Art Hawkins oral history transcript

              Oral History Cover Sheet

Name: Art Hawkins

Date of Interview: March 12, 2002

Location of Interview: ??

Interviewer: Dorothy Norton

Approximate years worked for Fish & Wildlife Service: 30+

Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held:

Most Important Projects: breeding surveys; Flyways

Colleagues and Mentors: Aldo Leopold, Emmeline Moore (NY State Conservation Department); Dr. Frison (Illinois Natural History Survey); Dan Jantzen; Dr. Clarence Cottam; Gardiner Bump; Walt Crissey; Gus Swanson; Jerry Stoudt; Al Hochbaum; Al Day; Ed Wellein; Dave Spencer; Bill Hamilton (Cornell University); Lyle Sowles; Larry Malaher; John Findley; Flick Davis;

Most Important Issues: breeding surveys; Flyways; Pilot Biologist Program

Brief Summary of Interview: Oral history interview, actually more of a conversation than an interview, of Art Hawkins (AH) as interviewed by Dorothy Norton (DN), with comments by Betty Hawkins (BH -- spouse).

Early life, college/degrees; working with Leopold; grouse survey; military service w/Veterinary Service in the Air Force on milk standards in Texas; working for Illinois Natural History Survey; working in Manitoba, Canada, on breeding bird surveys; marriage and children; working for the New York State Conservation Department on fisheries work under Doctor Emmeline Moore; Flyway Biologist and Flyway Representative for Mississippi Flyway; breeding grounds work; development of survey techniques – ‘everything was new’; development of instrumentation, on the job training; flying stories; controversy over waterfowl limits, etc., Regulations Evaluation Group; Adaptive Harvest Management; influential people in career; high and low points in career; more flying stories; general conversation.

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Oral history interview, actually more of a conversation than an interview, of Art Hawkins (AH) as interviewed by Dorothy Norton (DN), with comments by Betty Hawkins (BH -- spouse).

DN -- Your birth place and date.

AH -- Is this going on?

DN -- Yes.

AH -- Oh, okay. I was born in Batavia, New York, in 1913. Batavia is a small city in the western part of New York State.

DN -- What’s the city?

AH -- Batavia -- B A T A V I A.

DN -- B A T A V … okay.

AH -- That’s between Rochester and Buffalo.

DN -- Okay. And what date in 1913?

AH -- June 15, 1913.

DN -- Okay. And what were your parent’s names.

AH -- My father’s name was Arthur, and my mothers name was Olive.

DN -- Okay. And what were their jobs and education? 2

AH -- They, neither of them, had more than high school education. My father worked as a machinist with the Massey-Harris Harvester Company. And my mother was just a housewife.

DN -- Okay. And where did you spend your early years? In Batavia?

AH -- Until I went to college, I didn’t get very far from home in Batavia, New York.

DN -- Okay. And what did you do during your early years? Like, any hobbies, or books, or…

AH -- I… my parents were not trained or particularly interested in such things as hunting and fishing, but I was, for some reason, right off the bat. And I was greatly influenced, as far general bird watching was concerned, by… I had a paper rout and one of my customers happened to be a little old lady in tennis shoes type of birder. And every time I would stop by for a collection or something like that, she would show me pictures in the bird book. And so, gradually, I got interested in songbirds, as well as hunting and fishing. Every spare moment… we had a… my friends and I had a place at a lake, or a pond, about five miles from Batavia, and after work, or on weekends or vacations, we spent most of our time out there – camping, hunting and fishing, and that sort of thing. So I spent a lot of time that way. And then, after I became interested in [sticky?] birds, I spent quite a bit of time just general bird observing. And my mother bought me a pair of two-power opera glasses, and I acquired a Reeds bird book, and so I was in business as a bird watcher at an early age.

DN -- Well, that’s good. And you went to high school in Batavia?

AH -- Right

DN -- What year did you graduate? 3

AH -- I graduated in 1930…

DN -- Okay.

AH -- …and then went to Cornell from there and…

DN -- Cornell in New York?

AH -- Cornell in New York.

DN -- Uh hum.

AH -- Cornell University. And I graduated from Cornell in 1934.

DN -- And what was your degree?

AH -- It was in… They didn’t have such things as game management, but I started out in forestry. And so I had a general BS in biology.

DN -- Okay.

AH -- Mostly field biology.

DN -- Did you go on then and get anymore than a bachelors or…

AH -- I…

DN -- … a masters?

AH -- Yes, I went back to Cornell that same year and started out… by that time I was in fisheries work more than anything else, and so, I started on a masters… a project in

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fisheries. And during the… I spent until the December break of that year working my masters degree. And at that time, I had an opportunity to go to Wisconsin under Aldo Leopold. And so I dropped my project at Cornell, and took off for Madison, Wisconsin. And there I spent… I obtained a masters degree there under Aldo Leopold.

DN -- When did you get your masters degree then?

AH -- It was in 1937.

DN -- Okay. So, did you have mentors then or courses that especially stuck with you and made you want to go into conservation work?

AH -- I always wanted to go into conservation work, from the time I went to college. So… but the nearest thing I could to it at the time was forestry. And so I started out in forestry. I was two years into that program when the forestry school at Cornell pulled out and went to Syracuse. And, so, I had to make a decision whether to follow it to Syracuse or to continue at Cornell. And, so, my curriculum from on was every course that they offered in outdoor biology – ornithology, ichthyology -- you name it. But… I took all the courses they had available. And so that was… where I ended up was very much in conservation, with that courses.

DN -- Did you ever have any adverse influence?

AH -- Any adverse influence? Wait… I don’t understand.

DN -- Against you. Anybody that didn’t want you to do that or…

AH -- Oh, no. I… everything I guess was positive all along the line. I was very fortunate in having an opportunity to get into actual game management, when this opening came in Wisconsin, that Aldo Leopold needed somebody right away to make a study of quail eruption -- the quail population had exploded due to a series of easy winters, and so, he

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wanted somebody to follow through on that and see what happened as the… things returned more to normal. And so… and he wanted somebody as soon as possible. So, I took the opportunity and was always glad that I did, because this was the turning point in my whole life, was the… going in that direction.

DN -- Okay.

AH -- And of course, Aldo Leopold was the… was one of the few places in North America, at that time, where you’d be get… actual courses in game management. And… there was in 1933 that he published the first book on game management. So, I was into his program right from the very beginning.

DN -- Okay. Where you ever in the armed services? Military?

AH -- Yes, after… after I got my degree at Wisconsin, I went to the Illinois Natural History Survey for four years. And then… from… then the military caught up with me and I was in the military for four and a half years.

DN -- Okay. What branch of the service were you in?

AH -- I was in the Veterinary Service and so my…

DN -- Was that the Army or …?

AH -- In the Army -- the Air Force, actually.

DN -- Okay.

AH -- Veterinary service.

DN -- What were the duty stations when you were in the military? 6

Well, I started out at the Camp Grant, and went from there to a new station at Wichita Falls, Texas. And then to another station in west Texas, at Amarillo. And I spent the rest of my military days with… in west Texas…

DN -- Okay.

AH -- … in Amarillo.

DN -- So you didn’t have any overseas duty?

AH -- No.

DN -- Okay. Did you get any decorations, medals, or special…?

