13,987 research outputs found
Dave Paullin
No full textDave Paullin oral history interview as conducted by Dave Smith.
Dave Paullin was the first full time coordinator for Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture.
Organization: FWS
Name: Dave Paullin
Years:
Program: Refuges
Keywords: History, Biography, Wetlands, Wildlife refuges, Wildlife restoration, Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Central Valley Project Improvement ActOral History Cover Sheet
Name: David Paullin
Date of Interview: January 17, 2007
Location of Interview: NCTC
Interviewer: Dave Smith
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 30
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Student Trainee Program; Mahler NWR; Joint Venture Coordinator; Refuge Supervisor for California;
Most Important Projects: Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture; North American Plan Assessment Team.
Colleagues and Mentors: Gary Cramer, Mickey Heightmeyer
Most Important Issues: North American plan; Joint Ventures / partnerships
Brief Summary of Interview: Brief background of career before JV; 1st full time Coordinator for Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture; the culture of the Joint Ventures; what’s needed for a successful JV and to be a successful JV Coordinator; being an advocate for other JV partners; how to become a member of the Management Board; differences between the Central Valley JV and other Joint Ventures; who were the partners; logistics; staffing; importance of water in California habitats, the Central Valley JV, wildlife /wetlands areas; California regulations on environment/water/wildlife and funding options/practices of California; importance of duck hunting and rice production to the continued success of supplying water for wildlife habitats in California; the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA); interplay between the wintering grounds for pintails in California and problems on the breeding grounds in Canada and Midwest; manipulating the human dynamic in the Management Board; things that didn’t work in the Central Valley JV; best memories of years working with the JV; changes in technology and sophistication.
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You get to think about what kind of intro you want.
Dave Smith -- My name is David Smith, and I’m here today to interview Dave Paullin. Dave was the first Joint Venture Coordinator for the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture, in California; was there for a number of years; got that Joint Venture started up, and running, well established. He then went back to the refuge system with the Fish and Wildlife Service. And is now a retired career … or retired Fish and Wildlife Service employee, with a full career. And so we want to talk about … get Dave’s views on then early days of the Joint Venture, the establishment, and we’ll leap frog ahead now, to your views of the Joint Ventures in the North American Waterfowl Plan these days, 20 years later. The first thing I’d like to ask you Dave, is give us your background. What you were doing with the Fish and Wildlife Service when the Waterfowl Plan came around, when you first heard about it, and how you came to be a Coordinator for that Joint Venture. Okay?
David Paullin -- I started out with the Service in what they call the Student Trainee Program. So I came up through the refuge system in Region 1, out in the West. Moved around quite a bit in the western states on various refuges. And at the time that the Plan was in its early development stages, I was stationed at Mahler National Wildlife Refuge, in southeastern Oregon. So I was hearing a little bit about the Plan then, through various, you know, communications -- flyers and whatnot -- that were coming through the Service. And then I got a phone call, in early 1989 I believe it was, from Assistant Regional Director in Portland, wanting to know if I had an interest in going to Sacramento to head up the … the Central Valley Joint Venture in California. So, that’s kind of how it happened.
DS -- Let me ask you, what did you know about the Plan at that time? You got a phone call ‘hey, got a job for you.’ What … what were you thinking?
DP -- I … I knew a little bit about … about it, but, you know, I was so focused on my job at that time that, you know, and I wasn’t looking to move; I wasn’t looking for another
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job. But I knew that there was some things afloat that involved sort of large visions for continental waterfowl populations. It involved, you know, a lot of people. And seemed to be a lot of energy going on there. But, I … it was … it was somewhat distant from me, because I was … I was in my little niche of the world, working on the things that I was working on. So I wasn’t really thinking too much about it ‘till the phone rang that day.
DS -- Okay.
DP -- Yeah.
DS -- So let me get this right. So you’re working on the Refuge, working hard. You get a call from the Regional Director, ‘hey,’
DP -- Right.
DS -- ‘Got this opportunity.’ And you say, ‘okay, I’m going.’ So now, I want to ask you, so now you show up to open a Joint Venture Office, and you weren’t sure what one of those was …
DP -- Right.
DS -- … and your Regional Director wasn’t sure either.
DP -- Right.
DS -- So then what happened?
DP -- Well, my situation was a little bit different, in California, in that, the very first year of the Central Valley Joint Venture, there was an … there was an interim Acting Joint Venture Coordinator, Gary Cramer, who was a Refuge Manager at that time. And he assumed that responsibility as a collateral duty for the first year. So, in that year, they …
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they got started. So they were developing the Plan, and a Management Board had been put together. And then Gary took on another job, and so … and that was sort of part of his career plans … and so I stepped in, as sort of, the first, full time, Joint Venture Coordinator. So I … I inherited a Management Board and a draft Plan. So, when I got to Sacramento … so a lot of that early ground work was already laid, before I even got there.
DS -- Okay.
DP -- Yeah.
DS -- What do you remember, when you got there, in your first year, what were one or two of the major challenges you had to face? Given that some of the infrastructure was already in place.
DP -- Right. I think part of it was just getting comfortable with the culture. You know it was just such a different way of doing business. and … and it was just so out of the character for the … for folks like myself, that … that came up through a very ridged bureaucracy, to all of sudden, be thrown out into a different environment, where I was working with private organizations and state organizations, and … and there was no structure. There was no immediate super… you know my supervisor was 500 miles away. And … and they had little, or no, understanding of what it was I was doing. And so, you just basically had to go out and figure it out for yourself. You know, sort of like what … you know, what’s working here and what isn’t. And sort of doing the trial and the error. And … and so it was just an entirely different work environment for … for folks like myself. So it was … it was sort of just getting comfortable with the culture.
DS -- Well, let me ask you, because people, to this day, some of them have difficulty with that … that less structured, partner-oriented atmosphere. Do you have any advice? I mean, thinking back to when you came into that ….
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DP -- Right.
DS -- Do you have any advice for that transition for managers today?
DP -- Oh, yeah. That … I actually put together a slide presentation on Joint Ventures that I gave at a Wetlands Symposium, back in Alexandria, Virginia, not too far from here. And it was after I’d been a Joint Venture Coordinator for a number of years. And so, I gave a lot of thought to, sort of, what does it take to be a successful Joint Venture Coordinator and a successful Joint Venture. And I … and I went on the road, and gave that to a number of different venues. And … and … and the people that heard it and participated in it felt that there was some value there. But, I think there’s several elements, and one that that comes to my mind … I haven’t thought about this for a long time, but I … a real critical element is, you have to have a very clear vision of what it is that you want and where you want to go. And so, that was one of my very first slides in that presentation -- was you have to have this really clear vision of what it is you want, and you have to articulate that in very simple terms. You can’t be technically complex, because you’ve got to convey this to … to congressmen, and … and farmers, and people on the street, who are not technical people. You know. So you have to have this vision, and you have to be able to articulate that in a very simple way. And so, whatever that vision is, you know, you’ve got to make it real concise; you know, that sound bite. And so, that was part of it. And … and … and I think too, another critical element of Joint Ventures that I found helpful for me was, I was always an advocate for my partners. So, I always felt that my job was … was not so much a Fish and Wildlife Service job, but my job was to be an advocate for the Nature Conservancy, and the California Department of Fish and Game, and Ducks Unlimited. And I had to have a good understanding of what it was that they wanted to do. So, it was like, what is it in your program that you’re trying to accomplish? And my job was to help you get there. Because you’re my partner. And so, I got to wear all these different hats. And so, some days I was working … some days I was the advocate for the Nature Conservancy on some project that they were trying to promote in my Joint Venture. But they’re my partner, so it was in my best interests, as a Coordinator, to make sure that that project happened. So I became an advocate for the
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Nature Conservancy. And I was singing their song, and pushing their agenda. Because if they’re successful, I was successful. So, that was really a lot of fun. I mean, I … the ability to … to sort of change those roles all the time. And sometimes I was a defacto NGO guy out there, you know, trying to make a Nature Conservancy project happen, or Ducks Unlimited project. So that was fun.
