Republicans and Democrats have joined forces to stake out a common ground on this landmark piece of legislation. President Clinton has shown his support with a similar proposal, the Administration's Lands Legacy Initiative. And on Sept. 21, an unprecedented 40 governors signed a letter urging Congress to support the action. Sportsmen are asked to write the Congressional leadership of both parties asking them to get behind the funding package. Called Sarcocystis, the parasite showed up in a number of ducks killed in North Dakota early in the season.
Experts say the cyst is destroyed in cooking and presents no health risk to humans.
Still, most hunters who've discovered the cysts when pealing back the skin say it's so unsightly they've discarded the infected waterfowl. The Aleutian Canada goose, added to the Endangered Species list in 1973 when only 790 birds were found to exist in the world, has been saved. By 1990 the Aleutian Goose population had jumped to 6,300 birds. Between 1750 and the 1930s, in an effort to create a fur industry, arctic fox were introduced across the birds' Aleutian Islands breeding grounds off the coast of Alaska. The first extended spring snow goose season failed to produce the desired results.