AH -- Well, I had… in my file, one time, came a letter from General… I can’t think of the general’s name now… but, anyway… Hap Arnold, I guess… was that…

BH -- I don’t know…

DN -- Hap Arnold, that sounds like a familiar name.

AH -- Anyway, he commended our station for its program, and delivery of fluid milk, of good quality, to the military. Amarillo Field was the base for about five other fields in that area, for veterinary products, including fluid milk. And, so, my job was to actually work in the field helping ranchers develop a fluid milk supply. Most of the ranchers, at that time, were… raise cattle, beef cattle, and just they had a few milk cows on the side -- and had very poor facilities for collecting the milk and supplying it. They had what they call Grade C milk. And so, at the early stages, this milk was hard put to meet the military standards. And so, my job was to work with ranchers, right out in the field, helping

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them… helping develop a milk shed. And actually, I worked in five states while I was doing that. I just used Amarillo as a… the base and worked out around from there.

DN -- Did your military service relate in any way to your employment with Fish & Wildlife Service?

AH -- No, it had nothing to do with Fish & Wildlife Service. Of course, I was still on the payroll… well, not on the payroll, in the military years, but the Natural History Survey guaranteed me a job after everything was over. And, at that time, I was contacted by Ducks Unlimited, they were starting to look for people to work in Canada, and while I was at Amarillo, Tom Main, who was the… in the… their head person in Ducks Unlimited from Canada, contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in a job with them after I got out. And then the… some of the… Health Department in Amarillo was interested in maintaining the standards that there, and maybe improving them, the standards of milk and other products. And I would have had an opportunity to go under the Health Department at the end of it. But, I kept my options open, and went back to Illinois Natural History Survey for another half year or so. at that time, the… there were some opportunities with the Fish & Wildlife Service, and I was anxious to get a job that put me more in contact… direct field contact with waterfowl. And I wanted to go to Canada, the breeding grounds, get acquainted with that. And so, the opportunity came in early 1946 to join the Fish & Wildlife Service. And so, I joined on the… I guess it was May 1st 1946. And, within a week, we were on our way to Canada. And, at that time, we had one youngster. And so, we went immediately to Delta, and spent the whole summer working out of Delta, Manitoba. And that was the beginning of a series of eight years that we repeated that. Every spring, usually around the middle of April, we would head for Delta. and then, I was… supervised the Breeding Grounds Survey studies in Manitoba for an eight year period, when I changed jobs became Assistant… what was it… what do they call it -- Assistant Supervisor of Game Management. I was stationed in Minneapolis, under Flick Davis. That was in 1953, I believe, or maybe it was late ’52.

DN -- Well, Ede Donavon tells me that you were pretty partial in helping hire her.

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AH -- Well, it could be.

DN -- Yeah, okay. A couple more questions here about your family and all, and then we’ll go to your career. When, where, and how, did you meet your lovely wife? Do you remember that?

AH -- Oh, yes, I remember. During my eight years with Leopold I was… one of my jobs was to manage a one of the University’s wildlife experimental areas which was at Faville Grove, near Lake Mills, Wisconsin. And one of the members of this group… there was a group of ten farmers were involved in the experimental area, and one of the family farms was the… was the Tillotson family. And Betty is a Tillotson. And so, during the years that I was there we became better acquainted, of course. And then, let’s see I was in… well, and her grandfather was a… homesteaded in that area. That was why it was called Faville Grove.

BH -- He grew up there. His father homesteaded.

AH -- And his father… yeah, his father homesteaded, and deeded back to the mid 1840s where they settled there. So he was the patriarch of that whole community. And one of the people that Aldo Leopold dealt with mainly in getting the area started in the first place. And there was one of the… one of two or three experimental farms… farmer/sportsman cooperative arrangements that he, Leopold, was involved in. And, so anyway, that’s where I met Betty. And we were married in ’42.

BH -- No, Art

AH -- What?

DN -- When were you married? 9

BH -- ‘41!

AH -- ‘41, okay.

DN -- What date?

AH -- ‘41.

BH -- July 26th …

BH & DN in unison – 1941.

BH -- Out on the prairie.

DN -- Out on the… in Wisconsin, huh?

BH -- In Wisconsin

DN -- Uh huh, okay.

BH -- I was born in Wisconsin, out on the prairie, on the crawfish prairie.

AH -- And we had a reunion, this year was the 61st …

BH -- That’s right.

AH -- Anniversary of our…

DN -- Well, that’s good.

AH -- … getting married, on the prairie.

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BH -- That’s right.

AH -- And we went back to the prairie and had a… quite a…

[Overlapping voices]

AH -- It’s a complicated deal, and I’ll give you something that covers that whole period, I’ll give you a whole series of… you can use them as you wish.

DN -- Okay. How many children do you have?

AH -- Three.

DN -- Three. And who are they now? There’s Tex, I know that.

AH – Yeah. His name is Arthur, too.

DN -- Arthur junior?

AH -- And…

DN -- Arthur the third, probably.

AH -- He’s our oldest.

DN -- Uh hum.

AH -- And Ellen is our next.

DN -- Ellen?

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AH -- Ellen. And Ellen was only three months olds when we… wasn’t it, when we first went to… wasn’t she?

BH -- She was three weeks old when she went…

AH -- Three weeks old. Yeah.

BH -- Tex was about 14 months old, when we got there, to Canada, the first time. And we were there eight years.

AH -- And Ellen was three weeks old when we went to Canada, when she was born, and in ‘50…

BH -- And our third child is Amy. And she was…. We had a child in the ‘40s, and a child in the ‘50s, and a child in the ‘60s. That’s the way they just happened to come along.

DN -- Okay. And Ellen… who’s the next… the last one?

BH -- Ellen works with the Forest Service. And then Amy…

DN -- She does what? And Emily…?

BH -- Amy, A M Y.

DN -- Oh.

AH -- Amy is the third one. She’s the second daughter.

DN -- Okay.

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BH -- And she’s a part… she’s a naturalist at the Wargo, an Oakland county park –

AH -- Yeah. Ellen is…

BH -- … Wargo W A R G O. Which is right near Centerville, just a couple of miles… two miles from here.

AH -- Ellen is a ranger with the US Forest Service at… stationed at the Boundary Waters area.

DN -- Uh hum.

BH -- She’s in charge of a wilderness program for this region...

AH – Yeah, she’s a…

DN – Oh, wow!

BH -- Forest Region. It goes as far as… over to New Hampshire, it’s a big…

DN -- Oh, okay. Well, now we’ll go on to your career. It was a long one. So, you wanted to work for the Service because of your interest in conservation? Or why did you….?

AH – Ah -- In waterfowl.

DN -- In waterfowl.

AH – They were just getting started in some exciting waterfowl programs.

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DN -- Okay.

AH – And, of course there was…. So I guess that was the reason, and then an opportunity to go to Canada, those two things. And incidentally, they paid just a little better than Illinois Natural History Survey did, too. I went in as a GS 11, I think it was… in those days.

DN -- Your first professional position though, was with the state?

