Waterfowlers pursue their sport under a thatch of
regulations. We’re accustomed to them
and I doubt many hunters really ponder the why, how, and when of the hunting
regs. In the past, none of the rules
were in place, and anyone could kill as many ducks, geese, and swans as he
wanted any way he wanted. Bird numbers
declined, and the blame was put on the market hunters lugging in barrels of
birds (blame no doubt deserved… though it is interesting that the decline in
waterfowl coincided with the settlement, drainage and conversion to farmland of
huge swaths of wetlands across North America, especially the Great Plains). So, starting in 1900 with the Lacey Act, and
continuing with the Weeks-McLean Act of 1913, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of
1918, and the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act of 1934,
efforts were made to “save the ducks.”
Market hunting was big business in 1900,* and though the rules applied
to sport hunters as well, the professionals were the real target of the early
laws. Over the next couple generations,
Americans’ taste for wild duck and goose wanned, and now you’d be hard pressed
to GIVE away a dead wild duck. However,
the anti-marketing rules are still in place and form the structure for
waterfowling in the US.
Season dates.
Spring hunting was banned in 1913. And though it only seems reasonable to leave
game birds alone as they’re sorting out their domestic situation (except for
turkeys for some reason), I do wish they’d stop dinking around with splits and such. The Feds allow the states to pick a certain
number of days within a block from September 1st to March 10th. Here in Michigan, the state divides itself
into three zones so it can select dates that line up with waterfowl migration;
that way we normal folks don’t have to fight with the UPers about the
opener. But does it really matter? If the whole state used the North Zone’s
opener and the South Zone’s closer, would the UPers kill more birds? Well, only if they followed the migrating ducks
to the southern part of the state… which they can do as it is anyway. Even if the season were open in January, we wouldn’t
be shooting any birds because the state is frozen. I say simplify the dates and have a big
window. The birds will take care of the
real season dates.
Bag Limit.
We’ve all seen the black and white photos of
turn-of-the-century hunters with piles—literally piles—of ducks. I’ve even read of one market hunter who
bagged 1,000 ducks in a single day! And
sport hunters would shoot till they got tired or ran out of shells (or schnapps). This was fine for Daniel Boone, but with the
population we have, limiting the number of birds each hunter can take in a day
is only common sense. It doesn’t take
much for me to start going on about why is it that I can fill the bag with six hen
Gadwalls (or Teals, or Wigeons, or Whistling Ducks), but I can only shoot two
hen Mallards, which is the most common duck on the planet; or again, if the Red
Head population is so low that I’m only allowed two in the bag, why do they
allow both to be a hens? [See Appendix A for a longer tirade] The details of the bag (who sets it, how they
do so, what species it can include, etc.) make more or less sense to me, but the
idea of a bag limit is a Good Thing.
Lead shot.
This one makes sense.
Most birds are killed by one to four pellet strikes (my own experience,
albeit with steel shot), but a typical lead duck load has between 170 and 340
pellets (1-1/4 oz of #4 to 1-1/2 oz #6 lead).
Even if you put 20 pellets in a duck, that leaves at least 150 pellets
broadcast into the marsh. Old hunters
hate to admit it, but lead shot keeps killing ducks long after the season
ends.
I wouldn’t oppose a modification of the lead ban. Allowing field hunting, or over deep water
for example. Or even in low use areas—a
duck hunter could go all season without shooting a shell in my county. Then again, complex rules make for confusion,
encroachment, and even more rules. Maybe
this is one place where California is doing it right…
The bag limit, a season, and banning lead shot (at least
under certain circumstances) are the three rules that actually protect
waterfowl populations. While some of the
others may have philosophical appeal, none of the rules listed below solve any
problems if we observe the season dates and bag limits.
Possession Limit.
I have quibbles about the bag limit, but I completely fail
to understand the possession limit. I
can only possess three times the daily bag limit at any given time. Meaning, if I shoot a limit on Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday, I am not allowed to shoot any ducks on Thursday. I have to somehow divest myself of the dead
bird; either eat it or give it away.**
Processing into sausage doesn’t count, since I still possess the meat in
the casing. This is stupid. The only reason for this rule is to provide
Game Wardens something to nail market hunters on. Two weeks into the season, they catch a
suspected (or even known) market hunter with eighty-four ducks on his front
porch, but they didn’t see him shoot all eighty-four and thus can’t disprove
his claim to have shot only six on each of the past fourteen days. However, since he isn’t allowed to possess
more than eighteen ducks, he’s in violation.
