68,289 research outputs found
Test Track; Maintenance
No full textWater wagon sprays the soil test area beside the concrete track. The disced ground alongside the track is sprayed with water. This is in preparation for some future special tests. Mike Mumgaard and Dave Morgan are on the truck
Synchronization Overhead in SOC Compressed Test
No full textTest data compression is an enabling technology for low-cost test. Compression schemes however, require communication between the system under test and the automated test equipment. This communication, referred to in this paper as synchronization overhead, may hinder the effective deployment of this new test technology for core-based systems-on-a-chip. This paper analyzes the sources of synchronization overhead and discusses the different trade-offs, such as area overhead, test time and automatic test equipment extensions. A novel scalable and programmable on-chip distribution architecture is proposed, which addresses the synchronization overhead problem and facilitates the use of low cost testers for manufacturing test. The design of the proposed architecture is introduced in a generic framework, and the implementation issues (including the test controller and test set preparation) have been considered for a particular case
Agent Based Test and Repair of Distributed Systems
No full textThis article demonstrates how to use intelligent agents for testing and repairing a distributed system, whose elements may or may not have embedded BIST (Built-In Self-Test) and BISR (Built-In Self-Repair) facilities. Agents are software modules that perform monitoring, diagnosis and repair of the faults. They form together a society whose members communicate, set goals and solve tasks. An experimental solution is presented, and future developments of the proposed approach are explore
SVS file to test upload to Zedono
No full text<p>SVS file to test upload to Zedono description</p>
Putting Friends and Family to the test
No full text With the Friends and Family Test firmly embedded, how useful is it and what improvements can be made? Dave Hancock finds out </jats:p
Interview with Flick Davis and Larry Merovka in Washington, D.C. March 27, 1984 by Dave Hall
No full textOral history interview with Flick Davis and Larry Merovka as interviewed by Dave Hall.
History of the chiefs of law enforcement that worked for the Division of Law Enforcement.
Organization: FWS
Names: Flick Davis and Larry Merovka
Years:
Program: Law Enforcement
Keywords: History, Employees (USFWS), Personnel, Law enforcement, Lacey Act, Game lawsINTERVIEW WITH FLICK DAVIS AND LARRY MEROVKA
IN
WASHINGTON DC, MARCH 27, 1984
BY
DAVE HALL
Dave: This is an interview with Flick Davis and Larry Merovka in Washington DC on
March the 27th, 1984, and we’re gonna be talking about all the chiefs of law
enforcement that worked for the Division of Law Enforcement. The first one, it’s
on record Larry, as Theodore S. Palmer. We have it on record that he served from
1900 to 1960, course that was a little bit before you went to work.
Larry: The only thing I know about him is that he did a lot of work on our early days
wildlife publication, I mean the compilation of game laws. That’s what I know
about him, but I never met the gentleman personally.
Dave: O.K. now, George Lawyer.
Larry: George Lawyer was a very important man with respect to our law enforcement, in
this respect. He had a whole lot to do with the drafting of the text of the treaty
between the United States and Great Britain for the protection of the birds
migrating between the United States and Canada. He drew up the first set of
regulations for the hunting, and taking possession and so forth of migratory birds.
He was a very important person in the history of the migratory bird laws and our
enforcement.
Dave: Where was he from?
Larry: He was from New York. He was a New York attorney. It escapes my mind
exactly where he is from, but he wasn’t from New York City; he was from
upstate. I knew at one time, but it slipped from my mind right now. I don’t
recall…Watertown, Watertown, New York is where he is from.
Dave: Now in those years when they first started, do you know what they first called our
agents, like the Lacey Act people?
Larry: Well you see, the Lacey Act was enacted in 1900. The persons who were hired to
enforce that law were called Lacey Act Inspectors. If you want me to go down
the line…
Dave: Yeah. How many of them were there? Do you remember?
Larry: I don’t recall…not many, there were not very many of them.
Dave: Maybe six or eight of them?
Davis/Merkova 2
Larry: Oh, I wouldn’t think so.
Dave: (unintelligible).
Larry: That’s right. Just very few…(Unintelligible. Larry and Flick talk at the same
time).