AH – Well, my first… my first real job that paid money was my senior year at… after my senior year at Cornell, I worked with/for the New York State Conservation Department that summer, on fisheries work, and under Doctor Emmeline Moore, which was a… she was a… back in the days when women were seldom held big jobs in conservation work, she was one of them that did. And she ruled with an iron hand, too, over the… probably the biggest fisheries survey ever conducted in North America was… and… well, I guess I should mention too, that during my college years I was paid for work that I did on the grouse survey… the grouse survey with Gardiner Bump… and which ended up… did you know Walt Crissey? Well, anyway, Walt Crissey was one of the coauthors of that book -- the major study that was conducted near Ithaca, on the Ruffed Grouse there, was one of the pioneer studies on game species, along with work in the south on Bobwhite Quail. This was a major study. And I had an opportunity to work on weekends and holidays on that program, too, and that was one of the things that helped me get an opportunity to go to Wisconsin. I had had that experience with grouse, and school… as long as it… all the course work that dealt with that sort of thing.

DN -- And so then, when you started with the Fish & Wildlife Service, was all of your career done in the Regional Office, or were you stationed at places…?

AH – No. no. Right from the very first, we were out of Washington. Our program, the Flyway Biologist program, was… ended up in Washington. And it was not until I came in as Assistant Supervisor in ‘53 that I was in the Regional Office. And then, shortly

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after I was in that position, I can’t remember just how long, it was a year or two, then I got an opportunity to become Flyway Representative for the Mississippi Flyway. My job with the Fish & Wildlife Service before that had been as Flyway Biologist. And I took over after Bob Smith, who had the Mississippi Flyway Biologist, was moved to the west to become Pacific Flyway Biologist. So, then, that was in the ’40, actually ’46, so, I was Flyway Biologist first, and then Assistant Supervisor for a couple of years, I can’t remember exact time, in the Regional Office, and then back to… under Washington again, as the Flyway Representative.

DN -- When you came to work for the Fish & Wildlife Service, what did you think the pay and the benefits were like?

AH – What did I…

DN -- The pay and benefits.

AH – Well, I…

DN -- What were they like?

AH – I thought they were great in those days. They… by a little bit, they beat what I was able to get… what I would have been able to get with Illinois Natural History Survey at that time, which was in the order of, as I remember correctly, four thousand a year or something like that.

[Chuckles]

BH -- I think, when you came out, it was just twice what your pay was when you went into the Service. The Illinois Natural History Survey paid about 1500 dollars at that time, didn’t it? And then, when you got out, it was twice as much. It was over 3000 dollars.

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AH – Yeah, so it was over…

BH -- So it was a big thrill when we got out of the Army, we were driving home from Texas. Driving home - with our little baby and all our belongings in the car, and Art came out from his meeting with Dr. Frison in Urbana, Illinois, and said ‘everything is wonderful! Dr. Frison has offered us twice what we were getting when we went in.’ And the job had been held for him, all that time. Isn’t that amazing?

DN -- That’s wonderful

BH -- It’s just…

AH – And then, when…

BH -- So we were so thrilled. And then we came back, and then you left me at the farm, at Faville Grove, and then you went back to the Illinois Natural History Survey, and found an apartment down there. And we moved down, as soon as I’d a little visit with the family. So, it was happy times again.

DN -- Okay. Very good.

BH -- But Texas was good. We really liked Texas.

DN -- Well, that’s very good. And did you socialize then with the people you worked with?

AH – To a degree. We were never big on all… on parties and banquets and things of that sort. we got enough banquets -- I did as a member of the… as the Regional Representative and a Fly Biologist at all the… we had lots of conferences around the country, and working as the Flyway Biologist, I was involved with all the states of the Mississippi Flyway --14 of them, at that time – and… So, I would visit all these states…

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and from Canada all the way… and Canada too, all the way from Canada to México. And there was always banquets and meetings and all that sort of thing. So, we didn’t do a lot of socializing beyond that. There was more than we could handle as it was. And…

DN -- And when you started, did you have promotion opportunities as then throughout your career? I’m sure you did.

AH – Well, I had a chance to… after I’d been with the Service for… Fish & Wildlife Service for two or three years, I had an opportunity to go with Gus Swanson, at Cornell University, a physicist. And Gus was actually the person who hired me. He was the… what you call them, a supervisor of research… wasn’t Assistant Director… Supervisor, I think they call them, of Research for the Fish & Wildlife Service, out of the Washington Office. Incidentally, it wasn’t always the Washington Office, in those days. Right after the War it was Chicago Office, [indecipherable] Office. It went back to Washington afterwards. But anyway, it was Gus Swanson who hired the Flyway Biologists, including me, and Jerry Stoudt was another that went on at that time.

DN -- I remember that mane.

AH – Morton Jensen and Bob… and there’s quite a number of…

BH -- John…

AH – … people who were hired right after the War.

BH -- John Chapman

AH – John Chapman out west and…

BH -- Ed Addy.

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AH – Ed…?

BH -- Ed Addy.

AH – Ed Addy, Ray [Buller?]… all of those people were hired about that time.

DN -- How did your career affect your family?

AH – Well, as far as I know, they loved it. It involved spending about half the year up in Canada. We went to… when we went to Delta the first time, there was… they weren’t… they weren’t set up at Delta to take care of guests at all. We stayed in what they called a caboose, which was a kind of a shed that they dragged out on the ice for fishermen during the winter, out on Lake Manitoba. And the fishermen lived in these. And then they… and that was all that was available when we first went there. There was no such thing as running water, electricity, or anything like that. And here we had these young kids, which made it a little more challenging. And… but then…

BH -- Oh, it was all fun though.

AH – Yeah, it was all exciting fun for us…

DN -- So it was called a caboose, like in a… on a train? A caboose?

BH – No, it wasn’t…

AH – It wasn’t…

BH -- Just a little one room shack, is all it was.

DN -- Okay. Okay.

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BH -- But we were only there one summer.

AH – Something… I think it was mobile, that they could drag around.

BH – Part… part of a summer. It wasn’t very long.

AH – Yeah.

DN -- Okay.

AH – I remember that the screen door… it had a screen door on it, but it wasn’t a very good, and the mosquitoes were real…

DN -- Oh, boy.

AH – … really bad up there.

DN – And, you left the Service… when you retired. What year was that?

AH – That was in ’72, I believe it was.

DN – And then you came back?

AH – And then I came back for another eight years, I believe it was, after that. And that was the time I worked on the book Flyways and had miscellaneous special assignments. One was on an oil spill in Texas. And then, I went up almost every year to the breeding grounds again, working with crew that were developing survey techniques, and that sort of thing.

DN – Did you have any kind of training to do all these jobs? Did you get any training? 19

AH – On the job training, I guess it was…

DN – I suppose.

AH – … for the most part. That was a very exciting time, because most everything you did was new. And, so it was… there was not much precedent… all the breeding ground surveys had yet to be developed, and the methods of sampling, all that sort of thing. Nesting studies to see how the ducks were doing, and biological studies of that type. And it seemed like most anything you did at that time was new. And they… that was the time when enforcement was involved very intensively in management, too. And they sent crews up every summer to help out in the banding assignments, and depredation problems, things of that sort. And, so, that was when we became quite well acquainted with a number of the enforcement people that came up there.

DN – What kind of tools, or instruments, did you use, when you were doing this work?