But again, we don’t have a market for duck meat anymore, so what’s the
point now? Why can’t I save all my birds
from the whole season for a feast in the spring? Or to make a huge batch of sausage? This is stupid.
Shooting hours.
Is it really hunting to shoot sleeping birds? Well, of course it’s hunting: you have to find
them in the dark (just like hunting for your slippers at night). But is it sporting? If “sporting” is defined as giving the game at
least an even chance, then a strong argument could be made that it is, since it’s
safe to assume the waterfowl roost in a place that makes it very hard for
land-based predators to sneak up and nail them.
As stated, you have to find them
in the dark, you have to be very quiet so as not to awaken them, your shooting
will be in poor lighting conditions (even with a spotlight, which could just as
easily disorient you), and you’ll only get one or two shots off before
they flush and are back into the dark and gone.
Honestly, it sounds like a good way to drown. Market hunters killed a lot of roosting birds
at night, but only because they put the time and effort into learning the marsh,
their boat, and the duck’s behavior—and because they were willing to take the
risk.
I don’t think most hunters would bag more birds if they
could hunt at night. However, the
half-hour or so around when shooting starts is another matter. That’s when it’s light enough for the birds
to start moving around, but still dark enough to make concealment and decoying
easy. That’s the unsporting shot.
Sale of dead birds.
This rule was clearly aimed at the market hunters. To be honest, I don’t know that anyone pays
it much mind since there isn’t a meaningful market for the meat or feathers any
more. About the only time you see
waterfowl for sale is taxidermy at garage sales and antique stores. Most hunters don’t know this is illegal—I
doubt most game wardens know it either.
(However, you can sell “captive-reared migratory waterfowl” with a
permit. But I’m not sure how you legally
get the parents or the eggs into captivity in the first place…) At this point, it’s a meaningless rule.
Baiting.
Depending on what state I live in, I can bait deer, coyotes,
bears—that’s sportsmanlike. But not
waterfowl, which would be unsportsmanlike.
Obviously. I can hunt standing
crops, harvested fields, grain spilled as part of normal agricultural
practice. I can even hunt over food
plots planted by the state specifically to attract waterfowl to managed hunting
areas. But I can’t spread corn on the
field to attract waterfowl, because it’s unsportsmanlike. Now, I can spread the grain to attract
waterfowl, provided I’m not hunting them.
In other words, I can feed them, I can kill them, but I can’t feed and
kill them. But I can plant corn and
flood it so the ducks can feed—and then kill them. Stupid.
Live Decoys.
I can get behind a ban on tethering or wing clipping of wild
birds. That’s just mean. But I don’t see why it’s okay to train a dog
to toll, locate, and/or retrieve downed ducks, or a falcon to do all the
hunting for you, but you can’t train a Rouen duck to swim around in front of
your blind.
Trapping waterfowl.
Trapping waterfowl has no appeal to me… just like trapping
fur-bearers. All of the work, but none
of the pleasure; I’m not really sure how it’s different from farming. Sounds un-fun. But unsportsmanlike? How is it any different from trapping crabs, racoons,
beavers, etc.? Would it be ok if we had
to buy a special permit?
Hunting from a vehicle.
Thou shalt not hunt ducks from a boat unless the motor is
turned off or the sails furled and it is no longer moving from being underway. This includes dispatching a cripple. This is another one that makes sense if you
only pay attention to the spirit of the law.
Screaming into a raft of ducks in a ski boat with Van Halen blaring and half-drunk
baristas from the local bikini coffee kiosk making that party girl sound while
you unleash your cloud of Hevi Metal is clearly not sportsmanlike. Unfortunately, the law casts a wide loop
which encompasses not only the above described tool, but also the guy sneaking
around the marsh in a canoe with a mud motor.
I would hope most wardens are guided by the spirit when enforcing this
one.
I can use a stationary water vehicle as a hunting platform,
but unless I have a disability, I cannot hunt from a car or truck. Why? Assuming
it isn’t on the road (which raises some obvious, and potentially hilarious,
safety issues), what difference does it make if my blind is made of wood and
chicken wire, or sheet metal and plastic?***
Besides, unless I am making a permeant installation, to get within range
of ducks, I’d have to be real picky about where I set up my Kia-blind. The chances of it being worthwhile are pretty
slim (except for field hunting I guess). Honestly, there is no reason not to amend the
law to line up with boats.
