Municipalities in Quebec go far into habitat where the hunting is good. Any municipality in Quebec that wants to ban hunting on their territory now have the power to do so. Hunters are slowly losing ground yet are doing nothing to counter any of the laws that are slowly suffocating them. As it is now, some woman’s group in downtown Montreal had enough clout to force the federal government to enact more gun laws.
2. Why do the ducks on the Quebec side of the border migrate to the south earlier than those on the Ontario side of the border? Hunting pressure surely. A day when the birds are not bothered seems to make a big difference. Ducks Unlimited spent a quarter of a million dollars on a project about 2 miles from my home. On the Saguenay River at St-Fulgence. It was a place where you could hunt ducks and geese every year.
The hunting was good….very good. Snow geese, Canada geese, ducks, etc. Hundreds of ducks nested there every year. Then one day about 25 years ago, they built a road through it. A couple of hunters protested about the fact that a large portion of the territory would not be used for reproduction. Farmers now had access to this land so they filled in a good part. Birdwatchers came. Decided that it should become a sanctuary and hunting was banned on most of it.
The bird watchers built a wooden sidewalk that completely surrounds the best part. The ducks must now pass under the sidewalk to get to their nests. They quit doing that after the first year. The area now gets visitors every day. Before, it was frequented by hunters only during the hunting season. There is a rather large mountain next to this nice territory. About 20 years ago, hang gliding came in style. Now, there are hang gliders flying over what nesting ground there is. This is very scary stuff for nesting ducks.
Now, Ducks Unlimited spent 250,000 dollars to buy and then flood part of it. They estimated that there would be an average of 20 nesting pairs of ducks. I rarely see ducks there anymore. The flooded territory is just at the foot of the large rock where the hang gliders take off. Now, what little hunting that was left out in the open water on the Saguenay, is no longer allowed because the municipality of about 500 people (St-Fulgence) has banned the use of firearms within it’s boundary which extends for many miles all around.
