Mr. DINGELL. The next witness is Mr. Ben Glading, chief, Game Management, State of California, representing: Pacific Flyway Council, California State Department of Fish & Game, and the Washington State Department of Fish & Game.

We are happy to have you present.

Mr. PELLY. He must be a fine representative when the State of Washington also has him representing them.

STATEMENT OF BEN GLADING, CHIEF, GAME MANAGEMENT, STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. GLADING. The Pacific flyway encompasses the States of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and California, and although they do not have a vote in the council, the Western Pacific slope portion of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

This flyway has certainly been the envy of the waterfowl people of the continent. We realize that we have had considerably better seasons in bag limits than have our less fortunate neighbors to the east. However, we don't have any moose or Maine lobsters and we don't expect a large limit on either of these two large species.

This, of course, is recognized by the principal flyway management. We feel this is a just principle and we feel the Fish and Wildlife Service in the past year has been wise in going to the principle of flyway management.

We are outvoted 3 to 1 on the national waterfowl council, so we feel over the years that there has been a tendency to try to limit our seasons and bag limits to those of the east.

There is a natural and understandable envy, you might say, of the duck hunters of the East compared to what we receive out West and we feel otherwise, that there has been a tendency on the part of those responsible for regulations to try to bring us more or less in line with the other flyways.

We feel naturally that the principle of flyway management should be maintained and we would like to have the Pacific flyway, insofar as possible, be considered on its own merits.

We also recognize in making this statement that a small portion of our ducks come from the prairie pothole, the duck-breeding basket of the continent, but we wish to also emphasize that this is only a small portion.

I wonder if I could show you some illustrated material.

Mr. DINGELL. You certainly may; we welcome it.

Mr. GLADING. The breeding area for the Pacific flyway that I mentioned, a small portion comes from this area. As in the case of the easttern flyways some of it comes from northern Canada, from the Yukon, and the Arctic area of Canada. However, a vast portion of our waterfowl comes even from as far west as 1,500 miles into Siberia, a great portion of Alaska, the Yukon, the Yukon Delta, the Copper River area and within the States themselves a great number of our dabblers breed. Importantly, however, and our case is going to be built largely around this area here, which is the principal wintering area for the Pacific flyway, and that is largely the Central Valley of the State of California.

Our flyway, in effect, has an upside down situation with respect to wintering and breeding areas. Whereas the critical part, the part of the three eastern flyways is affected by agriculture, by grainage highs in the prairie pothold country, the critical part of our flyway lies in the wintering areas of the Central Valley of California.

You gentlemen realize, of course, that this area is the richest agricultural area in the United States, and here we have a direct competition between ducks and agriculture that exists in this degree nowhere else in the continent.

I wish to emphasize this is the very heart and critical part of this problem. The gentlemen from Louisiana have been emphasizing what has been happening to their duck hunters who, in effect, keep up this marsh. In California, as in other parts of wintering areas of the United States, a great portion of this marsh is kept up by private duck hunters.

About 300,000 acres of about the half million acres that we have left in marsh in California is maintained by these duck hunters at considerable expense.

This broken line shows you the population curve of the State of California. This, of course, is a measure of the pressure that is applied by urbanization and increased agriculture.

1950 '51 '52 '53 '54 55 56 '57 '58 '59 '60 '61 '62 '63 '64

CHART 1.-California human population growth compared to number of duck hunters, 1950-64.

This solid line illustrates what has happened to our duck hunters. We have lost about 50 percent of our duck hunters in this 10-year

period. In 1962 there were 214,000 duck hunters. In 1959 this had dropped to 114,000.

This very serious drop at this point occurred when there was a restriction placed on our limits that we in the flyway did not fully agree with. At this time we lost our so-called bonus ducks and the season was drastically cut, so far as our hunters were concerned, in half.

Starting in these years, we have plead with the Fish and Wildlife surveys for stable regulations. We feel that our regulations did become stable at this point and we feel we have stabilized our duck hunting population.

Mr. DINGELL. May I ask you one question at this point? Have you analyzed the loss of duck hunters, as to whether they were casual duck hunters or whether they were the real hard-core, determined duck hunters, or club members or what?

Mr. GLADING. We know that a significant number of them were club hunters. However, it was pretty much across the board. We lost them on your public shooting grounds, which tends to be the casual hunter. We also lost club hunters.

Perhaps I could illustrate my point with a couple of photographs I have. We have an extremely valuable marsh in California. I was reading coming across on the plane "Duck Hunting for Sale." This

is not an unusual thing. But the price was about $500 per acre and this is the going price in California. This is one of our marshes and this is what happens to it if the man can't get $500 an acre from another duck hunter, he can certainly get it from agriculture as is, and this goes into land supplying peaches, tomatoes, catsup, and so forth.

What we are talking about now is this 300,000 acres; the other 150,000 to 200,000 acres is maintained largely by the State and Federal Government. I wanted to say that we in California are very proud of the partnership that we have with the Federal Government in this matter. We have wintering areas and they have wintering

areas.

We even manage the public shooting on the Federal areas. We feel that this partnership should continue. They have put literally millions of dollars of public funds into purchasing these areas and annually their budget for maintenance of these areas, I am certain, approaches another million dollars. I know this is in comparison to what we pay to maintain the some 30,000 to 40,000 acres that we keep up for this purpose.

One of the bones of contention. I think, with the Pacific flyway and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been over this matter of winter inventory. I was privileged to sit in the Secretary's meeting last week and not once were the winter inventory figures mentioned by the

surveys.

I want to emphasize also that this is a joint count. This count is not made by the California Department of Fish and Game solely. The Federal people and Federal airplanes take part in this count.

POPULATION NUMBERS IN MILLIONS

This solid line represents total ducks of the winter inventory. These counts are made in January after the waterfowl season. This is the 5 million level and 4 million level here. You will notice that there has been a definite upsweep since 1962. This semibroken line is the mallard line and this broken line is the pintail line. I want you to

CHART 2.-California winter duck survey, 1956-65.

also notice that combined, if you add the pintail line to the mallard line, you will find in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 percent of the waterfowl that are available for hunters in the Pacific flyway are comprised of these two species.

It is a prediction that if the severe limitations that are suggested go into effect, then immediately we can lose about 50 percent of our waterfowl hunters and, importantly, the rich duck hunter who we may not particularly love as an individual, but who are absolutely necessary to maintain this resource, not for California but specifically for the entire Pacific flyway. We have to keep him in the picture and the way we keep him in the picture is by this interest in his hunting. I have an article which appeared in Outdoor California, which is the magazine of the California Department of Fish and Game. I would like to place it in the record, if possible. One article deals with the winter inventory and the other deals with this very important problem that I mentioned with respect to the importance of duck clubs in California.

Mr. DINGELL. Without objection, it may be inserted in the record at the conclusion of your testimony.

Mr. GLADING. I have spoken pretty heavily of California, and perhaps I might have created the wrong impression. We in the Pacific flyway are not split on this matter, as you will find the States of the eastern flyways. We recognize that to the east you have a different