And we should apply the same paradigm to aircraft if only
for the sake of completion. You should only
be able to hunt from an aircraft if its motor is turned off and it has ceased
forward motion from being underway.
Sinkboxes.
This one is just stupid.
I can hunt from a pit blind. I
can hunt from a floating blind. But I
can’t have a floating pit blind. I can
build a pit blind in a place where the water will come right up to the lip of
the pit, so that it has the effect of a floating pit blind—but it can’t
actually be a floating pit blind.
Stupid. Fortunately, they haven’t
outlawed waterfowling while swimming.
Shell limits.
As long as I don’t exceed the bag limit, does it really
matter if I bag all six ducks in one flight?
Honestly, who cares except the hunter?
But what about the argument that more shots in the gun would equal more
wounded birds as undisciplined hunters blasted away at fleeing flocks? First, that wasn’t the intent of the law; it
was written to make it harder for market hunters to make hunting pay, and also
to provide law enforcement one more way to catch the illegal professional. But be that as it may, anyone who has spent
any meaningful amount of time in the blind can tell you the third shot is
almost always a waste. First shot, at 30
yards, miss. Second shot (duck has
wheeled) is at 40 yards, miss. Third
shot (duck has speed now) is at 55 yards, miss.
Fourth shot? Come on… Let the hunters use more shells and stimulate
the economy.
Gauge limits.
I am no scholar of the 8 gauge, but this is a
summary of what all I’ve read; a lot of it is also summarized in
Phil Bourjaily’s article,
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (or was it the
Weeks-McLean Act of 1913?) banned the use of the 8 gauge shotgun for
waterfowling. This one is sort of a
head-scratcher. At the time, the 8 gauge
wasn’t a particularly common gun—I read that only a few hundred were made in
the US before the ban—and it certainly wasn’t the market hunters’ choice. The professional was far better served by 12
gauge repeating shotguns which had started hitting the market in the 1880’s.****
At that time, the standard 8 gauge shell
was 3-1/4” and held 2 to 2-1/2 oz of shot, and the lawmakers must have thought
of it as a baby punt gun. But the ban
was rendered meaningless in 1932 when Western and Ithaca teamed up to introduce
the 3-1/2” 10 gauge which could hold 2 to 2-1/4 oz of shot, just like the 8
gauge. By the early 1980’s you could get
a 3” 12 gauge with 2 oz of shot, and in 1988, the 3-1/2” 12 gauge with 2-1/4
oz. In other words, the “baby punt gun”
was really only effectively banned for 14 years… Where there’s a will, there’s
a way.
But as most hunters who’ve tried it will tell you, flock
shooting is far more hopeful than it is successful. Far more effective would be a Browning A5 or
a Winchester 1897 with 5 or 6 shots—two guns not effected by the ban. And of course, the same argument I made above
about shell limits applies here. If I
don’t exceed the bag limit, what difference does it make if I shoot all my
birds with one shell?
Electronic calls.
This is a law I’m entirely in favor of. Not because e-callers are unfair to the
birds, but because it’s insulting to our humanity. I see no place for electronics in hunting; I’d
be in favor of extending it to include electric powered motion decoys. Otherwise, why not go all the way: how about
a computer-controlled firing system for you gun that uses a camera or radar*****
to monitor target speed and range and fires when the proper lead has been
established. Perhaps we can rig it up
with some sort of Poly-Choke type device that will adjust the choke in real
time to provide the best pattern on target.
The great thing is the system won’t fire if the situation doesn’t
provide a certain likelihood of success percentage, meaning fewer
cripples. You know, Respect the Ducks.
NOTES
* Big business: meaning, a way for poor folks to survive by
working hard, scrabbling natural resources to sell to affluent city-dwellers,
like crabbing, fishing, trapping, logging, mining, etc. The main difference is that rich businessmen
didn’t enjoy mining or join exclusive logging clubs. Hunting has always been the sport of kings,
after all, and though this is the America of Davy Crocket and his long rifle,
Betsy, it’s also the America of Daddy Warbucks and his Mid-Atlantic Lockjaw.