AH – Well, one of the interesting things was that this was before the days of these small… of course, way ahead of computers. And we were even unable to have recorders that would record the information right from the… as you were taking it down. I remember when they first got the idea that of… wire recorders. These were kind of copycatted instruments that… fairly large, that you can install on a plane. and I remember the first time it was tried out at Delta, Bob Smith was the pilot, and we flew a course all the way into Ontario from Delta -- three or four hours of flight time, recording as we went. Recording water areas, and ducks seen, and that sort of thing. And when we got back, Bob turned it on -- and nothing happened. Nothing came out. And I remember he had a couple of choice remarks to make about the new machine. And then he turned it on again and those… his remarks came out loud and clear. So that was our first experience. Another experience with the wire recorder, I was flying with Dave Spencer. And we were at… got airborne and were going into the pothole country in western Manitoba, and the cockpit started to fill with smoke. And, Dave was a military pilot, and he calmly says ‘stand by with fire extinguisher.’ I was in the backseat -- it was a two

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seated plane -- so I stood by with fire extinguisher, and he found a emergency landing field over at Neepawa, Manitoba, and put down. And, it was nothing serious it turned out, it was just the wire had contacted something and started to smoke. But no real damage was done. But, those were our first experiences with recording devices. Before that, everybody that was counting ducks had a pad on their knee and they’d make a record on their knee, with a pencil, of what they were seeing as they were involved in these flights. And then, finally, I think it was about the third year we were up there, they started to come up with these recording devices that you could talk into, you know, and that really simplified things, and changed the whole thing. In either case though, after a days flight, you went back to your room and you had a lot of copying to do from your records, with either the recording machines or the working off your pad. And, so, those were long days that we spent. And these were days of setting up transects, the transect method. And that then evolved until… that time. And so, we were testing it out for visibility of the ducks that you could see, and comparing that with ground studies to see how accurate your observations from the air were. Because the only way you could possible cover large distances would be aerial. And then you would have to set up transects and sample units of habitat. And so, that was the beginning of all this. And this involved intensive ground work to go over the aerial work. And, so, those were all days of early experimentation that finally has lead to the survey methods that we still use today. Could be pointed out, I guess, that the Service had not had airplanes until after the WW2, when they got free observation planes from the military -- L5s they were, Stinson L5s. And these were the first planes that they had, and took up to Canada for the very first of the work up there. And we worked very closely with Al Hochbaum and Lyle Sowles and the people at Delta at that time. It was a cooperative deal. And without the great help we had from the Manitoba game branch, we never would have been able to operate up there either. Gerry Malaher, who was the Director of the Game branch at that time, was extremely cooperative. And he believed in our program, and did everything possible to help it along, including making his field personnel, his conservation officers, available for transect work, and other things. And so, it was a real cooperative deal with… of course, the Canadian Wildlife Service was directly involved in it too, at that time. And in those early days there was a little bit of friction, as I guess you’d have to

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expect. US people coming into Canada and sort of taking over, pretty much. So, there was a little of that. But, we certainly didn’t have any of that in Manitoba.

DN – So, you worked with just waterfowl. How did you feel about the waterfowl? The birds? How did you feel about… when you were working with…?

AH – The waterfowl situation was not good at that time. In the early years, the duck populations were down due to drought periods. And the other thing that was happening was that all the soldiers getting out of the military, many of them hadn’t been hunters before, became hunters. And they wanted to have the experience of getting outdoors. And many of them had… the government enabled them to go back to college, to get their degrees in college. Many of them went into wildlife type work. And so, there was a big flood of trained people started to come out. But before that happened, there were very few people that had been actually trained in wildlife work. And, so, there was a period there that was… there was sort of a market for people who wanted to get the jobs, there were plenty of jobs around if you had any training at all. And then… so, that was kind of the beginning of big [indecipherable] hunters, and whole lot of new things that were coming along, making it more important to get a better grasp on what the waterfowl situation was. And so, these were some of the first years that we actually had measurements of the…. Ducks Unlimited had done some work previous to that, but their… the work that they were doing was mostly habitat work. And when they got involved in measuring populations, they were sort of getting into the business of regulating the harvest, too. because they came up with a lot of glowing reports that sometimes conflicted with those of the Fish & Wildlife Service, and there was a great deal of controversy with Ducks Unlimited, at that time, too. And we were directly involved in some of that. Some of the early biologists up there were on the ground to see… to compare what was being claimed with what was actually happening on the ground then. But that worked itself out over a period of time. Took a little doing at first.

DN – What support that you think we received locally, regionally, federally -- Fish & Wildlife Service -- what kind of support? 22

AH – Dorothy, would you say that over again, please.

DN – What support did we receive locally, regionally, or federally?

AH – Oh. Well, this was the beginning of a whole lot of things that I mentioned in cooperative type activities. I’ve already mentioned the good support we had up in Canada, with the Manitoba game branch for example. The states were just starting to realize that they had to reorganize… organize better too. And, so, that was the beginning of thoughts toward flyway management in general, and Flyway Councils. And so, it was right during the… well, around the ‘50s when the… early ‘50s, the states decided to band together in Flyway Councils. And so, they… that was… that’s when they decided… the Fish & Wildlife Service decided that they should have Flyway Representatives - one at each Flyway, to work directly with states on cooperative projects that had to do with waterfowl. And… so, that was one of these jobs, and the Mississippi Flyway was one that I got, and… I think it was in ’54, I believe it was.

DN – Uh hum. How do you think the Service was perceived by people outside the agency?

AH – Well, I guess that depended a lot on who it was. But, in general, the Service had some… a lot of critics outside the Fish & Wildlife Service. I remember attending some of the early meetings, when the regulations started to get tighter. When the… they’d been pretty liberal you remember. In the ‘30s they were still allowed decoys, and decoy… and baiting, all that sort of thing was still allowed. Limits were large. And when the Service started to clamp down, sportsmen’s groups around the country started to cause some problems. And I attended one meeting, for example, here in Minneapolis, that I remember, that Doctor Cottam was the Service spokesman at that meeting. and he had a real fight on his hands trying to convince the local sporting groups that some of the regulations that the Fish & Wildlife Service… restrictions were justified, and that the Fish & Wildlife Service was really starting to get a handle on what was going on up in

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the breeding grounds. And, that was one of the periods before, that I mentioned earlier that… where Ducks Unlimited and the Service was clashing on some of these problems. And, so, it was a pretty hectic period during the… well, this would be the ‘40s, and the latter ‘40s and the early ‘50s.

DN – Okay. Would you consider the bird banding, and all that you were doing, a project?

AH – The banding, and that sort of thing?

DN – Uh hum. What were the major issues that you had to deal with?

AH – Oh, the major issues was… getting a grasp on what the hunting mortality was, for one thing. And that was… that’s where banding came into the picture. Large scale banding efforts were set up in Canada, on the breeding grounds, tracing where the birds went from… which Flyway they were attached to, and what their mortality rates were. So, banding became a major activity in all four Flyways. And crews, including people from the states, were sent up to Canada. And that’s where the game agents came into the picture too, in a big way. And, so, major bandings were untaken in Canada, to trace where the birds were going, what their mortality rates were. And then, little by little, and this was due in part to work done at Delta, they… we discovered that it was possible to age and sex birds just simply by their wings. and this is when the activity called ‘wing bees’ were started – where, and again, this was a cooperative deal - state and federal, including Canada -- the wings were collected on a random… as random as possible basis, from all over the country, and sent to collecting points. And then, every… after the hunting season was over, crews would go to these collecting points, a crew of trained biologists, and they would divide these birds up into age, sex, and species categories. And this would give you an idea of what the age ratio was. And that, in turn, could be related back to the breeding grounds, where estimates were made of the population trends, the sizes of the population. You could relate that to the age ratios in the bags. And this started to give us a handle on size of the populations that were coming south,

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what part of the… what portion of that was being removed by hunting, and other mortality factors. And, for the first time, putting together a picture of what was happening in the waterfowl resource.