Flick: Ray Steel and George Tongaman were a couple of them.
Dave: Ray Steel?
Flick: Ray Steel and George Tongaman.
Larry: There were probably eight or ten, maybe. Harry Barmarn, St. Louis, was one of
‘em.
Dave: Wasn’t Ray Holland probably one of them too?
Flick: I couldn’t tell ya.
Larry: I don’t thinks so. You see, Ray Holland came aboard later on and I’ll say a little
bit about that as we progress date wise. But George Lawyer was a very
important person with respect to drafting the laws for the protection of migratory
birds.
Dave: O.K…
Larry: Not only that, but he was the first federal game warden we had. Now you asked
about the title…
Dave: George Lawyer was?
Larry: Yes he was.
Dave: What was he called?
Larry: Game Warden, Chief Game Warden, Chief Federal Game Warden.
Dave: and the agents that worked under him…
Larry: Were called…well, let’s put it this way…I’m getting’ a little bit ahead…you were
asking about the Lacey Act. Why they were called Lacey Act Inspectors. Then
when the Migratory Bird Treaty Act became effective in 1918 they started getting
officers to enforce that. People who had been serving under the title as Lacey
Davis/Merkova 3
Act inspectors were then called game wardens, because they were enforcing the
Lacey Act, and they also enforced The Migratory Bird Treaty so they called them
game wardens. And then the next step…
Dave: So they called them Federal Game Wardens?
Larry: That’s right. They didn’t call ‘em federal, they called them U.S. Game Wardens.
Dave: Just game wardens.
Larry: Right. After that the next title bestowed on those officers was U.S. Game
Protector.
Dave: What years would that of been? Was that before you went to work?
Larry: Oh no. That’s been fairly recent. U.S. game protectors were probably appointed
in the1930’s, I would guess roughly. I’m not sure of the dates, but I would
assume that it was sometime in the 1930’s. And then, probably around 1950 they
were called U.S. Game Management Agents, and then, what you people are now,
they’re special agents. Those are the various titles that I recall…the humorous
thing to recall…some of the titles…they were jokingly applied to some of the
state law enforcement officers. They’d call them “brush cops,” “varmint
protectors,” “rabbit shepherds,” they had all kind of…
Flick: “Dog catchers.”
Larry: What?
Flick: Dog catchers.
Larry: Yeah well, “cat killers” was another. Game wardens in the early days loved to
go out and kill cats that were preying on wildlife, but a lot of people called them
“cat killers.”
Flick: The first game wardens in…I don’t know whether it’s North Carolina or
Virginia, were dogcatchers.
Dave: Yeah, Virginia I know. Even when I was working the Virginia Game, dog
catchers were game wardens also.
Flick: Yeah, right.
Dave: Then H.P. Sheldon.
Davis/Merovka 4
Larry: Now, H.P. Sheldon was in charge of federal game wardens, federal game law
enforcement when I came aboard. I met the Colonel. Fine gentleman. He’s
from Vermont. He was an ardent hunter and a good shot. He wrote good
stories; he wrote fine articles about hunting. He’s a high class gentleman. I
thought a lot of the Colonel. He got wounded badly in World War I, and I think
maybe that contributed to his, I would call, untimely death because I don’t
remember the Colonel being all that old when he passed away. But, I remember
him fondly as a good, fine leader of our law enforcement activity. He loved to
hunt woodcock, grouse, ducks and geese. The first time I met the Colonel was at
a meeting. Then the next time I met him he came to Memphis, Tennessee, and he
went hunting with the famous sportsman Nash Buckingham. He and Nash used to
hunt every opportunity he got. They hunted quail and ducks.
Dave: What year did you go to Memphis?
Larry: 1929.
Dave: Where had you been before that?
Larry: I was appointed a U.S. Deputy Game Warden in 1924, in Collinsville, Illinois,
which is an east side suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. I think it’s about ten miles
east of St. Louis. It was along the Mississippi River bluff. Got a lot of hunting
in the river bottoms there where I lived. I started taking an interest in wildlife
enforcement, protecting wildlife when I was just a young man, eighteen years
old. At that time the burning issue among conservationists, or goals and
objectives, were to do away with this deplorable practice of hunting waterfowl
during the spring migration season. A lot of people were deeply concerned about
that. It was making serious inroads on the waterfowl population. Around that
time there was a reduction in the number of birds. People got quite concerned
about it. The treaty between the United States and Great Britain for the protection
of birds migrating between the United Stated and Canada was negotiated in 1916.