DS -- Let me ask you a follow-up.
DP -- Sure.
DS -- In that role, did you ever experience any push-back from the Fish and Wildlife Service, maybe thinking you weren’t advocating strongly enough for the Fish and Wildlife Service? Or … was that … was your feeling of advocacy for the partnerships, was that shared all the way up and down the chain?
DP -- I don’t … I wouldn’t say that it was shared. I just don’t think that they had a good appreciation, or an understanding, of, sort of, that dynamic. So, I never got any push-back. I was never told that I couldn’t do it, or that, you know, you’re sort of functioning outside of the bounds of your job, because the Joint Venture Coordinator was so ill-defined you could pretty much make it whatever you wanted to make it. And so, that’s kind of where I went. And people thought, well, as long as people, you know, your partners are happy, and they seem to be, you know, you guys are making progress, and getting things done, so that I was … I was given a lot of latitude. So, I was never given any overt, or covert, signals to throttle back, or slow down, or … or tone it down. It was like, ‘hey, go forward, and, you know, if you do something wrong, we’ll let you know.’ But, you know, that didn’t happen, so ….
DS -- That’s good.
DP -- Yeah.
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DS -- Now, how many years were you with the Joint Venture?
DP -- I … I was a Coordinator for nine years. And then I went back as a Refuge Supervisor for California. But, in that in that role, I also supervised Central Valley Joint Venture Coordinator. So I supervised the Coordinator for seven more years. And then I also supervised all the private lands programs in California, too. So I had my finger in North American Plan stuff for 16 years in California, and then retired. And then, these last two years, I’ve been involved, now, in this North American Plan Assessment. So, you know, collectively, I’ve been involved 18 years now in North American stuff.
DS -- That’s a lot of time.
DP -- Yeah.
DS -- Well, let me ask you, there are just leads all over the place, so ….
DP -- Okay.
DS -- You … you were with the Joint Venture as the Coordinator.
DP -- Correct.
DS -- And you went back to Refuges, supervising all of the refuges in California.
DP -- Right.
DS -- And delivery of the Partners Program for the Fish and Wildlife Service.
DP -- That’s correct
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DS -- Tell me a little bit about the interplay between the Joint Venture, the refuge system in California -- particularly the Central Valley, and delivery of the Partners Program, in terms of -- were there common objectives? Were there common visions? How did people work together? Or apart? What could we learn from that?
DP -- Well, first I’ll say that the … my Joint Venture was … was unique … [tape side A ends, flip to side B – loss of continuity??] … the early ones, in that I was the smallest Joint Venture in the country, and so also, I was the simplest one. In the terms, I only had one state, and actually had a small part of one state. So, all my colleagues had multiple states; some of them had multiple regions. Carey Smith had two countries. So that level of complexity, I never had to deal with. So I only … I only had one state, so my world was much, much smaller. And so, the scale at which I worked was … was a notch below most of my colleagues. So they were dealing with multiple states; I was doing multiple counties. So I was working on a county scale, and they were working at a state scale. And … and others, you know, maybe even a country scale. And so, we were able to focus down, very quickly and … and … and get down and doing things, I think, much faster than some of my colleagues. So they were trying to get organized, and … and how do you figure out relationships between Arkansas, and … and Louisiana, and Mississippi? And I never had to deal with that. So we got down, right here, real quick. So the Central Valley Joint Venture, in many respects, moved faster, earlier on. We got out plan done, and I think we were the first plan done, or I’m pretty sure we were. And so, we were able to do a lot of ‘on the ground projects’ very quickly. But that was also because there were a lot of people in California that were looking at wetlands and waterfowl issues long before the North American Plan was signed. So a lot of our objectives had been defined, and people had a pretty clear vision of what needed to be done to take care of waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway, before the North American Plan was … was, basically, signed.
DS -- When you came to the Joint Venture, how … was there any staff, in addition to you? 8
DP -- No. I was … I was it.
DS -- And when you left, what was the staff size?
DP -- Um … three. I think it’s now four, but, you know, I had a secretary and a communications person -- Ruth [indecipherable] who’s now … now an Assistant Joint Venture Coordinator. So, we were always pretty small.
DS -- Then let me ask you about the … the … you mentioned other partners / agencies / organizations ….
DP -- Right.
DS -- A history of planning and objectives. Can … can you, at the risk of leaving some out, kind of list the elements of the network that was in place to … to provide that … that capacity.
DP -- Sure.
DS -- It would have been difficult for one person,
DP -- Right.
DS -- … in the beginning.
DP -- Right. And I’d say also that I had the luxury of geography, in the sense that everybody that I needed to deal with was right there in Sacramento. So I had the state Fish and Game headquarters; Ducks Unlimited had their Western Regional Office there. California Waterfowl Association had their state office there. The Nature Conservancy was there. And so, all the folks that do conservation of wetlands and waterfowl … essentially were in one town. And so it was … a … and … esc… Western Regional
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Office of the Audubon Society was there. So all the players were in Sacramento. So I didn’t have to get on a plane and fly, you know, halfway up the western seaboard to have a meeting. It was all in one town. So that … that was very helpful. And so, when you have that close connection with people, and … and … and you can call a meeting, and … and, you know, be in their office in half an hour, communication was much facilitated. But we were pretty much always singing off the same sheet of music. So it was that communication, and early coordination, for us was much, much easier in my Joint Venture, than I’m sure in others, just because of the logistics involved.
DS -- Well, the good … that’s a very, very good point.
DP -- Yup.
DS -- What … you’ve already told us some things about the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture, in terms of its size and … and proximity … are there other factors that made it unique among Joint Ventures, in addition to size. Jurisdictional problems, on the one hand, may not have been as large, but you’re dealing with serious jurisdictional issues -- with water in particular.
DP -- Right. Right.
DS -- Tell us a little about ….
