[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 22, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E866-E867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         MIGRATORY BIRD BAITING

                                 ______


                             HON. DON YOUNG

                               of alaska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 22, 1996

  Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, on May 15, 1996 the House Resources 
Committee held an oversight hearing on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service's baiting regulations under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. One 
of our witnesses was George Reiger of Locustville, VA who is the 
conservation editor of Field and Stream. An avid reader of his monthly 
column, I was honored to hear this man with outstanding conservation 
and private property rights credentials give one of the more blunt and 
informative statements ever made before a congressional committee.
  George Reiger and I both remember the day when Federal wildlife law 
enforcement agents and policies were more practical and less 
confrontational. Mr. Reiger's testimony stated, ``I've seen Federal law 
enforcement agents increasingly pursue policies that have done little 
or nothing to increase the flocks, but which have succeeded in driving 
many ordinarily law-abiding hunters from the field, including 
landowners who once invested considerable assets in migratory bird 
management, but who are now no longer willing for fear of violating a 
law no one understands.''
  I urge my colleagues to read Mr. Reiger's testimony to learn about 
problems associated with the current baiting regulations and possible 
ways to improve this situation.

 Testimony by George Reiger, Conservation Editor of Field & Stream, at 
 the Congressional Hearing on Migratory Bird Baiting Regulations, May 
                                15, 1996

       My name is George Reiger. I've been conservation editor of 
     Field & Stream for 22 years. During that time, I've watched 
     languid leadership in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
     improvise management policies that brought most migratory 
     birds, and ducks in particular, to historic population lows. 
     At the same time, I've seen Federal law enforcement agents 
     increasingly pursue policies that have done little or nothing 
     to increase the flocks, but which have succeeded in driving 
     many ordinarily law-abiding hunters from the field, including 
     landowners who once invested considerable assets in migratory 
     bird management, but who are now no longer willing for fear 
     of violating a law no one understands.
       The Migratory Bird Treaty Act gives the Federal Government 
     the right to tell sportsmen when they can hunt migratory 
     birds and how many per day or season they can shoot, but not 
     the time of day, gauge of shotgun or other, what are normally 
     considered, ethical options. Such matters should be for 
     sportsmen's clubs and personal conscience to determine.
       Unfortunately, we live in a legalistic society, and lawyers 
     have little faith in the power of personal conscience. As a 
     result, and beginning in the 1920s, we've created a spectrum 
     of moralistic rules to regulate migratory bird hunters which 
     have little, if any, value for scientific management of the 
     birds. The most arbitrary and capricious of these rules 
     concern baiting. Incredibly, the Fish and Wildlife Service 
     is now considering expanding these rules to include 
     [quote] ``the manipulation of native vegetation in wetland 
     habitats'' [end quote]. Thus, pasture owners in the 
     Southeast who have been burning hydric soil areas for more 
     than 130 years to attract snipe for hunting may shortly be 
     prosecuted for doing so under federal law. Likewise, duck 
     hunters in the West who cut cattails and bulrush in order 
     to open up holes in the marsh and to provide themselves 
     with material for making blinds could be charged with 
     baiting.
       Although career opportunism undoubtedly underlies some 
     abuses by federal law enforcement agents, I'm willing to give 
     most agents the benefit of the doubt by assuming their 
     excessive zeal is a function of their having watched the Fish 
     and Wildlife Service underwrite the collapse of continental 
     duck populations in the 1980s and now claim that only 
     partially recovered stocks are so fully recovered that we can 
     shoot them at daily rates exceeding those we had even in the 
     1950s, when we really had ducks.
       One result has been a no-warning law enforcement policy. 
     Agents stake out allegedly 

[[Page E867]]

     baited ponds and fields and then wait until the maximum 
     number of ducks or doves are killed before beginning to write 
     summonses. Shouldn't the agents themselves be liable for 
     prosecution when they have the authority to stop illegal 
     shooting but do nothing until the worse-case scenarios are 
     acted out?
       Since many of the people cited for baiting are hunting as 
     guests and are not even aware of the subtle difference 
     between ``feeding,'' which is legal, and ``baiting,'' which 
     is illegal, they often give up hunting, and the conservation 
     dollars they once generated through their purchase of hunting 
     licenses, bird stamps and excise taxes on firearms and 
     ammunition is lost to wildlife management. Adding insult to 
     injury, the reputation of hunters gets another kick in the 
     head every time a sensational headline about a ``baiting 
     bust'' hits the evening news.
       That's why I recommend that Congress replace the deadend 
     policies of the Fish and Wildlife Service with a requirement 
     that federal agents must notify landowners of properties 
     managed for wildlife in advance of the hunting season when 
     there is some question of baiting. To prevent these federal 
     agents from shutting down properties willy-nilly, they must 
     work with and have the approval to post a property off-limits 
     to hunters by a state conservation officer. If bait is merely 
     dumped out after the season begins, state or federal agents 
     will continue to have the right to cite such obvious 
     violations.
       This prevention-oriented approach would have several 
     positive results:
       First, the policy constitutes genuine conservation; SWAT 
     team and commando tactics do not. With few, if any, innocent 
     bystanders caught up in stings, the hunting tradition will be 
     better served and its wellspring of conservation dollars 
     better preserved.
       Second, by avoiding confrontation and headlines, federal 
     agents would recover some measure of the respect they've lost 
     among many sportsmen.
       Third, a policy of prevention will ultimately result in 
     fewer baiting violations, because the states will develop a 
     clearer interpretation of the rules than federal agents, many 
     of whom feel they have no need to maintain good relations 
     with local citizens.
       For too many decades, hunters have been haunted by baiting 
     regulations in which they've borne a burden of strict 
     liability. It's long past time, both for the sake of hunting 
     as well as for the birds themselves, to make diplomacy the 
     number one priority of wardens and to shift the burden of 
     proof and intent back to the government where it belongs.
       Thank you.

                          ____________________