then come back?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. They stay away all during the day, feed, and fly back late in the afternoon and rest on the refuge.

Mr. PELLY. In Tule Lake in northern California I have always observed that they fly off the water in the morning and go and feed and immediately go back to the water.

Mr. REHSE. That is the normal pattern at the Horicon Refuge, a two-flight pattern.

Mr. RACE. May I ask a question.?

Mr. DOWNING. Yes.

Mr. RACE. What would you think about a season of 2 or 3 hours of hunting in the morning and 2 or 3 in the afternoon to stretch the season out? That would disrupt their normal pattern if that is what you are trying to do.

Mr. REHSE. I think you would still have a very short season. Those are the best hours. I think you would see an awful quick kill near the refuge.

Mr. PELLY. That is all the kill you get now. The rest of the time that you are proposing you see no geese at all and you sit there and enjoy the fresh air. Once in a while a lone goose might come along and you might be lucky and get one.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. May I ask the Chief of our Management and Enforcement Division, Mr. Studholme, to comment on this briefly. Mr. Studholme was the Chief of our Wildlife Division in the Minneapolis Office when we instituted this quota arrangement.

Mr. DOWNING. We would be glad to hear him.

Mr. STUDHOLME. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a few remarks on this early opening, as opposed to this 9 o'clock to 2 o'clock opening. Historically at Horicon even after geese were there not in the numbers they were now but in shootable numbers the shooting hours did start early and deliberately the shooting hours were postponed until 9 o'clock, between 9 and 2, only to increase the kill of birds, and it worked magnificently to increase the daily take.

Mr. DOWNING. The greatest chance of killing them would be early in the morning.

Mr. STUDHOLME. All I am trying to say, Mr. Chairman, is that this is the history of what has happened. In our opinion one of the reasons that the killing is so rapid is due to this late morning opening and early afternoon closing. The birds establish a feeding pattern before that time and are out there where the hunters can get at them over a very large area. Our belief is, and we would like to try it, that with going back to the early opening as it used to be we feel that those birds will try to come out of the refuge at that time when they want to get out of feed, there will be heavy pressure put on them and they will back in instead of scattering all over the countryside where

go

they are available to hunters. For this reason we feel that it will reduce the daily kill and by that method extend the season in Wisconsin.

Mr. PELLY. How would it be to open at 12 o'clock every day so you would get half of their flights?

Mr. STUDHOLME. I don't know what the effect of that would be, sir. I can't say. I do not think that it would be as effective in controlling the kill as the early opening.

Mr. REHSE. Mr. Chairman, I could only disagree with the gentleman. He is a better authority than I am, I would have to admit, in this particular field, but the history at the Horicon Hunt is that 2 or 3 years ago when they had the early-season shooting at the sunrise opening it was changed to the 9 o'clock opening after a few days to prolong the season. It was changed to prolong, not to hurry, the season. This is the history and this is a matter of record.

One further question I would like to bring out is that if the goose is hungry and there is no food on the refuge he is not going to go back to the refuge. He is going to go someplace to sit down and eat and he is going to get shot at.

Mr. DOWNING. Why wouldn't he go on flyway as would be the normal custom?

Mr. REHSE. This is what they are hoping for the goose to do but it is certainly open to question that they will succeed.

Mr. DOWNING. They just like Horicon, is that it?

Mr. REHSE. In other words, it is strictly a proposal and in their case again as in anyone's they do not know the result and cannot project the results of what will happen.

Mr. SCHOENFELD. I think that is strictly weather. If we have an early cold in the north the birds get to Horicon Marsh earlier.

Mr. REHSE. They mentioned last year's crop depredations as a problem. Again with the geese staying late this is a problem of weather which no one can control. The goose is subject to weather. He will move according to weather. Last year in Wisconsin we had very, very wet weather. Many farmers had to wait until the frost to pick the corn. After the geese came in the weather got very nice and it did not freeze up until after Thanksgiving which is quite late for us. The weather stayed nice and the geese stayed. The depredation was caused because food was not available. As a matter of record I have the 1965 Wisconsin conservation record. The State department attempted to haze the birds the first few days and this a matter of record. They were somewhat successful in pushing them from the farmer's field back to the refuge and once the goose found out what this was all about he went up and came down and sat down again. Mr. DOWNING. Thank you very much.

The House is now in session and the committee will have to adjourn. We thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. REHSE. Thank you for this opportunity.

Mr. DOWNING. The subcommittee will adjourn subject to the call of the Chair. Before adjourning, I would like to place several letters and telegrams in the record which have been received by the committee.

(The material mentioned follows:)

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Washington, D.C., July 29, 1966.

Hon. JOHN D. DINGELL,
Member of Congress,
Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. DINGELL: The 1966 duck hunting season is fast approaching. Mr. J. D. Hair, Jr., Director of the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Commission, advises us that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will probably finalize this year's duck hunting regulations during the week of August 8. We feel that it is imperative that those of us representing the states included in the Mississippi Flyway speak up for a more liberalized bag limit for 1966 than that which was granted in 1965 by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.

We have been advised by the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries Commission that the waterfowl census conducted in January, 1966 revealed the presence of 9,100,000 ducks for the Mississippi Flyway as a whole. This inventory was made after the hunting seasons in the 14 Mississippi Flyway states closed and is a fair indicator of the number of ducks that returned from this flyway to the breeding grounds. There was an increase in numbers of ducks found during this census of 16.8 per cent over that found during January of 1965, and a 47.3 per cent increase over the number of ducks found for the past 18 year average.

All of the figures available at this time confirm the view that the 1965-66 hunting regulations were unnecessarily restrictive and deprived sportsmen of much opportunity that they could have enjoyed without damaging waterfowl populations. Last fall, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife personnel stated that under the regulations that we were given, not more than a 10 per cent increase in the 1966 breeding population would occur and that mallards would be down. However, a 37 per cent increase in breeding population did occur as evidenced by a recent news release issued by the Bureau.

We hope to obtain a more liberal duck season for the coming winter than we were given last year. Your assistance in this regard will be greatly appreciated. Mr. Hair advises that our Ducks Unlimited friends in Canada indicate that the increased breeding population has enjoyed excellent-reproduction and we are anticipating a large flight of ducks into the area during the coming winter. We continue to disagree completely with the theory being employed by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife that ducks can be stockpiled and we firmly believe that harvest of waterfowl should be managed on an annual basis.

Finally, it should be noted that residents of the 14 states of the Mississippi Flyway, which comprises more than one-half of the acreage considered to be of significant value to waterfowl, purchase 40 per cent of the duck stamps sold each year.

If we can succeed in obtaining a reasonable duck season with a minimum bag limit of four, perhaps the sport as a whole can be elevated to the status once enjoyed by duck hunters in Louisiana and in your state.

We urge you to prevail upon the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service to liberalize the bag limit of mallards in the Mississippi Flyway for the 1966 hunting season.

Sincerely yours,

Allen J. Ellender, U.S. Senator; Russell B. Long, U.S. Senator; F. Edw. Hébert, Member of Congress; Jimmy Morrison, Member of Congress; Hale Boggs, Member of Congress; Otto E. Passman, Member of Congress; E. E. Willis, Member of Congress; Joe D. Waggonner, Jr., Member of Congress; Speedy O. Long, Member of Congress; Edwin W. Edwards, Member of Congress.

Hon. JOHN DINGELL,

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C., August 16, 1966.

Chairman, Subcommittee on Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR JOHN: I want to add my support to the representations which your subcommittee already has received from Wisconsin Congressmen, State officials, and private citizens, in protest against the 1966 Goose Hunting Regulations for the State.