NORTHEASTERN WILDLIFE STATION              BRUCE S. WRIGHT
DIRECTOR
OPERATED COOPERATIVELY By THE
WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE OF WASHINGTON, D. C.
UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK, FREDERICTON, N. B.
April 50th, 1952.
Robert A.McCabe, Asst. Professor,
Dent. of Wildlife Management,
University of iisconsin,
Iadison, Wise.
Dear nob;
I had planned to see you in iiami and tell you
about the new developments in the woodcock project. They were
finally firmed up there so I had nothing definite to tell you
before the Conference.
The Canadian Wildlife Service has bought in a
half interest in this project and are supplying a field assistant
who is here on the job now. We are therefore no longer on the
books of the illational Research vouncil for this project as the
wildlife Service grant settled our financial problems. The US.
Fish & Wildlife Service is also in on it and ijr. Logan -tennett,
Dr. Linduska, and Dan Chapman will be here within two weeks.
imong other things they plan to make a life history movie of the
woodcock, the breeding period to be done here, the hunting season
in jisconsin, and the wintering season in main .ouisiana.
We have worked out the egg dyeing techniaue and
now all we need are some nests, which are extremely difficult to
fine although we have 50 males singing on the study areanow. The
recording of the males' peent does not work here. They pay no
attention to it, or move away. We have not trapped a bird with
it yet, but we are still trying. ;,e have trapped a few in baffle-
type traps across old roads, but the broods are not off yet.
As a means of getting you to the Maritimes the
woodcock project has now collapsed. We have a Masters' man from
Illinois, Maine, and Wisconsin on the job fulltime, and two Ph Ds
from the Fish & Wildlife Service assisting as needed, so I can
hardly justify any further scientific assistance. We will have to
start again with some other project, and this time keep it from
getting too popular. They all want in on the woodcock project now.
Can you come up with any ideas for a predator study? Panther, feral
dogs, feral cats, bobcats, foxes and raccoons all are potential
subjects of importance here. Foxes and coons are high at the
moment, and the usual bounty demands are being made but so far
resisted. I am particularly interested in a bear food habits
study in connection with the moose study, as they are widely belie-
ved to be a serious -oredator on calf moose. However I know of no
place where scats in numbers could be collected as calving is
widely scattered over some 21,900 sauare miles.