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DUCK NUMBERS UP THANKS TO WET SPRING
It was a wet spring in much of the prime nesting area up north and you
know how much ducks love water!
For waterfowlers the news is good as it is an impressive fall flight
forecast. Now that the numbers are up it’s up to the weather and a few
other factors that enter into the equation for southern duck hunters,
namely accessible food and water here too for the winter guests.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its preliminary report on
mid-continent breeding ducks and habitats, based on surveys conducted in
May and early June. Total duck populations were estimated at 42 million
breeding ducks on the surveyed area. This estimate represents a 13
percent increase over last year's estimate of 37.3 million birds and is
25 percent above the 1955-2008 long-term average.
"The increase in duck numbers in relation to the increase in habitat
conditions is consistent with what we would expect to see in U.S. and
Canadian breeding grounds this spring," said Ducks Unlimited's Executive
Vice President Don Young. "History has repeatedly shown that when water
returns to the breeding grounds ducks respond with a strong breeding
effort."
While numbers are up, DU Chief Biologist Dale Humburg explains that
hunter success will still depend heavily on weather, which will dictate
migration patterns.
Among the other most popular species, gadwall numbers were up 12 percent
to 3.1 million; green-winged teal rose to an all-time record of 3.4
million; blue-winged teal rose 11 percent to 7.4 million; northern
shovelers climbed 25 percent to 4.4 million; northern pintails were up
23 percent to 3.2 million; canvasbacks were up 35 percent to 662,000,
and scaup rose for the third straight year, up 12 percent to 4.2
million, the highest level since 1999.
The only species to show a drop in breeding numbers were redheads, which
were down one percent to 1.0 million, and wigeon, down one percent to
2.5 million.
The Prairie Pothole Region constitutes only 10 percent of North
America's breeding habitat but annually attracts two-thirds or more of
all nesting ducks. The surveyed portion of the region includes North and
South Dakota and a sliver of eastern Montana in the U.S., and prairie
Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada. About 75 percent of the
PPR exists in Canada, which historically attracted 75 percent of the
ducks that nest there.
During the wet cycle of the 1990s, duck production on the U.S. side of
the border increased dramatically thanks to 5 million acres of grass
nesting cover provided by the Conservation Reserve Program.
"Things look great right now," Delta Waterfowl’s John Devney says, "but
hunters need to remember we've lost more than a million acres of CRP
just since 2007 and more contracts will expire this year. On top of
that, we’ve been losing native prairie at an alarming rate and several
million more acres are at risk. If we can’t find a way to preserve
existing upland cover, we simply won’t enjoy this kind of production in
the future."
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