DN – Okay. Now, was there ever a major impediment to your job, or your career?

AH – Well, I…

DN – I don’t think so myself, but….

AH – I guess it depends on what you call an impediment. The… there were times when some people on the outside were so angry with some of our activities that they tried to force the Service to do something about it. And one of them had to do with this controversy I mentioned earlier with Ducks Unlimited.

DN – Uh hum.

AH – And another… I remember we had some problems in the Deep South, with states that felt that we were over regulating the supply. And I remember one time in particular, when John Findley and I were called down to Louisiana, and the Game Commission of Louisiana said its judges will explain where the Service was doing what they were doing. And there was quite a bit of resentment in the South, at times, against some of these regulations. And there the… in the Flyway Councils, the… when we had the 14 states of the Mississippi Flyway, used to vote on different issues about even. The northern states would be a vote of 7 for more restrictive regulations, and the southern states - with 7 - would vote for something… for something more liberal. And well, this caused some controversies that required the Service to judge the situation, on the basis of the way they saw it, and then set the regulations accordingly. And, never satisfying everybody, up and down the line.

DN -- Who were your supervisors, Art? 25

AH – Well, the regulations setting process was a pretty elaborate thing in those days. They… after all the information was in from the breeding grounds, and before the regulations were set, there was a meeting in Washington every year, which brought in the Regional Supervisors of law enforcement, which in their… in Mississippi… area where… Atlanta was Bill Davis, and this Region - Region 3 - Flick Davis, two Davis twins.

DN -- Uh hum.

AH – And they mapped, and then comparable to supervisors some other Regions, including Larry Merovka, for example, in the Central…

DN -- Uh hum. Merovka.

AH – And they would meet in Washington, with representatives of… well, the Regional Directors would meet in there, too. I remember when… well, Dan Jantzen was one… was the first one I think of that group. And he eventually became Director of the Fish & Wildlife Service. Anyway, then the Flyway Representatives were included in this Regulations Evaluations Group. And also the heads of research -- those at Patuxent that were involved in the banding work and that sort of thing. Those were all in the… involved in the committee that made recommendations - first to the Fish & Wildlife Service Director, and then he to the Department of Interior… Secretary of Interior. And those became the regulations. But they often involved pretty intensive meetings, trying to resolve the differences between Flyways, and northern and southern parts of the Flyway, and trying to come up with something that was fair and reasonable as the Fish & Wildlife Service could make it. And… so, that has been replaced with another system more recently, that is still in its trial period, which is called the…

BH -- Adaptive…

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AH – Oh, Adaptive… yeah, Adaptive Management… Harvest Management. ADM.

DN -- Uh hum.

AH – A H M rather. Excuse me; I need another cup of coffee.

BH -- I think it is.

AH – Yeah, AHM.

DN -- Adaptive… what were you saying the…?

AH – Adaptive Harvest Management. A H M.

DN -- Oh, Harvest Management. Okay.

AH – Yeah.

DN – Okay. Who do you think the individuals were who helped shape your career?

AH – Well, it… of course, there’s so many of them, it’s hard to… it’s hard to… It depends on where you start of course. There was a… there was a… people right at the very beginning when I… before I ever went to college that… I had a mentor there, [Arnold Keller?] his name was, he was the local head of the Genesee County Game Association, and also a taxidermist. And he knew more about the wildlife than anybody else in that area, that I knew of. And, so, he was my mentor growing up, in as far as the wildlife management was concerned. And he and the local game warden had quite a bit to do with it, too, his name was [Mark Selway?]. And, so, those two had… got me acquainted with… oh feeding pheasants in the winter and things of that sort. And, it was kind of a start that way. And, then in school of course, there was a whole bunch of

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mentors that were important. Bill Hamilton at Cornell… well, do you want me to name a few of them or what?

DN -- Pardon me?

AH – Do you want me to name a few of them or…?

DN -- If you… Yes. Yes. You may.

AH – Okay, well, maybe Bill Hamilton would be one of the top ones; and Arthur Allen in ornithology. And… Hamilton was in mammalogy, incidentally. And then a number of other professors there -- Dr. … well, I won’t name… those are… they’re two of the more important.

DN -- Sure

AH – And there’s a number of teachers at Cornell who were as good in their area as any in the country, I think, at that time, in outdoor type training biology, and these were highly influential. But the most influential person of all was Aldo Leopold. And he was the person that I still hold as the top person in shaping my career.

DN -- Do you remember now any of the Presidents you served under? Secretaries of the Interiors? Or Directors of Fish and Wildlife?

AH – Well, I… I have to…

DN -- If you don’t remember, that’s okay too.

AH – The one I was most active with, I guess, was John Gottschalk. I knew him as a Fisheries person before he became a Director… Regional Director at Boston, and then finally Fish & Wildlife Service Director. He and, of course, Dan Jantzen was the original

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Director when I came on came aboard. And he was very much involved in… I mean, he was very much one that I got a lot out of, you know. And he… Al Day was the first Director that I had real close association with. And in those days, people that were working in Canada didn’t go through a whole line of a contacts before they got to the Director. You went right to the Director. And there was more of a personal thing, in those days, with a much smaller staffs that we had and all that sort of thing, and so I had [indecipherable] Al Day and Clarence Cottam, in particular, too. and so those people at…. And then the one that hired me was Gus Swanson. And, well, just a whole list of people there to have… I guess I couldn’t… I’d have to make a list of them, all of them had a great influence on me.

DN -- Okay. How do you deal with….

AH – And…

[Overlapping voices]

AH – … worked with Flick Davis was a real treat too, and a real pleasure, and I got a lot out of that.

DN -- Do you feel that changes in the Administrations affected our work?

AH – Well,… Yes, I think they did at times. There was a… there was some periods where things changed, lets say. back in the… at the early period when Al Day was in there, there was a… while we felt that they were… they were fighting for the interests of the Service, more than, maybe, some a little bit later… you hate to mention names in this connection, you know, but, there was a period when Colonel Farley was… Farley wasn’t it, thought he was one of the….

DN -- Don’t remember the name? That’s okay.

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AH – There was a… more of a… seemed like more of a political job, I think, that was during the Eisenhower Administration, and sometimes you go…. And the people that were outstanding in my memory in the Secretary’s Office would be people like Nat Reed. He was the… he seemed close to the work that we were doing. He seemed to understand it and appreciate it. And it was…. Well…. That… if we get into that, it’s going to be kind of a long story.

DN – Okay. In your opinion, who do you think the individuals were who shaped the Service -- the Fish and Wildlife Service?

AH – Well, of course, there right at the very beginning Ding Darling was a good starting point. And that was… I think he introduced us to the modern era of Fish & Wildlife Service work. And he… and of course, he was greatly influenced by Aldo Leopold. They were on President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s committees, along with Beck, in shaping early policies… and for the Service to work with. And the Service in the early days had a whole string of upstanding biological people. They… their early work was more in surveys of… not waterfowl especially, but other things, you know, general surveys of plants and animals, and food habits, things of that sort, or economics of songbirds in relation to agriculture, things of that sort. And then, from Ding Darling’s time on, got more into directly managing. And so, I think that that was the pivotal point there then to change things and…

DN – Well, I think you probably helped shape it too, Art.