DP -- I can certainly paint that picture for you. The … sort of the mantra that we used early on in the Joint Venture is that California has lost 95% of its wetlands at that point. So, I think there was only one state in the country that had beat and that was Iowa. And I think Iowa’s lost 98. So … so we only had 5% left. So that was … that was a fairly compelling message that we could convey. So there was some sense of urgency. But in California you had the largest population of any state. So you had 35 million people. And … so, California also was the most heavily regulated state in the country, in terms of environmental regulations -- air quality, water quality -- so it’s a very highly, highly
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regulated state. So, there’s state counterparts to every federal regulation. So there’s a very strict Endangered Species Act in California that … that’s a counterpart to the federal. There’s … there’s a Water Quality Act that … that … that’s comparable to the federal Clean Water Act; and you go down the line. So … so California’s a highly, highly regulated state, and -- with environmental regulation, lots of people, so a lot of problems, a lot of challenges. But, on the other hand, California has lots and lots of money. And lots of tools to solve those problems. So, you know, I was hearing today, a lot of my colleagues were saying, you know, that … that their early struggles with the Joint Venture was there was no money. I never had that problem. I, you know, I always had a lot of money. It was always California money, but dollars for match would come from propositions on the ballot. So the … the California voters were always generating, what they call ‘ballot initiatives’ or ‘propositions’ and they would levy, you know, now, I mean, they just passed one in November -- 9 billion dollars for parks and wildlife. And that’s all for acquisition of … of parks, and beaches, and jogging trails, and open space. And so, there was always a constant source of money in California to solve problems that we were working on. So … I … that … that was a good thing.
DS -- And that is distinct from many [other] areas.
DP -- Yeah.
DS -- Well, in those days what … what was the limiting factor, or factors, in terms of progress of the Joint Venture, in the … say the first five to eight years -- lots of people; lots of interest; lots of capacity; lots of funding.
DP -- Water was huge in California. We’d always say … at least on a wetlands, you know, you don’t get any wetlands in California, unless somebody, you know, opens a spigot and writes a check. So, the water in California was very, very regulated. And there’s over 10 thousand reservoirs in the state. So, you’re in a western environment, where it’s largely water limited, fairly dry, environment. So all that water gets captured behind somebody’s dam. And so, you want water for your refuge, or your duck club, and
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you basically are on somebody’s water delivery system. You have to make a phone call, and write a check, and they’ll bring you 100 acre feet of water, or whatever it is you need. So, it isn’t like other parts of the world, where water just comes and it’s free. In California, it’s a commodity, and it’s just like, you know, kilowatts of electricity, you know, it’s all metered, and … and it’s so much per kilowatt hour. California is so much per acre foot. And so water was a huge thing. And … and the late 1980s was a real dry period. And so, there wasn’t a lot of water. And agriculture in California is huge. So farmers, and urban pressures, are huge in that state. And so, they’re the first ones to get their water. And so wildlife and open space was always third in that triangle. So it was urban, and agriculture, and then there was wildlife and open space. So, that … that … that tug of war, that tension, was always ‘how can we get a fair share of water for … for wildlife?’ So, a really significant thing in California happened in 1992, which was the passage of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. It was a federal legislation and … and it laid out, I think there was 87 tenets in that Act, and one of them was to … to provide water for the 13 state and federal waterfowl refuges in California. And provide what was called a ‘firm water supply.’ So, that was huge. Because, prior to 1992, those waterfowl refuges in California got water on an ‘if and when’ basis -- if and when available basis. Which essentially means, after agriculture got everything that they wanted, and after the cities got everything, you’d get the dregs of what leftover. So, if it was a wet year - you’d get some. If it was a dry year - you wouldn’t get any
Dave Adam
No full textDave Adam was interviewed about growing up Dutch in 2016. Dave is very active in Pennsylvania German activities. He is the Haptmann of the Grossdaadi Groundhog Lodge and teaches a community Deitsch language class, among many other things. There is another interview of him in 2019 after I learned about his many daily activities that were not covered in the first interview
Dave Goldberg
No full textTributes are flowing in for 47-year-old Dave Goldberg of Menlo Park. The CEO of SurveyMonkey and the husband of Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg was on vacation in Mexico with his wife when he died unexpectedly on Friday. It's with incredible shock and sadness that I'm letting our friends and family know that my amazing brother, Dave Goldberg, beloved husband of Sheryl Sandberg, father of two wonderful children, and son of Paula Goldberg, passed away suddenly last night, his brother Robert Goldberg posted on Facebook Saturday morning. According to the New York Times, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Nayarit State said Goldberg left his room around 4 p.m. on Friday and apparently collapsed while exercising. He died of head trauma and blood loss, the spokesman said. Goldberg studied at Harvard University from 1985 to '89, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history and government, according to his biography on SurveyMonkey's website. Early in his career he worked at Capitol Records in Los Angeles. In 1994, he founded online music company Launch Media Inc., moving to Yahoo! to serve as vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Music when Launch Media was acquired in 2001. For a short time beginning in 2007, he served as Entrepreneur in Residence at venture capital firm Benchmark Capital. In April 2009, he started at SurveyMonkey, an online survey and data-analysis company based in Palo Alto. Over the years he has also sat on the board of directors for FilmTrack, Graham Holdings Co. (previously The Washington Post Co.) and the nonprofit New Schools Venture Fund, his SurveyMonkey biography states. He met Sandberg, who is currently the chief operating officer at Facebook, about two decades ago, according to a post on her Facebook page. I met Dave nearly 20 years ago when I first moved to LA, she wrote in the May 5 post. He became my best friend. He showed me the internet for the first time, planned fun outings, took me to temple for the Jewish holidays, intro
Interview with Flick Davis and Larry Merovka in Washington, D.C., March 29, 1984 by Dave Hall
No full textOral history interview with Flick Davis and Larry Merovka as interviewed by Dave Hall.
Flick and Larry talk about their experiences, cost of per diem, travel, salary, etc.
Organization: FWS
Names: Flick Davis and Larry Merovka
Years:
Program: Law Enforcement
Keywords: History, Employees (USFWS), Personnel, Law enforcementINTERVIEW WITH FLICK DAVIS AND LARRY MEROVKA
IN
WASHINGTON DC, MARCH 29, 1984
BY
DAVE HALL
Tape 3, Side 1
Dave: This is November the 29th, 1984, Washington DC. I’m interviewing Larry
Merovka and Flick Davis continuing about some of the old days and their
experiences.
What was the first per diem rate Larry, when you went to work?
Larry: The first per diem rate was 3.60, 4.20
are the ones that I can recall well. Each agent in charge of a district was allotted
a certain amount of money to…he had to pro rate…last him throughout…He got
an allotment of money, an annual allotment for upgrading expenses and he had to
spend it in a manner that would last him throughout the twelve months, however,
of course we spent most of the money during the time of the year we were most
active in enforcing the law, which was the fall and winter months and in the
spring.
Dave: What was the salary? Do you remember what your salary was?
Larry: 2300.00 dollars a year is what I got.
Dave: Flick, when you went to work in 39’ do you remember roughly what the salary
was?
Flick: I think it was the same.
Dave: 1800 and that was to last me for a year for everything.
Dave: And they didn’t really furnish you with that much equipment, just the basics.
Davis/Merovka 3
Flick: That’s right.
Larry: I’d like to comment about something here yet that I thought was interesting to
record and that was this: the lodging facility and that sort of thing. You could
get a pretty good room in those days. Most of the small towns that we traveled
in very few of them hotels had a room and bath. You registered and you got a
room without a bath and then there was a central place down the hall from
wherever your room was and you went in there to take a bath or use the toilet,
whatever you wanted to do. We’d get those rooms for about as I recall about
a dollar and a half a day. Here’s an interesting thing: the standard tip, take and
getting your bag out the car and up to your room was ten cents. The standard
tip for meals in those days was ten cents, tip the waitress ten cents. That was a
chintzy sort of feel for, everybody; that’s the kind of thing you did when you…
(unintelligible)…travel expenses, you paid nominal charges for that sort of thing.
