Bald Open Prairie John J. Lynch was a story-teller who loved a
good joke, including one at his own expense. He also is a folk-
hero on the northern plains, at least among wildlife biologists.
He was the guy who, in 1951, said, in plain words, just how
important the northern plains are to waterfowl populations. His
ideas are directly related to things that are important to
owners of Browning shotguns and Labrador retrievers across the
land: the seasons and bag limits for waterfowl hunting.
Beginning in the 1930s, but especially in the years following
the Second World War, when there were a lot of pilots, such as
Johnny Lynch, available for hire, the fish and wildlife services
of the United States and Canada refined their techniques for
estimating waterfowl populations through aerial surveys. Most of
the pioneering work along these lines took place on the Canadian
prairies. This led federal officials to believe they could
calibrate bag limits in order to harvest just the right numbers
of just the right species s