AH – Well, I guess we… everybody at that time put in their little bit of change, you know.

DN – Well, you have so much knowledge, and it’s… you’ve done a good job. What do you think the high point was in your career?

AH – Well, the high point was getting a… getting to go to Wisconsin under Leopold.

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DN – Oh, that’s good. Did you have a low point in your career?

AH – Well, I suppose… I guess, maybe the controversy with Ducks Unlimited was as, maybe as low as any of them.

DN – Okay. How about a dangerous or frightening experience? Did you ever have one of those?

AH – Well, yeah, we had a… what do you mean? Well, you mean, like flying and having the plane crash, or things like that? Well, I guess, yeah, we had several of exciting…

DN – Well, the one caught on fire.

AH – … exciting moments that way. one time I was flying with Ed Wellein, I headed into… to Churchill, I guess, or someplace like that, and we got a little bit up the line out of Winnipeg… while we were getting… at the halfway point or something like that, and one of his engines went out. and you had to use a widgeon with the ranger engines, and it had… was a twin… but, it had single engines performance, but just barely…. Anyway, we notified the… Ed notified the people back in Winnipeg that we were come… that we were lumbering in there. And so, I remember they had the fire equipment all that, all ready for us to land, in case we had a bad landing. But, luckily, it all worked out pretty well. That particular plane finally went down in the… I wasn’t with it, but Ed Wellein was. He made a safe landing in South Dakota. But, it I think it wiped out the plane, as I remember.

DN – Okay.

AH – And then another one… let’s see… another time was when I was getting… [indecipherable] up north with a pilot from Florida, I’ll go that far. Anyway, we got up to the Ilford, Manitoba, which is on the Nelson River, again, on the way up toward

31

Churchill, and he was bringing the plane in to the dock there. And there were… a bunch of Indians were there, they gathered there… they did that when people, strangers, came in, you know, just as a gathering, and he was sort of showing off a little bit. And he went crashing into the dock. We were, at that time, we had… what do they call those…

BH -- Well, it was a Seabee. Wasn’t it a SeaBee? You mean, what kind of plane was it?

AH – Yeah

BH -- Was it a Seabee?

AH – Seabee. Yeah. We were in a SeaBee. Anyway, they had a reversible prop. And, so, you can you can be going full speed ahead and then put it in reverse and slow you right down.

BH -- Just in time, when you get up to the dock. It’s real… hotshot, you know.

AH – It didn’t… it didn’t reverse. And we went crashing into the dock, and busted off a pontoon. And so…

BH -- So it was embarrassing, you know.

AH – That was embarrassing. And, so, we spent about four days at Ilford while he whittled out a strut for… to stick into the pontoon, and again we went back into a… into Winnipeg. Got back alright, and everything went well, but…. Oh, there were some other… other things like… that was one…. The same deal, the… I remember the battery wouldn’t start or something, after we’d had that… after he’d busted off the pontoon, it sat there for a couple or three days, and then the battery wouldn’t start. Well, finally got started, and he… the lake, it was not a long lake to get a take off on with a SeaBee plane, and, so, he was trying to get it up on the step so it’s ready for the take off, and the Plexiglas in the front of the thing suddenly came out, as it had been sprung when we hit

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the dock so hard. And he’d kind of pasted it back in, but it wasn’t a very good job of pasting it in I guess. And so, we had to abort the take off, and paste it up better, to get off the ground. And then, when we finally got back into Winnipeg okay. and so, there were… well, there were little things like that, you know, that come to mind when you mention… there’s a… there was always a certain amount of excitement connected with some of these flights. They… I told you about the one with the smoke in the cockpit and the things of that sort. And you… remember, you’re… surveying ducks you’re going 100 miles an hour at 100 feet in the air, all the time. And something can happen pretty quick there, you know, and things of that sort. And so, it… I can… one time I recall, we were flying… and we had special fuel tanks on some of these planes and you had to go… when you ran out of juice on one side, you had to open up the other one so they could start feeding the fuel in. And, sometimes then, while you’re counting ducks and everything, sometimes you don’t remember. And suddenly, you know, one tank empties and then you got to quickly put the other one in service. And, I remember one time, at… there was this sudden great pause in the noise that you always are hearing, I guess that’s why I’m deaf maybe, I didn’t have… we never worried about putting any protection in our ears back in those days. They didn’t seem to worry about it in those days. the pilot was always better off than the observer, because he had headphones on him, at least, and the observer just sat there and took it all in. Of course, you get use to the noise, and you don’t realize that it’s probably damaging to your ears.

DN -- Uh hum. Did you ever have a humorous experience? What do you think might have been the funniest thing that ever happened to you?

AH – Well, let’s see.

DN -- I think Betty knows.

BH – No, I can’t think of any

[Overlapping voices]

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AH – We had… well, we’ve had…

[Overlapping voices]

BH – … outstanding one

AH – I guess you’d call this humorous. One time Frank Bellrose was up there, you know Frank Bellrose, he’s a well known by all the bird people.

DN -- What’s his last name?

AH – He’s written Ducks, Geese, And Swans In North America, and so on. And…

BH – Illinois.

AH – And he…

BH – [indecipherable] Illinois.

AH – … and anyway, he was up there representing one of… the state of Illinois in a banding operation and they were using an airboat. He was in the airboat with Johnny Lynch and a few others, and there was… he was… and they headed out to looking for ducks to… for banding, I guess that was it, and he was up toward the front there where the motors going, you know.

BH – No, in the back.

AH – Or in the back! In the back! Yeah, it’s a back driven motor. Anyways, he stuck his finger up or something and he got… and it…

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BH – He [indecipherable] it.

AH – A propeller hit it. And it didn’t do an awful lot of damage luckily, but it…

BH – Cut off part of his finger is all.

AH – Cut off part… so they went in and took him to the hospital in the nearest town there, to get it fixed, and Johnny Lynch looked at his map and says ‘well, geez, it’s almost time for the pubs to close.’ So he let Frank off and went directly to the nearest [indecipherable], I guess. But, there was, you know, I think… I’m sure if I thought about it I’d think of a whole bunch of different things like that. But, there’s always interesting things happening. Let’s see… what’s was about Joe Perroux… and one time his… there was a bad storm, at Delta, and it ripped the plane loose and did some damage. You always had the plane parked in a [indecipherable] right near Delta Marsh, and Joe Perroux was there at the time. And…

BH – He had a Piper Cub, didn’t he?

AH – Yeah. And, anyway, then another time…

BH – Well, it pulled the… didn’t it pull the plane out of shape. It was tied down tight enough but…

AH – Yeah

BH – I mean, the wind was…

AH – The wind just…

BH – … so strong…

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AH – … you know, lifted it up and…

BH – … just bent it.

AH – And Bob Smith had the same problem at British Columbia one time. We went to a meeting at…

BH – Waterton Lakes.