After the terms were agreed upon and the ratifications were later exchanged
between Great Britain and the United States this treaty became effective in 1933.
Then, in order to implement the provisions of the treaty congress enacted what is
called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. That’s the law that’s the most important
from the standpoint of protecting migratory birds.
Dave: So, before you went to Memphis you worked along the Mississippi River as a
U.S. Deputy…
Larry: As U.S. Deputy Game Warden I worked along the Mississippi River. I did a lot
of work in Illinois and Missouri both. I think I pointed out to you previously that
those were two diehard states that did not want to accept the fact that they were
gonna have to give up shooting waterfowl in the spring of the year. The Attorney
Davis/Merovka 5
General of Missouri filed a lawsuit to test the authority of the federal government
to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. That resulted in the decree by the
United States Supreme Court upholding the…
Dave: Wasn’t that after Ray Holland caught the attorney general with a large number
of ducks…?
Larry: That’s right. He caught him in…I don’t know. It was either in Missouri or
Kansas. I’m not sure. Yeah, he caught the Attorney General of Missouri and he
filed this suite restraining enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act on the
premise that it was unconstitutional. Well, the United States Supreme Court held
otherwise. After that we had clear sailing, however, it took a long time before
Missouri ever passed laws of regulation to forbid hunting ducks in the spring of
the year. If my memory serves me right it was 1936, the first time that
Missouri state regulations prohibited the hunting of audubon in the spring of the
year.
Dave: O.K. now, you went down there to Memphis and you met Mr. H.P. Sheldon, who
was with Nash Buckingham. The U.S. deputy game warden commission
was given out to people to help the agency. Buckingham received that
commission in 29’ when Sheldon came down there to visit.
Larry: That’s correct.
Dave: Were there other U.S. deputy game wardens at that time?
Larry: Yes, When I came to Memphis in 1929 there was two of them there, and later on
Walter Mavin was appointed. That made three that were in the Memphis area
when I was there.
Dave: And who were the other ones?
Larry: Walter Mavin. He later became a full-time federal game…(unintelligible)… in
charge of…(unintelligible)…in Arkansas.
Flick: Were these U.S. deputy game warden commissions full-time job salaried
positions?
Larry: No they were not. They were part-time.
Flick: That’s what I thought.
Dave: Well, Buckingham took no pay.
Davis/Merovka 6
Larry: He had what they…U.S. deputy game warden without compensation, and the rest
of them were [W.A.E.], in other words when they were working they got paid and
when they didn’t work they didn’t.
Dave: O.K. now, Buckingham and Sheldon hunted together, but Buckingham was a man
whose loyalty was toward good law enforcement and trying to take care of…
Larry: Oh yeah, you bet. He was one of the first staunch supporters of good
management and conservation of waterfowl resources and wildlife in general.
He was recognized as one of these conservation stalwarts of the whole United
States. Not only the south, the Memphis area with me, but he was nicely
recognized as a leader in the cause of good management of our wildlife resources.
Dave: Well, you know what I’m drivin’ at Larry. What really interests me, I knew Mr.
Buckingham myself; I knew him well before he died. A man like Buckingham
would probably do as much about duck shooting and goose shooting as any man
that ever lived. He was a student of it from the time he was a young man.
Larry: You’re correct there.
Dave: And that was in the days when there was an awful lot of waterfowl. Buckingham
could see the days dwindling, and what gets me is there’s nobody that was more
of a student. Why was it that Buckingham could see that over shooting, well
earlier market hunting, and then over shooting and then baiting and all these
things were causing a serious drain on the resources?
