Los Banos Rotary Club History
Basford Tells Of Duck Propagation

Harold Basford, San Francisco, a trustee of Ducks Unlimited of the United States, and director of Ducks Unlimited, Canada, Tuesday noon told members of the Rotary Club something of the work Ducks Unlimited is doing toward restoration and perpetuation of ducks and other migratory wild life.
Ducks Unlimited, he said, has only one purpose – the raising of money in the United States to be spent in Canada in the restoration of wild life breeding grounds and the building of low-level dams along the Canadian waterways to create new breeding areas and feeding grounds for wild fowl.

Appraising the work Ducks Unlimited has accomplished, Basford credited its continuing program with not only maintaining wild life at its former level, but actually increasing the annual wild fowl crop through restoration and improvement of the nesting areas.

Entirely separate from Ducks Unlimited he said, is the Western Migratory Bird Hunters Association, an organization representing duck hunters in the seven western states, whose aims and projects are concerned more directly with the duck hunter and his problem. It was through the efforts of this association last year, Basford said, that the national duck reason was established on a flyway basis that gave the Pacific Coast area a slight advantage in season and bag limit over regions in the eastern part of the country where ducks are not so plentiful.

This year, Basford explained, the Association plans to recommend 60-day season, either split or single, and to be set some time between October 8 and January 8. It will also recommend a 7-bird limit and two limits in possession.
Concluding his talk, Basford explained that all directors and officers of Ducks Unlimited serve entirely without remuneration and pay all their own field trip expenses. He urged the financial support of all local duck hunters who are interested in the continued propagation of wild life.

June 21, 1949

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