AH – Waterton Lakes there, in… And he landed on… he flew Doctor Cottam out there, and I was in the plane with them, and we flew out to a landing strip, kind of between two mountains. And during the night, one of these mountain winds came up and ripped the plane loose. And so the plane we had ridden out in was carted back to Bear River Marsh on a truck. It was completely ruined. I don’t know whether… I don’t think it was ever put back in service again, as far as I know. and another time, Walt Crissey had a plane… well, in that case, there was a widgeon, I believe it was, and he was… they were in Costa Rica, and they… the airport was in kind of a high elevation, and apparently had too much weight on the plane and never got off the ground very far, and crashed into a finca, which is a banana farm, I guess it was.

BH – … farm of some kind.

AH – Yeah. And they call the fincas in Costa Rica. And that was the end of that plane. And Walt broke a leg, or something or other, and they had to ship him back. And there… I think John Ball was with them at the time too. And… so, you know, there were things like that happening, but, in all, considering the number of miles traveled, and all that sort of thing, the Fish & Wildlife Service got by really, really well. They had… they must have had good pilots to start with, you know, people that took good care of their planes. And… because there’s… all the people operating in Canada were really… really right up there with the bush pilots and all. They really had to operate under very adverse conditions, as they didn’t have good weather information usually. They didn’t have… in

36

the far north you didn’t even have good maps. And, in the early days, there was just… oh, I guess another kind of an interesting… or have we got too much, or we…

DN -- No, were fine.

AH – Well, one other time, I remember, we were again out flying into Churchill, and… so, I was with Ed Wellein I remember, and we flew into Churchill. And, at that time, the US government had what they called a DEW-line, along with the Canadian… they had these places - look out stations for any invasions from Russia or anything like that. And… so, we flew into Churchill, and we went to the US Command… we went to their headquarters. They were… it was lunch time I remember, and we went into Officers Mess. We thought we were going into it. They wouldn’t let us in. We didn’t… you have to be dressed… you had to have your regular…

DN -- Your officer’s uniform.

AH – Your officers coat on. And Ed got so mad about it that he… we went to the opposite side of field, where the Canadians…

BH – To the Canadian side.

AH – Uh, yeah.

BH – To the Canadian side.

AH – Yeah. Yeah. We went to the Canadian side, and we had the best of treatment over there.

BH – You were welcome there.

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AH – Yeah. We were really welcomed over there, and they got out the red carpet for us. And then our own command up there, they wouldn’t even let us have lunch with them.

DN -- I think that’s pretty humorous.

AH – Yeah. So, that was…

DN -- Also kind of insulting.

AH – Yeah. I don’t know whether you’d call that a humorous or insulting. I…

[Overlapping voices – everybody speaking at once]

AH – I think Ed was in the military himself, and I think he complained about it later, and I think the Commander and officer up there was notified that he had pulled bad one. And…. Well, as I understood it afterwards, I learned that the people that were assigned up there considered that bad duty. And the Commanding Officer was probably mad about it from the first, you know, and he took it out on everybody that came in there. But, we were quite impressed with the treatment we got from the Canadians, though. That same… well, this one has to do with Churchill too, this other story. one time with Walt Crissey and Ed Wellein, we made the trip around Hudson Bay, up James Bay first and across Cape Henrietta Maria, and then over to Churchill. and we hit there, I think it was on July 1st, and the… at that time, the military - Canadian and US militaries, were having a joint holiday, because our July 4th and their July 1st is Canadian… that’s Dominion Day up there. And… so, they combined it, and I remember that they had a sort of parade and… well, for one thing they did, they flew in the military band for a dance that night. They flew it all the way in into Churchill. And then they had a celebration, giving out awards and that sort of thing, on the parade ground, the next day, on the airport, the runways. And, I remember what a hot day it was. The ladies came out with their dresses, with their, you know, quite a bit of arms exposed and everything, and the mosquitoes were terrible. And I remember that… which is very unusual, to get a day

38

with a temperature above 80 up at Churchill. You… that’s a pretty cold place. And then, I remember other experiences out of there with… we hit the caribou migration, and flew over it. It was a very impressive sight -- thousands of caribou down below us. And then…

DN -- We’re getting close to the end here, Art, now.

AH – Okay. Well, that… there was another impressive part of the whole deal. They were just doing the mapping then. they were flying big Lancasters out of… that are long range British type planes that… or Canadian planes that… and they were going out on seven hour junkets, you know, getting their aerial photos and mapping it for the first time. That must have been 1947, or right in that period, or something like that.

DN – Okay.

AH – And before that, these big areas up there were… um… maps were indicated as unmapped. And so the pilots had to fly using their machines, I mean, their compasses, which were faulty up in that country too, as you get that far north there, the compasses are a little bit faulty. Are you at the end of the…

DN – No, we’re okay. Where do you see the Service heading in the next decade -- the Fish & Wildlife Service?

AH – Well, have you seen this tape of an interview, at Shepherdstown, must have been in 1949 or ’50, at which all the directors there were…

DN – No, I haven’t seen that tape.

AH – We’ve got it somewhere.

BH – Not ‘49 or ’50.

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AH – When was it?

BH – Well, it was lots more recent than that.

AH – Maybe more recent than that?

BH – Because the Shepherdstown…

AH – I don’t mean ’49. I meant ’99.

DN – Oh.

BH – ’99.

DN – No. I… I haven’t seen it.

AH – Yeah. Very recent it is. And anyway, I think they had five or six directors there at once.

DN – Okay.

AH – And they all were commenting on that. That was when Gottschalk was still alive. And, let’s see, who were the others? There was… who would that have been at that? I’m trying to think of…

DN – Well, where do you feel the Service is going to be going -- up or down? Or do you think its going to stay right where we’re at?

AH – Right now… right now, it seems to me that you’re… back in terms of waterfowl management, I have some problems with the way it’s going right now. One of the best

40

examples is last fall, or just this year, I mean. the regulations this year, which extended the season one week on both ends, on top of a situation that permitted very liberal hunting regulations, and also giving the… well, forcing the states to make a decision on whether to open early or not, even though most states in the northern tier, where the breeding grounds are, felt that it was detrimental to their own population of birds, breeding birds, to open it a week earlier. They… anyway, with a deteriorating situation in Canada, the drought conditions last year, and rather poor production, and then allowing these liberalized regulations to continue, which they were started under this new program that I told you about that…

BH – Adaptive Harvest.

DN – Yeah.

AH – AHM program. That, this, to me, indicates that the Service is not… oh, what do we say, as conscience about the welfare of the birds as they once were.

DN – Uh hum.

AH – It seems to me that they’re more interested in harvesting as many birds as they can. of course, one of the reasons they’re doing that is that hunter numbers have fallen off, and particularly youth hunters, and so they’re concerned about keeping the level of hunters… of waterfowl hunters up as high as possible, to produce the revenue that you need to manage waterfowl. The refuges and the other things that… the personnel involved, and all that sort of thing, requires a lot of money. And with numbers of hunter dropping off, you’re loosing money, you have that support those activities. And this is a matter of, you know, serious concern. But, to in any way jeopardize the resource, or take a chance -- knowingly or unknowingly -- to me is going in the wrong direction. And I would… I can’t see the… well, the thing that made the difference I guess was to add to an already liberal situation. And then allowing states to have one week more, on either end… I

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mean an earlier or a later closer, to me was a sign of weakness. And I hate to see it go in that direction. That indicates political interference, to me.

DN – Okay.

AH – And I hate to see that.

