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for April, 1919   13 
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"While this year's harvest is our fifth crop of rice I have never been able to discover any material damage that the ducks have done.  In my opinion the rice which the ducks eat is that which has already been knocked out of the head by the blackbirds." (T. W. K. Brown, Mgr. Moulton Irrigated Lands Co.)

Apparently, blackbirds are more of a menace on the east side near Gridley and Biggs than are the ducks.  Certain it is, that hundreds of rice growers have never had rice injured by ducks.

Growers in the vicinity of Willows and Maxwell and W. H. Mortimer with holdings at Dos Palos, Merced County, have sustained real loss as a result of the depredations of ducks.

DUCKS EAT RICE

Plenty of evidence was obtainable that ducks eat both the ripe growing rice and the harvested rice when it is in the shock.  Green rice is not damaged.  Certain conditions usually exist when the growing rice is attacked.  A patch of open water or thin rice in the rice fields and a moonlight night is the usual combination.  Damage is most apparent also beneath a regular fly-line followed by ducks leaving the loafing grounds for feeding grounds.  A few birds drop into open water in a rice field or into thin rice and start feeding.  They are soon joined by many others until thousands of birds are often congregated together in an area of two or three acres.  Wherever the water is deep enough, the birds pull down the stalks and strip the ripened kernels from the head.  When thus working, the splashing and gabbling of the birds makes a sound very much like running water.  Afterwards the field has a whitened appearance easily recognized.  Quantities of thick standing rice is often crushed down by the hungry birds encroaching from the thinner stand.

An investigation of the place of Mr. Bismarck Harden near Maxwell, showed the following damage:

20 acres at 10 sacks
3 acres at 20 sacks
15 acres at 12 sacks
2 acres at 12 sacks
40 acres at 10 sacks
10 acres at 10 sacks
4 acres at 25 sacks.

94 acres averaging 14 sacks per acre. 

Inspection of Haakim Kahn's place just west showed:

3 acres at 20 sacks
60 acres at 12 sacks

On the Fallamon ranch near Gridley about thirty acres of thin rice along the sloughs had been destroyed by ducks up to the end of September in 1918.

It is doubtful if any other rice growers suffered greater damage than these men in 1918.  What the real damage was in 1917 is hard to determine because of exaggerated statements.  Much rice reported as damaged by ducks would not have been harvested had the ducks not injured it owing to high water or other difficulties in harvesting.

[[image - black and white photograph of trampled rice]]
[[caption]] Fig. 4. A splendid stand of rice injured by trampling.  The ducks began working in this rice, and then encroached on a thick stand causing considerable damage.  Ranch of Bismarck Harden, near Maxwell, Colusa Count, Cal. [[/caption]]

Damage to rice in the shock is sometimes severe, the birds dropping into a field knocking down the shocks and stripping off the kernels.  On moonlight nights damage is greatest.  Gleaning in the fields cannot be considered as an injury to the rice grower.  The total damage by ducks to growing rice in 1918 in the Sacramento Valley could not have exceeded 30 acres.  A large part of this was thin rice hardly worth harvesting.  One hundred and forty-five thousand acres were planted to rice in this section in 1918.

KINDS OF DUCKS

The pintail is the duck causing most damage.  Very few other species of ducks are to be seen in the rice fields and damage by such ducks as the mallard and green-winged teal is negligible.  The mudhen, however, is to be found in considerable numbers and owing to its habits may prove to be a worse menace to rice crops than the pintail.  The mudhen cannot be herded from the fields like a duck.  Instead of flying it hides in the growing rice.

Red-winged blackbirds are fond of rice in the mild and destroy large quantities on the east side where a growth of tules furnish suitable resting sites and cover. In the newer rice fields of the west side blackbirds are not numerous.

FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM

The presence of ideal loafing grounds in the vicinity of the Marysville Buttes cause a concentration of a very large number of ducks in the rice-growing district.  On the west side thousands of ducks loaf on what is locally termed "the trough" just east of Colusa.  These birds usually fly to the westward to feed at night.  Thus, rice fields lying beneath the fly-line naturally form an attraction for these birds.

Rice farming is carried on in an extensive scale and one man often plants several hundred acres.  Under these circumstances either the damage done is largely overlooked, or the owner has to suffer considerable damage because unable to protect so large an area.

IMPRACTICAL METHODS OF CONTROL

Among the suggested means of controlling the situation have been an earlier open season, market hunting and sale of birds, and indiscriminate hunting by outsiders.

Fairness to others outside of the rice growing district as well as the need of conforming to the Federal Migratory Bird Law brands an earlier opening of the season as an impractical method of solving the problem.

The throwing open of hunting to market men would not only be opposed by most of the growers, but would be adverse to the general principle that the sale of game leads quickly to extermination.  Furthermore, the enforcement of the game laws in this district would become difficult because the market hunter is known as the worst of the game law violators.

[[image - black and white photograph of night bombing rice field]]
[[caption]] Fig. 5. Night bombing in the rice fields. The photograph shows the explosion of a bomb in mid-air. Ranch of Bismarck Harden, near Maxwell, Colusa County, Cal. [[/caption]]

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