Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We are optimistic about that. What you would have to do is decrease the mortality by roughly a million and a half birds somewhere along the line in order to bring your breeding population next year back up to 6.5 million. As it shows there, we would have 5 million. Somewhere you are going to have to make a savings of a million and a half birds.

Mr. PELLY. The way I figure it is 2.5 million in order to come up with what you wanted there in the way of a 6-million return to their breeding ground.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We add a million and a half to the 5 in the lefthand column. That will bring you up to 6.5 million, you see. In other words

Mr. PELLY. You came up with 5 million. You want to raise that a million and a half. In order to do that you have to take it off your kill, don't you?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We can get a little here probably since the Canadian season is going to be reduced, but the rest of it is going to have to come out of that 3,900,000 figure in the American kill. If we get this back up to 6.5 million. That is basically what we think we are proposing to do.

Now that is not going to do what my staff recommended. They were recommending that we bring this basically up to 7,200,000, a 20-percent increase in breeding population.

Mr. DINGELL. That is well nigh closing of the mallard season. Mr. GOTTSCHALK. It would be quite drastic because again it would have to be taken out of this somewhere.

Mr. DINGELL. Now let us go into other species. So far we have been talking about the mallard. Can you give us your population census of mature and immature birds back to 1958 for the mallard which seems to be the bird which is in principal contention and then can you give us just the population figures on other ducks going back to 1958. That will give us good years and bad years so that we can tell what we are working with.

I would like to know particularly your population with regard to the different species this year and in the different flyways. Give them by the flyways so that we will know what we have here.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. In the flight forecast which I supplied for the record we have graphs of the principal ducks, not all of them. I will see to it that your staff is given copies which are suitable for reproduction of these graphs which will show the breeding population indexes from 1955 to 1965.

The one I am showing to you now is the population indexes for mallards and pintails, the upper solid line meaning the mallard, the lower dashed line meaning the pintail.

We also have this for other species. I will be very happy to supply it for the record, if that is satisfactory.

Mr. DINGELL. I think it will be very good for us to have.

Counsel, will you see that that is in the record in appropriate form?

Mr. EVERETT. Yes, sir.

(See figures 3-6, on pages 82 and 83 for the data mentioned above.)

Mr. DINGELL. I want to talk to you about refuges. The statute requires that acres of refuges may be opened by the Secretary of Interior to a level of 40 percent. Is that correct?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. That is correct.

Mr. DINGELL. Now it would be fair to say that in some instances this 40 percent of the refuge could constitute somewhere near 100 percent of the habitat.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. There are some refuges where there is not 40percent habitat in the refuge. In other words, it could be more than the amount of actual waterfowl habitat actually present there.

Mr. DINGELL. In this kind of refuge in any instance are you opening them to such an area that you are opening 100 percent of the habitat?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We only have one refuge with which I am personaly acquainted where this will occur. I think I know all of these where waterfowl hunting is permitted in 100 percent of the habitat open to shooting, that is the Kern Refuge in California.

Mr. DINGELL. Why are you opening 100 percent of the habitat? Mr. GOTTSCHALK. We have a difficult problem in California, as I have already illustrated, because of the fact that birds are wintering on either State, Federal, or private management areas. We do not have a situation where they are scattered generally over a large expanse. The result of having a portion of the Kern Refuge closed has been that we have literally bottled up several hundred thousand ducks on that refuge and have in effect contributed to a situation where the surrounding duck clubs have had rather poor gunning. This compounds the problem that we have in managing the refuge. It certainly compounds the problem that the duck clubs have.

So, in response to their petition that we give them some relief, I have agreed and have recommended to the Secretary, and he has agreed that we will open all of the water areas on the Kern Refuge this year for 1 day a week so that 100 percent of the refuge habitat, that is the water areas will be open one-seventh of the time during the hunting season-1 day a week. The other 6 days this area will be closed.

I have just discussed this today again with Mr. Glading, and we have agreed that on a trip which I propose to take out there in November we are ging to look into the Kern situation to see if we can come up with any alternatives to this particular solution of this particular problem.

Mr. DINGELL. First of all, I would like to have a list of these refuges where you are opening more than 40 percent of the habitats submitted to this committee. We have had a number of complaints from conversationists about this situation.

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that is the only one, but we will supply you with the names of any others if you would like to have them.

Mr. DINGELL. All right.

(The information follows:)

NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGES WHEREIN WATERFOWL HUNTING ENCOMPASSES 100 PERCENT OF THE WATERFOWL HABITAT

Kern National Wildlife Refuge and Fallon National Wildlife Refuge, California and Nevada, are the only refuges in which 100 percent of the habitat is to be opened to waterfowl hunting. There are 66 national wildlife refuges in the system where some degree of migratory bird hunting is authorized.