Here’s a typical example: you could get a good meal for breakfast for around
thirty-five, forty, forty-five cents; that was a glass of orange juice, eggs, couple
slips of bacon, toast, coffee etc. for that kind of a price, and now it’s really gone
out of site.
Dave: Larry, we wanna talk now about your recollections of some of the agents that
were Lacey Act inspectors and a little bit about what they told you that they did,
the ones you remember.
Larry: Well the one that I had most of my conversations with about it was Harry
[Barmier] who was stationed in St. Louis, Missouri and really one of the very
best agents our service ever had, in particular when you consider these people
were pretty well self trained. What you learned and put into effect in your
operations in the field is something that you did pretty much on your own
initially, but all they did when I was aboard they gave you a gun and a badge and
not even a vehicle; a gun and a badge and what we call a “write ‘em up book”
and said, “have at it.” That’s pretty well the way it was and it’s a wonder we
didn’t get in a lot of trouble. Course in those days people were not so prone to be
suing you about everything that happened.
Dave: So, [Barmier] was one of ‘em. Who was some of the others?
Larry: John Perry in Memphis was another one and Sam [Linebaugh], Russellville,
Kentucky was one of ‘em, and those the ones that I recall to mind readily.
Flick: George Rudy?
Larry: No, George Rudy was not a Lacey Act inspector. After he left the state service
Davis/Merovka 4
he’s game warden in Real Foot Lake, Tennessee. On the basis of his experience
there he got appointed as…they didn’t call ‘em game wardens, but he was
manager of the…
Flick: Game protector?
Larry: …Big Lake, Arkansas Refuge (I got a map of it somewhere in my files), and he
was warden there. Reservation, they called ‘em reservation wardens in those
days.
Flick: I think George [Taunkin] was a Lacey Act inspector.
Dave: Where was he from Flick? Do you remember?
Flick: I don’t remember where he was originally from.
Larry: First part I heard he came from California, when I first heard of him.
Dave: Louis [Barmier] he was from Iowa?
Flick: Yeah, Dubuque, Iowa.
Larry: Yeah, Dubuque, Iowa. That’s where he’s from; he’s a native of Dubuque, Iowa.
Dave: You never did see a badge until Lacey Act inspectors had?
Larry: No sir. The first badge I ever saw was U.S. game warden or U.S. Deputy game
warden. After that the badge was U.S. game protector, U.S. Game management
agent…seems to me there was another one that we were talkin’ about this
morning. Can you remember which one I…
Dave: No. I’ve never seen the badge for a Lacey Act inspector, I’ve never seen a badge
for game protector.
Larry: That’s the one I was tryin’ to think of; that was U.S. game protector. Matter
of fact if I remember right that was the second badge we had. The first one was
U.S. game warden, U.S. deputy game warden and then this one.
Dave: When they first started the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Portsmouth, what would
those agents would have been called?
Larry: U.S….they were Lacey Act inspectors and they gave them additional
Davis/Merovka 5
responsibility of enforcing the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; that’s when the
title was changed from Lacey Act inspector to U.S. game warden and
U.S. deputy game warden.
Dave: Some of the other old timers as you remember them, when you first came on
board in say 1924 how many agents were there in the whole system?
Larry: In 1924 there couldn’t have been more than about twenty because I recall I made
a count on a roster I had say back in the mid thirties and there was just thirty-eight
of ‘em then. Those were the men that had to do all that work in fifty
states, however, they had some seasonal help from the U.S. Deputy Game
Warden. They were what you call W.A.E. employees. That means “when
actually employed.”
Dave: They paid them only during certain times of the year then?
Larry: That’s correct, that’s correct.
Dave: They had some they didn’t pay at all.
Larry: That’s what I call “free service game warden,” but they were officially called a
U.S. deputy game warden without compensation. That was what they were
called.
Dave: Who was the first supervisor that you remember in Portland? We were talking
about that earlier.
Larry: That’s George M. [Reddick]. He’s the one that I previously mentioned as being
warden at the Big Lake, Arkansas reservation. Where George first was
employed in game law enforcement work it was with the game warden at
Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, and on the basis of his experience there when he
applied for the appointment to the job as reservation warden at Big Lake,
Arkansas, well then, his experience at Reelfoot Lake served him a
good…(unintelligible)…and qualified him to take over that job at Big Lake. At
the time Big Lake was one of the principle market hunting areas in the south, and
there was a lot of duck killed, however, another thing about Big Lake, Arkansas
was that lots and lots of people came down there by train to hunt just for sport.
Dave: That would be from St. Louis, Chicago and that area?
Larry: Most of them were from St. Louis, course that wasn’t all that far down there from
St. Louis.
Davis/Merovka 6
Dave: [Reddick] then went to Portland as a kind of supervisor?
Larry: No, here’s George’s history: he was a very dear friend of mine. Matter of
fact when he died he left his estate to me. George’s first assignment that I
was aware of was in Texas, in the Houston, Texas area, and then from there
he was…I’m not gonna say promoted, he just transferred from Houston to
Little Rock, Arkansas and that’s where George was when I met him. He took
a liking to me, and when we had our annual spring meetings in St. Louis to
formulate plans for spring patrol he was always there and he and I got real
close. He gave me a very high recommendation when it came to me taking
over that, later on the Memphis, Tennessee district. After that George went to
South Dakota as agent in charge up there. I can’t remember the headquarters
site, but he was in South Dakota. In those days we didn’t have any supervisory
employees in the field at all. If you had a district and you were in charge of it,
you didn’t have anyone supervising you except the people in the head office in
Washington. You seldom saw those people; kept in touch with them by
telegraph or letter or memorandum or something like that, but it was a rare thing
to see your boss when he came out of Washington DC.
Dave: So from South Dakota he went out to Portland?
Larry: That’s correct…(An unidentified man walks into the room and Larry greets
him). Good morning sir.
Man: Good morning.
Larry: …and then in 1940 the first supervisory employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service Law Enforcement were appointed. My first title in that position was
called “Regional Inspector.” Then later on we were called “Regional Supervisors
of Management and Enforcement” – two categories: one had to do with duck
banding and making waterfowl surveys and that sort of thing and of course the
other was strictly law enforcement. The management aspects of it had to do with
making surveys to determine population levels, population trends, banding
operations and all that sort of thing, so those were two functions that operated out
of that one division.
Dave: Alright now, after [Reddick] went to…I’m back to [Reddick] see, that’s where
I’m, I want…
Larry: Pardon me, I just wanted to explain the first one’s were appointed in 1940. That’s
when I went out to take over the job at Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then later
on the title was changed to “regional supervisor of law enforcement,” and in my
Davis/Merovka 7
particular case we had, I had eight states. Now this is rather significant in light of
what happened in more or less recent years: when I was stationed in
Albuquerque, New Mexico where I now live, the region consisted of eight states:
Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. That was
typical of the five region, administrative regions I think we had at that time, in
1940 I’m talkin’ about, when I went out there.
Dave: This was right after the Biological Survey became the Fish and Wildlife Service
and went over to Interior.
Larry: That’s right.
