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WATERFOWL MABITAT

PROPOSED FOR PRESERVATION UNDER PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
GOAL-12.800.000 ACRES

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Mr. DINGELL. The Chair notes that there is what appears to be a record vote going on so it will be necessary for the committee to adjourn.

Mr. Dow, did you have any further questions?

Mr. Dow. Not at this time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DINGELL. Gentlemen, the Chair is grateful to you for your presence this morning.

If you could submit this information with regard to the seasons, not the seasons, but

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Our predictions in relation to the last fall hunting relations.

Mr. DINGELL. Yes.

The Chair is also concerned with this. I think perhaps you can dispose of it in perhaps a sentence.

Did you not let birds go back north last fall so that they could take advantage of the increased water that was going to be available up there?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We did not let enough birds come north last fall to take advantage of all the water, Mr. Chairman. I think if the water predictions hold true that we are going to be in the position where we will see lots of potential breeding habitat without any ducks to breed in it.

Mr. DINGELL. What are you going to do with regard to your season this coming fall to avoid having that awkward situation occur in the spring of 1967?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I really can't answer that question until I get a better reading on the kind of production we have this year. It may be that rather drastic restrictions will be required.

I am hopeful that we will get an exceptional production and if we get an exceptional production I would imagine that our recommendations might be somewhat similar to what they were this past year, but I hazard that with great trepidation and I would not want to be held to it at all.

Mr. DINGELL. Do you consider in your fixing of seasons and bag limits the potential for water during the forthcoming year, or do you simply consider population?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Well, obviously it is necessary to consider the relationship of the population to the habitat and, as I think we indicated in the hearings that were held last year, our policy is to try to take advantage in years of declining water availability of the large population that would go back and not find a place to nest.

Conversely, in times when the water situation is improving it is our policy to reduce the kill so as to put more birds back on that water and thus build up the breeding population and the breeding potential.

Last year, as you may recall, what we finally decided to do, instead of trying to achieve a large increase in 1 year it was our determined and announced intention to achieve this buildup in steps and thus we effected through our regulations what was very close to a 20percent reduction in the kill and this was what we were striving to do.

Our regulations were designed to reduce the kill by about 20 percent with the expectation that this would result in about 10 percent more birds being on the breeding grounds this spring.

From everything that has been handed me by our people who work in this general area, we came very close to these targets.

Mr. DINGELL. Very good.

Gentlemen, thank you very much.

The committee will stand adjourned until Wednesday next, at which time a series of bills will be heard, H.R. 9492, H.R. 14414, and H.R. 14455, and perhaps such other bills as will be brought before the committee dealing with those same subjects, dealing with potential amendments to the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act and with that the committee stands adjourned until Wednesday next.

Before we adjourn, I would like some letters and statements by the committee to appear at this point in the record.

(The material mentioned follows:)

STATEMENT OF DANIEL A. POOLE

Mr. Chairman, I am Daniel A. Poole, secretary of the Wildlife Management Institute. The Institute is one of the older national conservation organizations, and its program has been devoted to the restoration and improved management of natural resources in the public interest since 1911.

The bills before the committee respond to a deficiency in the national waterfowl preservation program. That deficiency, which is the failure of the wetlands preservation program to proceed at the pace that had been envisioned at the time of the enactment of Public Law 87-383, can be attributed to several interrelated factors. These include (1) the reluctance of the Congress to make appropriations for the program at anywhere near the rate required, (2) the difficulty and the delay that emerged early in the program with respect to the replacement of county taxes that would be lost on the lands taken into public ownership, (3) the nationwide rawland cost spiral that steadily decreases the acreage that

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