AMERICA'S GAME

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 145, 16 December 1929, Page 11

AMERICA'S GAME

SANCTUARIES FOR BIRDS

ARCTIC CIRCLE TO MEXICO

(From "The Post's" Repressntatlve.) VANCOUVER, 13th Nov.

The present season is witnessing a concentrated effort by public and private- organisations throughout North America, to increase game sanctuaries. This effort has extended to tho point of planting rice, wiltTcelery, and other foodstuffs for ducks and- geese and assuring them a plentiful supply of good clean water, green stuff for food, and room to sport about unmolested as they halt for a few days' rest on their long migration between the Canadian Arctic to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. ■ •

There are thirteen wild life sanctuaries and reserve areas in th"o Canadian Prairie, down the Mackenzie Biver, and in tho treeless "Barren Lands" west of Hudson Bay to tho Arctic Ocean. The Mallard duck and the blue goose, most difficult of all birds to bring down, are now passing over in countless thousands, and they will find on their southward trek much more comfoi't than was the easo a year ago The Louisiana marshes, according to naturalists, harbour 75 per cent, of the ducks ana geese and other game birds that winter in the South. The State ot Louisiana deserves the commendation of the sporting world and of all nature-lovers for tho funds it votes year by year to maintain game patrols and provide accommodation for thefeathered speedsters over an area of a million, acres, where thoir winter quarters are more or loss restricted, compared With their vast Northern habitat mo Stato authorities are always solicitors for theit comfort, particularly in periods of drought, in establishing and maintaining a food supply in the numerous bay fringed lakes. JOINT ADMINISTRATION. Thero aro two main divisions in which tho feathered army moves down irom the summer breeding places in tho Arctic to tho sub-tropical region. Ono inrttul? ™°yeß dowu eastward of the 100 th Meridian of Longitude; tho other makes ita southward flight west of the sunsetway," in the Dakota*, through Western Kansas and Western Texa's Tins latter division stretches across the_ streams, lakes, and reservoirs of plain, mountain, ana desert, with Great bait Lake, in Utah, as its most frequented harbour. Millions of ducks and geese stop for a day or two each year on the lakes of Montana, Eastern Oregon, and Northern California for rest, food, and recuperation. Duck-shooting is now being brought into reach of the city man in his office He may leave his desk at 4 p.m., motor to tho duck club, whero ho will be provided with horses to take him to concrete or steel "blinds," spend .a couple of hours shooting after dawn, and be back in his office by 11 a.m. Under the Migrating Bird Game ■Treaty administered by a joint Cana-dian-American Commission, tlio close season is rigorously observed in both countries. Private property owners set aside small lakes and "sloughs" as sanctuaries for the migrants and remark on the yearly increase in tho number of their guests.