Dave: Flick, weren’t you the last agent that they hired under the Biological Survey?
Flick: Right.
Dave: And when they converted it over in ’39, then by ‘40 they were setting up new…
Larry: In 1940 were the first positions of supervisory personnel in the field, and I got one
of those jobs and I was called in initially…
Dave: How many of those would there have been?
Larry: Beg pardon?
Dave: How many of those would there have been? How many supervisors?
Larry: Well, I got the first job, George [Reddick] got the second one. He was in
Portland, Oregon. When did you get on, Flick? I can’t…
Dave: Who was some of the others supervisors?
Larry: Curtis Allen was at Boston…
Flick: Jess Thompson, but he came down when their headquarters were in Chicago so
that would have been during the war, that would have been in…
Larry: The forties, the early forties.
Flick: …1942 or forty-…
Larry: I was trying to think of who was at Atlanta, Georgia then.
Davis/Merovka 8
Flick: Jim Silver, wasn’t he?
Larry: He was regional director. We’re talking about supervisory personnel aren’t we
now?
Dave: Law enforcement supervisors.
Larry: Law enforcement supervisors then would…well then Bill Davis took over…
Flick: Not then.
Larry: Not then? Later.
Flick: Yeah later.
Larry: I don’t recall who was the supervisor at Atlanta. Sorry, but I just can’t recall it
right now.
Dave: So, [Reddick] was sent to Portland as one of the supervisors?
Larry: that’s correct.
Dave: Now after [Reddick] in Portland who were the guys you remember coming up the
line?
Larry: The next one that I…Webster [Ransom] succeeded George out there.
Dave: Where was he from? Do you remember?
Larry: He was from Washington state. He was from Washington or Oregon, but I think
he was from Washington. And then George [Reddick]…see George was the first
one then I guess the second one was Webster [Ransom], and then Chester
[Lyeshart] was transferred from the Washington office. He was assistant in
charge of law enforcement operations out of the Washington office. He’s one
that helped set up the in-service training school we had at Patuxent Refuge in
1940, and anyway, after Webster died why [Lyeshart] went from the Washington
office out to Portland as region supervisor of law enforcement at that time.
Dave: You say Chicago was a sort of a supervisor headquarters?
Larry: Not that I know of. Flick you said that they had headquarters in Chicago?
Davis/Merovka 9
Flick: There was a whole Fish and Wildlife…
Larry: Oh yes, oh during the war. That’s right, I forgot. That just about slipped my
mind. During the war headquarters were in the Merchandise [Mart] building
in Chicago. I forgot about that.
Dave: In those years then you answered to Chicago rather than to Washington.
Larry: That’s correct.
Flick: Everything was in Chicago.
Dave: Do you remember who the supervisory people would have been in Chicago for
the service?
Flick: Jess Thompson was eventually appointed while he was still in Chicago. He was
appointed as one supervisor for Region 3. They had ten regions at one time.
Dave: Would that have been in the forties?
Flick: No, that was before that.
Larry: Before the forties.
Flick: That would have been when they were still the Biological Survey.
Larry: If you have any interest in that, I have a map of the administrative regions in those
days.
Dave: Yeah, I need that.
Larry: Well, I can find one. I’m pretty sure I saw it in my files.
Dave: O.K. Larry, when you were in Memphis…tell me the history of the Memphis and
who was there first.
Larry: I succeeded John E. Perry at Memphis. John was a native Tennesseean and he
came from Nashville.
Flick: Wasn’t he a schoolteacher?
Davis/Merovka 10
Larry: I don’t remember really what he was.
Flick: I think he’d been a schoolteacher.
Larry: Not that I…I just don’t know what he was, but anyway I met John before I went
to Memphis because when we had those annual meetings in the spring of the year
in St. Louis, Missouri every agent in the United States went there, in case that’s of
interest to you, and reason being that Missouri and Illinois that I here to fore
pointed out to you in some of these interviews those were the two died-hard states
that didn’t want to give up spring hunting. They resisted the efforts of the
government to enforce that law there for quite a long time. All the manpower we
had was sent to St. Louis, Missouri in the spring of the year. We’d sit around a
round table there and discuss where the worst problems were, where people were
most prone to shoot ducks during the spring of the year…
Flick: Too bad we don’t have those pictures here.
Larry: …and we formulated the patrol plans there. I remember one time after we’d
formulated our patrol plans there Marcus [Charleton] and…
Dave: Where was he from?
Larry: He was from Columbus, Ohio. Marcus [Charleton] and Kenneth [Rowen], who
was the agent in charge of Illinois and a native of Washington state, were out on
a patrol on the Illinois River and found a couple of market hunters who were…
(unintelligible)…filled them pretty well with number six shot. [Charleton] got the
less severe injury out of that deal, but they were pickin’ shot out of [Rowen] for
years after this happened. That was a real bad assault and they were lucky not to
have been killed. An interesting aspect of that was this: in time they were pretty
sure they had good evidence to convict the two persons who did this, who were
notorious market hunters. In time they were indicted and charged in a state court
with assault with a deadly weapon, and they were tried, however, in an area where
there was strong opposition to the ban on spring hunting, so it was undoubtedly a
situation where they had a prejudice jury, a biased jury because they just didn’t
believe in prohibiting spring hunting in that particular area which spring hunting
there was pretty popular. Despite the fact that I didn’t go to court, I didn’t hear
the proceeding, but I was told the government presented a good strong case
against these accused persons, but the jury found them not guilty. Now, not too
long after that, if I recall, the federal statutes having to do with assault on a federal
law enforcement officer was a…well, at the time I should digress to say this: there
was no federal statute at that time applicable to game law enforcement officers.
they of course had one applicable to U.S. marshals and other federal law
Davis/Merovka 11
enforcement officers, but at that time federal game law enforcement officers were
not protected by this assault statute, but later on it was…
Dave: They were tried then in state court.
Larry: That’s correct, and acquitted.
Dave: Tell what the territory was that you supervised out of Memphis.
Larry: O.K., well Memphis, as you say was designated as my headquarters. My district
was comprised of the northern half of Mississippi down to Vicksburg, and then I
had the western part of Tennessee from Memphis to Nashville. I had what they
called the “boot heel” of Missouri. That’s a few counties that jut down into
Arkansas because on the map it looks like the heal of a boot, so they called that
the “boot heel” of Missouri, and I had that too and there were quite few ducks in
there too. And I also had the northern half of Alabama.
Dave: When you went to Memphis in ‘29 do you remember who had the western part of
Tennessee and what part…
Larry: They didn’t have anybody I’m sorry to say, nobody over in the western part…oh,
western part? John Perry had the western part.
Dave: Where was he stationed?
Larry: In Memphis.
Dave: Yeah, but I mean…where was he…you mean he was in Memphis too when you
were there?
Larry: Oh no, no.
Dave: Where did he live?
Larry: John Perry? You mean when…
Dave: See, when you were in Memphis in ‘29 where was your nearest agent to you?
Larry: Oh. Well, John Perry at that time was as at Peoria, Illinois and then from there
he went to Wisconsin.
Dave: O.K. now he was in Peoria, Illinois. What kind of territory did he have?
Davis/Merovka 12
Larry: Well, I know he had the state of Illinois, and that really was enough, more than
enough.