Kern Refuge is located in the San Joaquin Valley of California and was established in 1960. It contains 10,544 acres and is in the early stages of development.

Following refuge establishment, the waterfowl population suddenly increased from 50,000 to 250,000 birds. This rapid concentration brought quick charges against the waterfowl management program of the refuge. The refuge neighbors claimed the refuge impounded the ducks to the detriment of the local hunting clubs. To relieve the situation, we initiated a 1-year experimental hunting procedure whereby the entire water area is open to hunting for 1 day each week during the 1965-66 season. The hunt will be carefully observed and is subject to change for valid biological reasons at any time.

Fallon Refuge is a satellite refuge managed as an integral part of the Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge and Stillwater Wildlife Management Area which were established in 1948. The lands in the whole complex are administered in cooperation with the Nevada Fish and Game Commission with management subject to the provisions of an agreement with the State.

Administration is complicated also by a checkerboard pattern of ownership wherein alternate sections of land are controlled by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and Churchill County. The county has granted the Nevada Fish and Game Commission a 99-year lease on its alternate sections; thus, in practice, no hunting closure has ever been in effect on lands of the refuge.

Due to the nature of the habitat, only two to three sections of refuge land are attractive to waterfowl. These sections are vegetated with saltgrass, nutgrass, and knotgrass on an alluvial fan of the Carson River before the Carson Sink. With harnessing of the upstream flows, water reaches refuge lands only during heavy-flow periods-generally during winter when water supplies are good. In keeping with the management of the total land complex, adequate sanctuary for waterfowl has been provided on the Stillwater Refuge unit.

Mr. DINGELL. Now would it not be possible by reducing the amount of these refuges that are open to hunting to reduce the kill of mallard rather drastically without going to the substantial bag limit reduction you have been going to?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. No. The kill of ducks on the national wildlife refuges in relation to the total U.S. kill is rather minor. I can give you statistics on this if you would like to have them. We have an exact tally of the number of birds killed on national waterfowl refuges, and it is so small on all except the upper Mississippi, that it is relatively insignificant.

(The information follows:)

Estimated waterfowl kill during 1964-65 hunting season of national wildlife

Mr. DINGELL. Are there any other ducks besides mallards and pintail that appear to be in short supply at this time?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. There are no birds that are in critically short supply. Indeed, some of the birds which a few years ago were not so well off have come back remarkably well.

Mr. DINGELL. Cans and redheads?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Specifically the redheads. It is to all intends and purposes back up to its long-term average.

Mr. DINGELL. What is its population roughly?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. The breeding population index for the redhead in 1965 was 206,000 and the average for the 10-year period is 217,000. Now this is a breeding index on the breeding grounds. It does not necessarily represent an absolute figure of the total number of birds. This is the breeding ground index, but gives you some idea about the population situation since the number of birds that we tally in our breeding grounds survey is an index of the population status of the bird.

Mr. DINGELL. Now in order to conclude the matter as quickly as possible, do you have any species of ducks which happen to have a very low incidence of juveniles to mature birds aside from mallards?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. This depends on what we are talking about. One reason we are concerned about the pintail this year is because the breeding success last year was low. But we have complete statistics on all species. We have the age ratios from our wing survey. Dr. Geis says that they are grimly low on the pintail.

Mr. DINGELL. This is as of last year now, not of this year?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. That is correct. The ratio last year was 0.5. There was half an immature bird per adult. The previous year it was 0.7. The previous year 0.6. The previous year 0.4. The pintail from all our indications has not been in a good breeding situation during this drought period which is exactly what we would expect. They just have not been able to make it.

On the other hand, it should be noted that the biological potential of the pintail to come back is probably greater than almost any of the other prairie nesting birds. We think with an improved water condition, they will bounce back faster, but they have been bouncing mighty lowly in the last few years.

Mr. DINGELL. Can you give us statistics that would help round out the record in regard to juveniles versus adults on some of these selected, highly desirable and heavily shot species?

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Like canvasbacks, redheads?

Mr. DINGELL. Canvasbacks, redheads, pintails. I think that would be very helpful.

(The information follows:)

Outlined below are age ratios in the prehunting season populations of four important species of ducks. The age ratio in the preseason population was determined from the age composition in the hunting kill adjusted by the extent to which immature ducks were more likely to be shot than adults as indicated by recovery rates from prehunting season banding data. Although the age composition in the kill is known for almost all waterfowl species, the banding data necessary to interpret these age ratios is available for only a relatively few species.