Many Long Island hunters supplemented their often-meager income by market gunning. Hunting ducks for fancy New York restaurants was just one way to survive. This took place from around 1840 until 1918 when the new conservation law went into effect preventing the practice of market gunning. At the turn of the nineteenth century, all first class hotels and restaurants served game dinners. From the 1840s until the law changed in 1918 market gunners supplied their tables with wild birds. Commercial hunting was always frowned on by the sportsmen of the day. After 1918 many of the market gunners became professional guides. The local duck farms in Eastport and Moriches used to shoo the wild ducks out of their domestic Pekin ducks and their feed. The sky would be black with thousands of black ducks taking wing.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 19:50:48 +0000
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