Dave: Was there somebody in St. Louis?
Larry: Harry [Barmar]. Harry [Barmar] was in charge of a district comprised of the
state of Missouri, however, he had authorization to work twenty-five miles from
his line over into Illinois, to a contiguous terr
Financial Summit: J.R. Briggs & Dave Briggs
No full textDave and J.R. Briggs speak on stewardship of finances.
Dave Briggs currently serves as the stewardship director at Central Christian Church of Arizona. Previously he served in a similar role at Willowcreek Church and prior to that was a finance manager for GE for 27 years. He has developed numerous financial seminars and classes and regularly speaks at churches and conferences around the country. Dave and his wife Debbie had two sons attend Taylor and served for three years on the Taylor Parents’ Cabinet.
J.R. Briggs wears a variety of ministry hats. On a local level, he serves as one of the pastors of The Renew Community. He is also the Founder and Director of Kairos Partnerships and Director of Leadership and Congregation Formation for the Ecclesia Network. He is a life coach, consultant, frequent speaker, and author of seven books. He and his wife Megan, along with their two sons Carter and Bennett, live in the Philadelphia area
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
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.
Flick and Larry discuss their experiences while they were agents and regional supervisors in the Division of Law Enforcement.
Organization: FWS
Names: Flick Davis and Larry Merovka
Years:
Program: Law Enforcement
Keywords: History, Employees (USFWS), Personnel, Law enforcementINTERVIEW WITH FLICK DAVIS AND LARRY MEROVKA
IN
WASHINGTON DC, MARCH 27, 1984
BY
DAVE HALL
Tape 2, Side 1
Dave: March 27, 1984 and this is a discussion with Larry Merovka and Mr. Flick Davis in
Washington DC about some of their experiences while they were agents and regional
supervisors in the division of law enforcement. Larry, tell me about Allen vs.
Merovka. We’ve seen that in all of our manuals and everything, but there’s just a sort
of a short synopsis describing what happened. So what really happened out there?
Larry: Well Dave, that was quite an unusual case in that the state established a waterfowl
refuge down in the Rio Grande Valley along the river. Part of the refuge is a river
proper and part of it was on land owned by the state game fish department on which
a bountiful crop of corn had been raised that year, and also in the perimeter area the
state game commission decreed that certain privately owned land would be part of the
refuge. Well there was an attorney, [Plumber] if I remember, that was involved in
this here to the extent that this [Plumber] owned a small tract of land within the
exterior boundaries of this refuge. I think it was probably about eight or ten acres and
it was covered with big cottonwood trees, and the state game department went in and
cut down all of the corn in the fields there; chopped it up and spread corn all over the
ground. It was like a duck banquet area and the ducks and geese really poured into
this baited area. The state game department officers went down there on the opening
day of waterfowl season and seized some ducks and geese from two people who were
shooting in this small plot of privately owned land within the refuge, and issued
citations to these people for hunting on a refuge. Well, they took the seized birds and
put them in a cold storage plant and before the day was over this lawyer got the court
to issue a writ of replevin and they got the birds back. Then the state officers who
made the case and charged the men with hunting on a refuge came up to my office and
told me that these birds were being attracted into this baited place, which they
interpreted to be a violation of the federal regulations, which decreed that you weren’t
permitted to take waterfowl in a area where their being attracted to bait. So I went
down the next day to take a look at the situation and I agreed that it was a place that
I didn’t feel they could lawfully hunt. So, we had bureau post-it signs on hand and the
federal agent in charge there at Albuquerque and I, Bob Kinghorn, we went down and
posted the private land and put these people on notice that we interpreted the federal
regulation to prohibit that any hunting around the area where the birds are being
baited into. So, the lawyer then went into federal court in Albuquerque and applied
for a restraining order to restrain me from, and any men working under my supervision
from bothering anybody hunting on that, in that area where there was bait. So we
had a hearing…(unintelligible)…court and the judge ruled in my favor. Well then
Davis/Merovka 2
the case was appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado, and
when it got up there the court overruled the U.S. District judge in Albuquerque and
decreed that in as much as the people involved as defendants in the case (they’re not
exactly defendants but close to it) that in as much as the state did debating that they
were not bound to abide by the applicable regulation. We went back and forth.
They’d win one round, we’d win the other round. Finally, I had retired by then and
was anxious to do some traveling with my wife and so I was anxious to get the case
settled, and so we settled out of court for a nominal sum of money, damages,
punitive damages and the government paid it because we were acting in accordance
with the instructions from our ranking officer, including the U.S. Soliciters Office…
ruled that we felt that we did right when we posted the area and so forth, but the
higher court didn’t agree with that so that’s what…
Dave: What did you have to pay?
Larry: I believe in the final analysis they levied a pretty good size judgment against us to
start with, seems to me the total may be around 12,000, but after that went
unappealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Then that court decreed
that the amount…(unintelligible)…was excessive. The judgment was based on two
things: one of ‘em was the number of days that they were deprived of an opportunity
to hunt on there, and they valued so much per day for the fact that they had been
deprived of an opportunity to hunt there. Secondly, of course, they assessed punitive
damages against us. I remember one thing very distinctly that the attorney for the
plaintiffs stated that sort of teed me off pretty stormy and that was this: “Ladies and
gentlemen of the jury now this is an opportunity for you to get even with these feds
who are always imposing these onerous restrictions on ya. This is your chance to get
even with those….” He actually said that in court. That was really, I’d say, would be a
prejudice statement, but anyway that’s what happened. I admire…my retort to that I
can remember was this: I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I claim to be a man
of high honor, a man of high integrity and I wouldn’t do anything wrong intentionally.
If there’s anything done improperly it was certainly not done with any malice.’ I
remember I got that lick in. I don’t guess it made a very good impression on the jury,
because still they ruled against us, but anyway that was an interesting case and if I had
it to do over again even though I had retired and I wanted to do some traveling with
my wife, and I had planned to do some traveling after I had retired, we weren’t able to
do it on account of this case pending in court. Finally, I got tired of it and I said,
‘let’s settle out of court.’ So you asked how much my part was? I believe my part in
the final analysis was $500, in which I was reimbursed promptly. Chuck Lawrence in
Washington always did a wonderful job of getting that thing facilitated, and I got my
money back in a very short period of time. It was an interesting case and I personally
feel that we were right. The law decreed, it didn’t say whether you knew that bait was
put out there or not. It was there and attracting the birds; you were not permitted to
hunt around it. Well, that isn’t what the court ruled. If I had it to do over again, even
Davis/Merovka 3
though I wanted to get things settled so I could do some traveling, I would of appealed
the U.S. Supreme Court…(unintelligible)…and review. I’m sorry now that that
wasn’t done because I still feel that goin’ to that higher tribunal that we woulda got a
favorable ruling on that.
Dave: Flick, I can remember when I was a young agent you always seemed to have a group
of agents around you, not only loyal but there was really a “Esprit De Corps,” as it
was in all the regions. Larry Merovka had his guys, Bill Davis had his guys, but they
all worked together. I remember, the first time I believe I ever met you, you were out
on Sunday afternoon and had a pair of blue shorts on; I’ll never forget that, out there
giving out the banding gear at Fort Snelling I saw all the crews goin’ into Canada.