DN -- Do you think… who do you think is… that we should be interviewing, now? Do you have any ideas of somebody that we might be missing, ‘cause were trying to get as many as we can. And were trying to get the ones who had, you know, you’re a little older, and we want to get them for sure. I wouldn’t want to call you in two years from now and find you don’t live here anymore because you went home to heaven, but… Do you have any ideas… anybody we should be interviewing?

AH – Well, let’s see. Who are you… are you including refuge personnel?

DN -- Oh, yes.

AH – Okay. Refuges and game management…

DN – Yeah. I’m going to do Harold Benson on Monday.

AH – Oh, uh huh. There’s a… there’s some that used… that live around Flathead Lake.

DN -- Where? Which lake?

AH – [Homer Bradley?], do you have him on the list, for example

DN – Well, I don’t know if I have him.

BH – Montana.

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DN – Oh, in Montana. Well, I…

BH -- Flathead Lake.

DN -- I’d love to go out there.

BH -- No. He’s right down at Rochester.

AH – Well, I know, but Flathead Lake was kind of a retirement point for…

DN -- Edward B. Brandy… Bradley?

AH – Which…? []

BH – No.

AH – No. No. That’s Homer…

DN -- That’s the only Bradley that’s on this list.

AH – Well, he may not be alive.

BH – [indecipherable] too old. I mean, he might not be with us any more.

AH -- He may not be.

DN -- Okay.

BH – Well, then he was here. But, he was living down in an apartment in Rochester.

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AH -- In Rochester.

BH – ‘Cause his daughter is a lawyer down there some place, and she… he’s near her.

DN -- Okay.

BH – So he’s living [indecipherable] Rochester.

DN -- What’s his name -- [Homer Bradley ?]?

BH – [Homer Bradley ?]. He was the…

AH -- He was the refuge…

BH – Refuge Manager at Chautauqua…

AH -- He was one of the very early ones. He was a…

BH – … Illinois…

DN -- Okay, I…

AH -- He’s one of…

BH – He’s very, very smart and articulate.

AH -- And he’s… he’s worked under…

[Overlapping voices]

DN -- And he worked in Region 3? Was he in…

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AH -- Probably, most of his career was in Region 3, although he finally lived in Montana.

DN – Okay.

AH -- Before he moved to…

[Overlapping voices]

BH – ... retired they went to Montana.

DN -- Okay.

[Overlapping voices]

AH – Well, it’s the Flathead Valley at…

BH – Flathead Valley….

[Overlapping voices]

AH – Yeah. Near [indecipherable] Refuge, actually was where he lived, and…

DN – Well, I’ve done quite a few of the refuge people, too, already.

AH – Well, let’s see, what… what’s the one in Oregon that we… has just written a book? I’ll show you…

DN -- Harvey Reeves? Milt Reeves?

AH – No. No. No. Not Milt.

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DN -- Larry DeBates?

AH – No. Larry… no, not Larry. No. It’s somebody way before them. I got his book in here, I think.

DN -- Well, Oregon, huh.

BH – You could use Brad Ehlers… get Brad Ehlers…

AH – Yeah, Brad Ehlers…

DN -- Who?

BH – For a reference, Art.

DN -- Who did you say Betty?

BH – Brad Ehlers.

DN – E I L E R S?

BH – E… E… E h l e r s.

DN – Okay. I’ll see if he’s on… the list.

BH – He’s at Sherman Refuge.

DN – E H… well, he’s not on this list either, but they are bringing this list up to date.

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BH – Oh, I see. Well, he’s just about ready to retire, and I don’t know he’s retired yet or not. But he’s our own son’s age, so that would….

DN – Oh, right, then he probably hasn’t retired yet.

BH – Well, he might not have.

DN – Yeah, okay.

BH – But, I think he was in some of Tex’s classes at the…

DN – Well, were almost to the end of this tape. Oh, and Art has somebody who wrote a book.

AH – Ed O’Neil, if you want…

BH – Oh, Ed O’Neil, do you know him?

DN -- Ed O’Neil? No, I don’t know him. But let’s see if he’s on…

AH – He could be a wonderful source of information.

DN -- Oh, good.

AH – And last we talked to him was a couple of years ago. He was… he’s as sharp as a tack.

[Overlapping voices]

BH – Bob Smith

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DN – Oh, he’s not on this list either. But we’re… this list is being brought up to date. This is the most current one we have, but…

AH – Yeah.

DN – They will be….

[Overlapping voices]

AH – He’s written this book, and he got an awful lot of good stuff in it.

DN – Okay.

AH – And, let’s see now… and who’s the one that used to be out at Sherborn, here, before that…?

BH – You mean… the… Ed… Ehlers… Brad Ehlers?

AH – No. No. No. Before Brad.

BH – Oh.

AH – Refuge manager. Retired out there. Oh, we know his so well. He stops by here. He lives right close here, too. Oh, geez, what’s his name?

BH – He lives…

AH – Well, you know, he stopped about the… vultures on…

BH – Oh, oh, ahh….

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AH – He’s a….

DN -- What’s his name?

AH – Oh, darn it! Well, that’s one of the problems this….

DN -- This a senior moment? When you can’t remember

BH – [indecipherable] all the bird trips, Art.

AH – Yeah. He’s been over in Africa since he retired and everything. He’s a… he was… he’s had good experience out on Mahler Refuge. He was manager…

DN -- Okay.

AH – And manager…

DN – Well, those things aren’t… I mean, that vital. We’re going to get to as many as we can get.

[Overlapping voices]

AH – Well, but, he’s so handy. He’s right here in the city.

DN – Yeah, that would just be great. Yeah. Well, if you think of him at some other time, Art, you can give me a call? If you don’t…

AH – Yeah, I’ll probably think of him the minute you’re gone.

DN – Okay. 49

BH – Shall we call up Brad Ehlers?

AH – No.

[Overlapping voices]

AH – No. No. Not right now.

[Overlapping voices]

AH – Yeah. But that… he’d be handy, you know, you can get him…

DN -- Right.

AH – I don’t know if you need to… he’s out at Sherborn Refuge, and…. Oh, well, let’s see, who else is around here that… from that period or…

DN -- I didn’t bring all the Region 3…

AH – How about how about [Rich Stice?]? You got him on the list, there.

DN – No. Yes, he’s here.

AH – He… the last I knew, he was still going strong out in Boston, I believe he is. And he used to be in this Region. What about Blazeovic?

DN – Yeah, he’s in Andover, Massachusetts.

AH – Yeah

DN – Yeah, [Rick Stice?] is…

50

AH – You got Blazevic?

DN -- Blazevic?

AH – Yeah.

DN -- Yes, I do.

AH – Yeah, okay.

DN -- I’m going to do him and [Duncan?]… and [Elmer Swenson?] and Jim Gritman…

[Overlapping voices]

DN -- … hopefully, before Christmas.

BH – I can call Amy. I can call Amy and get his name.

[Overlapping voices]

DN -- Well, I think that for now… were just about to the end of the tape…

[Overlapping voices]

DN -- … and I don’t want to…

BH – Okay.

DN -- I want to thank you so much, Art, for your time. And, you did a good job of this interview!

51

AH – Well, it… you know, it got pretty rambling.

DN -- That’s okay, that’s very good. So, thank you very much.

AH – Well, if you have any other occasion, we’d be delighted to have you come out and join us and…

DN -- Okay.

AH – And… good seeing you again, Dorothy.

DN -- Good to see you, too. And meet Betty. Thank you.

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