Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1914 — DUCKS OVERRUN THIS STATE [ARTICLE]

DUCKS OVERRUN THIS STATE

In Louisiana Hunters Apparently Cannot Kill the Birds Fast \ Enough. Washington:—“Northern sportsmen can have no idea of the pleasures of duck hunting in Louisiana unless they have visited that state and had actual experience,” remarked J. A. Dayries, a member of the Louisiana game commission. Mr. Dayries is also a member of the national game commission and is much interested in the movement to protect migratory birds from the guns of hunters. “It Isn’t often that game birds overrun any hunting section,” continued Mr. Dayries, “but that is just what 18 happening down In Louisiana. The whole state is fairly flooded with wild duck and geese, and the hunting season will be the biggest we have ever known In the state. The trouble is, we shall not have enough hunters to kill the’birds. Under the Louisiana law gunners are allowed to shoot only In the morning. “After 12 o’clock they must shoulder their guns and go home. But the presence of multitudes of black and mallard duck has put a new phase on the situation. The big flocks of mallards have Invaded the rice fields and have been eating up the rice crop to such an extent that the state game commission has granted 600 licenses to rice growers, extending the time in which they are permitted to shoot the birds. “After the ducks have finished with a rice field it looks like a cyclone had Btruck it. The damage to the rice crop, due to the extraordinary number of mallards, has been so great that it threatens serious loss to the growers, hence the extension of time In which the hunters may shoot the birds.”