They’d stop off in Minnesota on the way up to Canada and ol’ Flick was out there
givin’ the guys the last instructions and givin’ out the equipment that was stored
there.
Flick: Well, we always stored the gear at Fort Snelling. Fort Snelling was disbanded you
know; they used to be quite an active military post. The buildings were still there so
they assigned a couple of buildings to the Fish and Wildlife Service for storage
facilities and we used one of the buildings. When they’d come from banding why
they’d always bring their gear to Fort Snelling and we’d store it there, and in as much
as Minnesota was sort of on the way to Canada for the banding work, they’d stop in
there and leave it. And when they’d get ready to go back to banding they’d stop by
and pick it up and get going.
Dave: Flick, I went up there seven years, some guys went a lot longer than I did, but there
was something about that Canadian assignment that was very rough work, but at the
same time it gave the agents the ability from Maine to Alaska to Minnesota to Florida
to New Mexico to be together, and work together. Also, I felt very comfortable to
come back home and talk about what was going on on the breeding ground from
having been there. In a way I hate to see that we still do some of that.
Flick: It was a real wonderful training ground we always thought. As a matter of fact we in
region three, we were always willing and anxious to delegate agents to different
assignments and different parts of the country. We thought it was good training for
them. One of the fine things that happened to us in Canada as far as the banding
work was concerned - - we developed a wonderful working relationship with the
Canadian authorities.
Dave: We really did. I was amazed. The mounted police I met in Manitoba, Saskatchewan
and Alberta knew most of our agents there along the border there by name.
Flick: Yes, that’s right.
Davis/Merovka 4
Dave: It was amazing also that even their families associated with each other, back and forth
across the border.
Flick: That’s right.
Dave: It was obvious that there was an outstanding relationship between the two agencies
and the two countries.
Flick: It was fortunate for me that I was able to cooperate with the mounted police and I
made several trips to Hudson Bay with mounted police. We were delegated by the
Washington office to go up there help them with enforcement work to give ‘em
some ideas on how our enforcement worked out as far as waterfowl was concerned.
In Canada the Northwest mounted police were the same as the federal officers. They
enforced the waterfowl regulations. They enforced all the regulations, course they
enforced the waterfowl regulations also.
Dave: Well Flick digress a little bit. How about tellin’ me (I never have asked you this) how
You got interested in fish and wildlife law enforcement. When you started I know it
Was in Iowa, but I’d like to know about that.
Flick: I suppose I developed a love for wildlife by my father. I can remember when he’d
never go duck hunting without taking me along…[we] hunted ducks in the spring
of the year then. He would always take me along with him. Other times there’d be
people want him to go hunting, and he’d say, “Well, I’ll get the kid and we’ll go.” I
suppose I developed a love for wildlife then. I can remember getting in the top of
haystacks. We used to…down in the river bottoms they’d have hay, they’d cut hay
and stack it up. Dad and I would climb up on a haystack and get in the haystacks,
and the ducks would be flying low and flying all over. We’d just set in the hay-stack
and he’d shoot ‘em out of the blind that we had. I suppose I developed a love
for wildlife…
Dave: Where would that have been? What county was that in?
Flick: Butler County.
Dave: What river was that?
Flick: That’ve been the Iowa, north branch of the Iowa.
Dave: In those years Flick, were there a lot of waterfowl?
Flick: Yeah, there was lots of waterfowl. Every puddle would have waterfowl in it. I can
remember after I went to work for the Iowa Conservation Department that we were
Davis/Merovka 6
assigned to the Missouri River for the flight of waterfowl up the river, and it would
last for six days sometimes. That flight was continuous day and night. They would
stop if it was raining…(unintelligible)…they’d stop over town and we’d stay down in
Iowa. They’d stop over town and make such a racket the people couldn’t sleep and
they’d raise the dickens with trying to turn the lights off so that they’d move on.
They were attracted by the lights of the city, and these geese, this was mostly blue and
snow geese and ducks that would come up the river. The river then, the Missouri
river, the bars were sand, they had red willows growing on them. The birds would
roost on the bars at night and at about eight in the morning they’d take off and go out
into the fields to feed, and usually they’d hit picker picked corn fields. That was one
of the things that developed waterfowl problems in Iowa, particularly in Iowa, was the
mechanical corn picker because they shelled lots of corn and left con in the fields.
Dave: They weren’t too efficient in those days and they left a lot of grain.
Flick: Well yeah, they’d shell off corn and there’d be shelled corn that’d being laying in the
field. Then it would rain; it would be wet and sloppy in little puddles all over.
Dave: It’s hard for people in my generation Flick to understand what you just said because
I thought I had seen the good years in the fifties; there was quite a few ducks. In Iowa
today the duck hunting is really not that good, according to my friends that hunt there.
What years would that of been when you were a kid with your father?
Flick: I was born in nineteen hundred and three and I suppose I was about seven, eight years
old then.
Dave: So it would have been prior to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, like I say, when the
spring…(unintelligible).
Flick: Yeah, right.
Dave: In those years there weren’t that many hunters were there?
Flick: No. Very few, very few hunters.
Dave: If someone asked you Flick what your opinion of what’s happened to our waterfowl,
I’d just like to know what your reaction would be.
Flick: Well of course I’ve seen a decrease as the years go on; there’s less waterfowl all the
time seems to me.
Dave: Would you say it’s a multiple of reasons or any one particular reason? How would
you see it?
Davis/Merovka 7
Flick: Oh yes I’m sure there’s been several reasons for it. I think one species of bird that
hasn’t been bothered too bad is the Canada geese in the Midwest. That’s the region
that I used to work. The Canada geese has probably increased in numbers. It used
to be when I was a kid if someone killed a Canada goose they’d get their picture
in the paper and get a big story about it. Just one Canada goose would be dead. Now
it’s no problem at all; they kill Canada geese all the time during the season. They got
‘em there all summer as a matter of fact.
Dave: That’s ironic too to me. My first reaction to that is that the breeding grounds for the
Canada goose is still in pretty good shape, and we’ve probably regulated the kill on
the Canada geese better than we have on any other bird, so it shows to me that there’s
two things: overshooting, over harvest and loss of breeding grounds and wintering
grounds also. There’s the tendency on some people’s part to de-emphasize the
importance of controlling the kill, over shooting, over harvest or whatever. If I were
to ask you what would of happened if there hadn’t of been Bill Davis’, Larry
Merovka’s and Flick Davis, and even going back to Ray Holland (a lot of the guys
that started us out)? Do you think we’d still be shooting any waterfowl today?
Flick: No, I doubt it.
Dave: Do you think law enforcement has had an impact on…?
Flick: I’m sure it has. I’m sure it has.
Dave: I feel the same way, of course I came along many years after you did. I think that law
enforcement is not the only answer, but certainly it’s had more of a part in
managing these resources than some people realize.
Flick: That’s true. I think one of the bad things that our Bureau has done is knock down corn
and feed on the refuge, concentrating birds on the refuge and holding them there for
such long periods of time.
Dave: When did you first see duck baiting? Where was it?
Flick: Jesus, I don’t know…(long pause)….I don’t know where I first saw it. I don’t
remember.
Dave: Do you remember what period it would have been in?