** I can’t throw it away since this would be wanton waste of
a game animal. But what if it
spoiled? How freezer burnt does it have
to be to count as spoiled? That goose I
shot last February that’s still in my freezer still counts toward my possession
limit. This leads to another tirade I
have about wanton waste. As long as I
don’t exceed my bag limit, what does it matter to ANYONE ELSE what I do with MY
dead birds? A lot of hunters only take
the breasts and don’t save the livers for pâté or the bones for broth. Philistines.
*** I saw an article about some guys using an abandoned
house as a goose blind. What about a
dead truck? My Grandpa used to use dead
cars as storage locations for feed and tools.
They were up to their axils in the soil and half covered in brambles
etc. by the time I came along. It would
have taken an act of God to get them moving again--would these still count as
vehicles?
**** List of repeating shotguns available to market hunters:
Spencer, Model 1882 12 ga, 5 rounds
Bannerman Model 1890, 12 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1887/1901, 10 ga & 12 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1893, 12 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1897, 12 ga & 16 ga, 5 or 6 rounds
Browning Auto-5/Remington Model 11, 12 ga, 16 ga, &
20 ga, 4 rounds
Remington Model 10, 12 ga, 6 rounds
Winchester Model 1911 SL, 12 ga, 16 ga, 20 ga, 5 rounds
Winchester Model 1912, 12 ga, 16, ga, & 20 ga, 6
rounds
***** Though a camara would allow the computer to determine
if it will fit in your bag. In fact you
could program preferred targets. Haven’t
you always wanted a limit of banded drake shovelers?
Appendix A
The case of the Dusky Canada Goose… There are something like
five to seven million Canada and Cackling geese in North America made up of
twelve (or eleven) subspecies.
• Atlantic
Canadá goose (Branta canadensis canadensis)
• Dusky
Canada goose (B. c. occidentalis)
• Giant
Canada goose (B.c. maxima)
• Interior
Canada goose (B. c. interior)
• Lesser
Canada goose (B. c. parvipes)
• Moffitt’s
Canada goose (B. c. moffitti)
• Vancouver
Canada goose (B. c. fulva)
• Aleutian
Cackling goose (B. h. leucopareia)
• Bering
Cackling goose (B. h. asiatica) probably just an Aleutian, but extinct since
1929 anyway.
• Richardson’s
Cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii hutchinsii)
• Small
Cackling goose (B. h. minima)
• Taverner’s
Cackling goose (B. h. taverneri)
Up until 2004, the cackling goose was considered a
subspecies of the Canada, and even now, there’s a fair amount of overlap
between large cacklers and small Canadas.
I myself, in 2012, was taught that the Aleutian and Taverner’s were
Canadas by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW). As a whole, the species are not in
danger. However, some of the subspecies
are, most especially the Dusky. Up till
the early 1960’s, the dusky lead an idyllic life frolicking between its summer
range in the Copper River delta of Alaska and its winter range in the
Willamette Valley of Oregon. But in
1964, an earthquake shifted the land that makes up the Copper River delta up by
as much as four feet. This change in
landscape was followed by a change in plant life which provided more cover for
predators. Suddenly, the Duskies’
nesting ground went from being a Garden of Eden to a deathcamp, and the
population has been declining dramatically over the last sixty years. The Smart People have tried creating new
nesting grounds like artificial islands, requiring hunters pass a goose ID
test, check stations, smaller bag limits, season quotas, etc. But… the population is still dropping. Turns out the Duskies are just too stupid to
fornicate somewhere else. They’ve had to
close the Dusky season all together, so now it’s like shooting a swan. All this while the overall population of
Canada and cackling geese has been increasing—the Willamette is crammed with
geese right now.
Now, the funny part of this story is we were told by ODFW to
avoid shooting any darkish, medium sized geese because a game warden at the
check station might identify as a dusky what a biologist would identify as a
darker lesser (and vice versa). In other
words, the characteristics that make this subspecies unique (plumage, size,
culmen length) are, in fact, found in other subspecies. Remember the bit about overlap between the
subspecies? If the Dusky does go
extinct, what sort of impact will it really have on the world? We’ll have just as many geese, and we’ll even
have some that are medium sized with dark plumage; the same traits that mark
the Dusky could be selected back into the fore of the gene pool. Heck, another earthquake might lower the
Copper River delta and allow for a successful nesting site again. An asteroid might hit North America and kill
all the Canada geese—and the cacklers too.
So does it really matter?
Or is it all sound and fury signifying nothing (but providing an income
to a raft of biologists and game wardens)?
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