Larry: Well now, I don’t know that it’s a case that people didn’t recognize it, it’s just
too much selfishness involved. People said, “Oh well, the spies are dwindling,
but never the less there’s still quite a few birds around, so why get concerned
about it?” I think that would be one of the explanations of the attitude that there
just wasn’t enough concern about something that should have been apparent to a
lot more people than it was, or at least given the kind of recognition it should
have been given that this is a time and place to do something about the future of
our wildlife resources. There was an awakening of duty on the part…well, people
like me, a sportsman. I was a game warden, but at the same time I liked to hunt
and fish, and still do. I felt that I had an obligation to the resources. As I
indicated I was only eighteen years old when I started to take a real serious
interest in the conservation of wildlife resources. I’ll tell you what awakened a lot
of people to the need of taking care of our wildlife resources. I don’t think too
much credit can be given to the earlier…(unintelligible)…league. They were a
potent force in awakening the public to the need of conserving our wildlife
resources. Later on they were succeeded by what is now the National Wildlife
Federation. In the early days the leader of the conservation effort was the Isaac
Walt League, headquarters Chicago, Illinois.
Davis/Merovka 7
Dave: Let me ask you something else. You knew [“Neddie”], Edward [Neddie
Macklehainey] also.
Larry: Yes, he was at Avery Island, Louisiana.
Dave: Would you put him in the same category as Buckingham?
Larry: Yes, I certainly would. I recall very vividly that Mr. [Macklehainey]
contributed to our knowledge of the migration patterns of waterfowl
because he was one of the most avid duck banders in the United States in
the early days. He banded a lot of waterfowl at Avery Island,
Louisiana, which the property was family owned for many years. And Mr.
Buckingham was quite a hunter. He liked to hunt, but he was also a
naturalist. He did naturalist work up in Alaska and he published quite a
few papers on his observations and studies of the wildlife. One of the things
for which he was probably most noted was the fact that at the time that the
plume hunters had almost exterminated the snowy egret and the American egret
he established a place on Avery island to protect these birds from further
molestation by plume hunters. In time he restored those egrets to large numbers,
and I think at the present time there’s still lots of those egrets that use Avery
Island…(unintelligible). Some of the….
Dave: Course he also was the one who put together all the great wildlife refuges down
there.
Larry: Well, yes. That’s true. Two big ones that are really the outstanding ones, one is
[Rainey] and Marsh Island. I guess…
Dave: And Rockefeller…
Larry: Yeah, and Rockefeller. The force out of those people in establishing, setting aside
those areas for the protection of migratory birds is just now become…people
are really realizing the importance of having done that many years ago when
there was an opportunity, because there was still a lot of land available to convert
into refuges. Now it’s hard to come up with anything in the way of a large refuge
anymore. Most of the areas that were suitable have been utilized either
converted to agriculture or industrial use or else… some of them have been
acquired luckily, fortunately to use as game sanctuaries.
Dave: What I’m trying to grasp today is Mr. [Macklehainey] and Mr. Buckingham both
were avid waterfowl hunters. They could have hunted ducks and geese for the
rest of their lives in the best areas that there were, shot all the ducks and geese
they ever wanted, but there was something in those men that drove them to going
further to try and perpetuate these resources for future generations. What is it, I
Davis/Merovka 8
mean, you were back there, you knew these guys. If it hadn’t of been for them
and then some of our leaders like Ding Darling and Ira Gabrielson and Day
and Aldo Leopold and a lot of these people, Ernie Swift, just on and on. It was
much tougher in those days to stand up and say that waterfowl may be in trouble
than it is today. We can see it’s a lot easier today, but what is it, I’d like for you
to comment too Flick, what is it that caused those people in your opinion to be
able…cause I’m sure that Buckingham wasn’t making any friends by coming up
here to Washington, and I’ve read the testimony he put into the record while
other large gunning clubs and these type of people were saying, “There’s nothing
wrong;” “We don’t need baiting regulations.”
Larry: Well, I’m gonna give one person’s opinion, my own on this and I think it
probably will apply to address the question you’ve asked me, and that is this: I’ve
always felt and still do, and this is one of my prime motivations in being a
conservationist all my life; I want to see my grandchildren and their children and
grandchildren enjoy this God-sent resource, the wildlife that we have here. That’s
my prime motivation, my unselfish motivation for devoting a lot of my time and
effort toward the protection of this resource because I realize that it is really a
God-sent value; something that I think should be appreciated by everyone, and I
certainly do appreciate it. So I would like to see when I pass on, I’m eighty years
old now and I won’t be around much longer, but when I’m gone my grand-children
and people that come afterward are gonna be able to enjoy at least some
of it. Maybe it might just be sort of a remnant population of some species, but
enjoy the beauties of nature and the proliferation of wildlife, the beauties of wild-life
and that’s my driving motivation. I think that’s probably true of the other
people we were speaking of.
