July 9th, 1947 
 
 
Mr. Aldo Leopold 
Department of Wildlife Management, 
424 University Farm Place 
Madison, Wisconsin 
 
Dear Mr. Leopold: 
 
                I am very imuch disappointed in your letter of 
July 8th, especially so in your statement "Your staff continues 
its incredibly expert job of taking a given set of facts and so 
twisting the emphasis as to create an overall impression that 
is false." I do not believe that the record will bear out any 
such statement. 
 
                I am enclosing a comparative statement of the 
estimates given by Ducks Unlimited and the figures quoted by 
the United States Fish and 'iildlife aService and I believe you 
must agree that with the exception of 1945 and 1946, Ducks 
Unlimited's figures were much on the conservative side when 
you consider that the Wildlife Service figures taken in 
January after the season's kill and included the count of 
ducks hatched in this country ;,-hich, of course, would not be 
included in our figures. Definitely the unfavorable turn came 
in 1945 and continued in 1946 because of fewer birds returning 
from the nesting grounds because of the reduced duck population 
in 1945. 
 
                 This year Ducks Unlimited has made careful 
survey thru their kee-men in the three provinces - Alberta, 
Saskatchewan and IManitoba - and a number of our Trustees and 
other contributing members have spent up to several weeks 
covering a substantial portion of the nesting areas in the 
three provinces and from what they report and what I personally 
have seen this year, I am satisfied that the overall picture 
is much better than has been forecast since January of this year 
and yesterday's release given by Frederick C. Lincoln is 
credited with the statement "t}±at eight fish and wildlife 
biologists in the Canadian waterfowl breeding areas and two 
in the Alaska sector have reported a slight but encouraging 
increase in bird population over last year." 
 
                  Consequently I am very dubious and much 
surprised as to the correctness of the reports which you 
indicate having received on the Canadian waterfowl situation. 
I know of your interest as a scientist and a student of con- 
 
 
IIIDIINt;ArVLI5 IJ, "L&ýA.