Flick: It would have been shortly after I went to work for the Bureau. I was a U.S. deputy
game warden for four years and then took the civil service examination for game
management agent, U.S. game warden, and in 1934 I received…1939 I received an
Davis/Merovka 8
appointment, then I worked steadily from then on. I don’t recall when I saw the first
baiting, whether it was while I was a U.S. deputy game warden.
Dave: Did you ever witness the dry pin slaughter holes in Illinois that they refer to as “dry
pin slaughter [pens],” or whatever (they got good names for ‘em)?
Flick: No, as a matter of fact I’ve never had much experience with baiting in Illinois that I
can recall. If I had I don’t recall.
Dave: Did you ever see any baiting in Iowa while you were a state wildlife officer there?
Flick: Yes, there was baiting going on along the Missouri River.
Dave: That would have been prior to 1939…
Flick: Yeah.
Dave: …(unintelligible)…1934 to 1939?
Flick: Yeah.
Dave: What was your biggest problem once you became an agent as far as doing your job?
What were the things that you were most involved in?
Flick: Over limits I suppose. Out of season, had a lot of out of season hunting, and that was
true throughout the region. We had eleven states in the Midwest.
Dave: In those years transportation was much more difficult than it is today. Now how did
you guys get together and work together and coordinate your activities? There
weren’t FTS telephones. What did you do in those days if you wanted to get some
word to an agent or try to get up a detail?
Flick: Well, we’d us a telephone I suppose, if one was available. If one wasn’t, I don’t
know. I don’t recall.
Dave: When you went to work in Iowa, or when you were working as a state agent in Iowa
was there close cooperation between the state and federal agencies?
Flick: Yes. Real close. We always had good relations. I recall when I went to work for the
Bureau as a game management agent I had a Ford automobile and a [Old Town] canoe
with…(unintelligible)…on it, and a carrier on the top of it and I’d follow the birds in
the spring of the year starting in Iowa; when I first started out I started in Iowa, follow
the birds on up to the Canadian line then come back after…I’d stay about thirty days
Davis/Merovka 9
along the Canadian line, then come back to Iowa and go to St. Louis and check furs in
fur houses down there for illegal shipment of furs. The fur companies had to report
all the furs that they bought, and we’d check their invoices and see if they were
shipping in furs from Iowa or Illinois or Missouri or some place like that. Then we’d
work on that for about two or three months usually. In St. Louis while it was hot and
sticky; really we just didn’t like that very well. Then we’d take out when the birds
started back; we’d start at the Canadian line and go to the Gulf of Mexico, follow ‘em
all the way down. I usually came back then after the season was over in Louisiana or
where ever we were working on the Gulf. We’d worked there ‘til after the season for
a month or so, then I’d always come back to Missouri. I’d worked at Sikeston,
Missouri, headquarters there, and worked out of there ‘til the birds started back in the
spring of the year, then I’d go on up to the Canadian line again.
Dave: The camaraderie in between the agents north, south, east and west in this organization
is always…
Flick: Oh it was great. It was wonderful. We had wonderful cooperation from them.
Dave: I guess being able to work together as much as you did, even though transportation
was kind of difficult compared to today. You worked from Louisiana to the Canadian
border?
Flick: That’s right.
Dave: Flick, tell me if you remember some of the agents, the older agents that were working
when you came on board, some of them that you can remember.
Flick: Well, there was Leo Childers in South Dakota and Burt [Shafer]; he worked out of
Wisconsin, Minnesota. And, Ed Carter in Wisconsin, Curtis Allen in Missouri, Harry
[Barmire] in St. Louis, John Perry who worked out of the…what’s that station there…
Dave: Peoria? He was in Peoria at one time.
Flick: Yeah, he worked out of Peoria, but he also was in Memphis.
Dave: I want to talk later with you and Larry Merovka both about him. He must have been
the first undercover officer this organization had.
Flick: Yeah, I think so.
Dave: I’d like to talk to you guys about that on a special part of the tape. What about Ray
Davis/Merovka 10
Holland? Did you ever know Ray Holland?
Flick: No I never knew him. He was before my time.
Dave: You knew Ernie Swift.
Flick: Oh, very well. A very dear friend of mine.
Dave: He was an example, in my opinion, of a man who understood the importance of law
enforcement.
Flick: Oh he sure did. He was the director of the Wisconsin Department of Conservation.
Dave: He later came to Washington.
Flick: Yes. Assistant director I believe. Yeah, he was a great friend of mine.
Dave: Over the years Flick I know that you’ve been able to carry on a very firm, strong law
enforcement program in all the states that you supervised, but one of the things that
always impressed me that you were well thought of even among the violators, so to
speak. I guess it was the way you conducted yourself.
Flick: Well, I don’t know. One of our philosophies was that we’d always…if a man violated
the law the first thing we’d do was ask ourselves, “Does the evidence we have support
The case” that we
Automated Book Counting in Logistic Environments Using Object Detection Networks: Dave, YOLO, and Detectron2
No full textembargoed_20281016Nel contesto della logistica e della gestione dei magazzini, il conteggio accurato degli oggetti rappresenta un'attività cruciale che può essere notevolmente migliorata tramite l'automazione basata sulla visione artificiale. Questa tesi analizza l’utilizzo di modelli di object detection per il conteggio automatico dei libri presenti sui pallet. L’obiettivo è valutare e confrontare le prestazioni di tre diversi modelli di deep learning: Dave, YOLO e Detectron2. Ciascun modello riceve in input un’immagine contenente libri palletizzati e restituisce in output un conteggio basato sugli oggetti rilevati. L’analisi include metriche di performance come l’accuratezza del conteggio, i tempi di inferenza e la robustezza rispetto a variazioni nelle condizioni dell’immagine. I risultati evidenziano i compromessi tra accuratezza ed efficienza computazionale, offrendo indicazioni utili sulla loro applicabilità in scenari industriali reali. Questo lavoro mira a contribuire allo sviluppo di sistemi visivi intelligenti per l’automazione logistica.In logistics and warehouse management, accurate item counting is a critical task that can benefit significantly from automation through computer vision. This thesis investigates the use of object detection models for the automated counting of books stacked on pallets. The goal is to evaluate and compare the performance of three different deep learning-based object detection frameworks: Dave, YOLO, and Detectron2. Each model receives as input an image of palletized books and outputs a count based on the detected objects. The analysis includes performance metrics such as counting accuracy, inference time, and robustness to variations in image conditions. The results highlight the trade-offs between accuracy and computational efficiency across the models and provide insights into their suitability for real-world industrial applications. This work aims to contribute to the development of intelligent visual systems for logistics automation
Heinrich Schnibble and Even More Tales Mein Grossfader Told.
No full textThere is one fable in this collection: Der Goosen mit der Golden Eggers (27). When the man opens the goose up, he finds lots of eggs and suddenly becomes a millionaire! I also enjoyed the rendition of Max Beth.This is a hardbound book (hard cover)Dave Morra
Fraulein Bo-Peepen and More Tales Mein Grossfader Told.
No full textEight fables near the end of the book in the familiar Morrah style. The best of these for storytelling are WC and The Bundle of Twigs and for illustrations FC and WC. I paid $20 for another volume of Morrah's, so this was a real find in an unlikely old store!This is a hardbound book (hard cover)Dave Morra
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