Dave: What do you think, Flick?
Flick: I suppose what Larry says probably covers it pretty well. I myself, I always liked
to hunt. I liked to be out in the field and I liked to be associated with waterfowl.
maybe I’m a little prejudice myself, I don’t know, but I suppose that I’ve always
wanted to see waterfowl protected, perpetuated not only from the standpoint of
being able to hunt them but from the standpoint that Larry said too.
Larry: Well Flick of course I meant to make it plain that I didn’t only do it now, but I’ve
been an avid hunter ever since I was a boy. Perpetuation of resources is the
overall long time objective. During my lifetime I’ve enjoyed hunting as much as
anybody you ever met and I still do.
Dave: Well, let me ask you this: of course I come from the same background
unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it. It is a lot further
down the road than you and Flick. But, what gets me is that the people that seem
to have the greatest feel for the resource and the greatest foresight were people
Davis/Merovka 9
that were hunting…
Larry: That’s right.
Dave: …not the people that were, I’m not…(unintelligible)…on anybody watching em’,
but it seems like to me that this story does indicate that hunting and hunters, a
large part of them, have been really the saviors of the resource. You guys were
there, I wasn’t there…
Larry: That’s a matter of record, that’s true. We were the ones that were agreeable to
taxing ourselves, paying the duck stamp, paying license fees and whenever we
needed revenue to protect these birds and mammals. Why, hunters were in the
forefront to try to make provisions to get revenue to take care of these birds and
mammals.
Dave: Flick, I’d like to know in the early days when you were first a game warden and
then became a supervisor over one of our fine areas in this country for many
years. Did you always feel that the majority of the people were with you and
there was a lot of sportsmen and a lot of duck clubs that were supporting you, or
were they…?
Flick: No, I never felt that way. It was always a sort of a smart alick feeling to talk
about the game warden.
Dave: In other words, it was tough in those years to really appreciate protection.
Flick: It really was. You had damn few friends. You didn’t have many people that
really would support you. Those that would support you would support you
all the way, they really would be with you 100%, but they were few and far
between.
Dave: In other words, conservation as we look at it today was not very easy to sell in the
early days.
Flick: Not as far as waterfowl protection was concerned.
Dave: Do you think it’s because they feel that they’re “here today and gone tomorrow
and we’ll let someone else worry about it down the line?”
Flick: I think so.
Dave: It was a federal government problem not a local problem.
Flick: I think so.
Davis/Merovka 10
Dave: I know that even in my time the lonely feeling it is sometimes to go to a meeting
and you’re introduced to the bad guy. I have to say it has changed a lot.
Unfortunately, for people to understand the problem or appreciate it you have to
go down so low sometimes that you can’t really recover. I hope you’ve never
done that. People really didn’t believe there was a problem with waterfowl. A lot
of people didn’t, and maybe they didn’t want to believe it.
Flick: They seemed to forget that there were millions of them here at one time. They
don’t seem to think that they’ve depreciated.
Larry: Dave, I’d like to add a little to Flick’s comment which I thoroughly agree with.
Game wardens in the early days were very unpopular. Mr. [Reddick], who was a
federal game warden in the Big Lake area in Arkansas many years ago told me
he’s had people spit at him when he would walk down the streets of Manilla,
Arkansas. Now, I didn’t see that, but Mr. [Reddick] told me that and he wouldn’t
have told me if it wasn’t true. Here’s some of the examples of why not liking a
game warden: for instance, we’d park our cars in the early days…we had different
ways of closing up the front end. Now people raise the hood up, pull out the spot
where you put/pour down gas, pour your oil in, and they’d pour sand or emery
dust in there with disastrous results to the automobile. They’d cut your tires on
your patrol cars, stab them with ice pick
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