The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which implements the conventions, grants the Secretary of the Interior the authority to establish hunting seasons for any of the migratory game bird species listed above. In actuality, the Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that hunting is appropriate only for those species for which there is a long tradition of hunting, and for which hunting is consistent with their population status and their long-term conservation. It is unlikely, for example, that we will ever see legalized hunting of plovers, curlews, or the many other species of shorebirds whose populations were devastated by market gunners in the last decades of the 19th century.