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WATERFOWL SURVEY: DUCKS ABOVE LONG-TERM AVERAGE
Each year in early July, amid the heat and humidity of a typical
southern summer, duck hunters watch with interest for the annual report
from the breeding grounds as to the status of wetlands and duck
production.
It may be months before frosty mornings and early wake-up calls but
nonetheless, waterfowlers are anxious to hear the news about the fall
flight. What happens in the spring on the prairies of Canada and the
Dakotas will lay the groundwork for the season ahead.
Last week the report card was released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service and the news is pretty good.
The survey indicates wetland conditions and duck populations are well
above the long-term average.
What does it mean for southern duck hunters? It’s quite likely another
60-day season and liberal bag limit similar to last year will return.
Season dates won’t be set until mid-August here in Tennessee but odds
are the federal framework will allow states a big window of opportunity.
Prior to the season setting process all Mississippi flyway states meet
with USFWS officials who lay out the parameters based on data gathered
and crunched from the spring survey. May pond counts and brood surveys
are taken and form an equation by which season length and bag limits are
set.
According to the report total-duck population across the traditional
survey dropped slightly to 40.9 million from last year’s 42 million yet
seven out of the top ten species are above their long-term average.
Mallard numbers were steady at 8.4 million, scaup numbers rose slightly
to 4.2 million and the northern pintail population bumped up 9 percent
to 3.5 million compared to last year.
Species such as mallard, gadwall, greenwing and bluewing teal, shoveler,
redhead, and canvasback are all above the long-term average.
More good news came out of the survey as breeding grounds are today even
wetter--in some cases much wetter--than when the surveys were flown in
May, which will promote re-nesting and increase brood survival.
As was the case in 2009, the real news is buried in the fine print,
which showed a continuing shift in breeding-duck numbers from Canada to
the U.S., says Delta Waterfowl.
Part of the reason was an all-time record 2.9 million wetlands on the
U.S. side of the region, with 2.3 million of those in the eastern
Dakotas. Wetlands are what attract nesting ducks and the U.S. has never
been wetter.
Prairie Canada was wetter than normal, led by a 21 percent
year-over-year increase in the pond count in southern Saskatchewan. Yet
despite being 34 percent wetter than its long-term average, 72 percent
fewer pintails and 18 percent fewer mallards settled in Saskatchewan
than its historical average.
Once again, the U.S. picked up the slack. More total ducks settled on
the U.S. side of the breeding grounds--13.9 million in the Dakotas and
eastern Montana as compared to 10.6 million in the prairie portions of
Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba.
“That’s pretty remarkable when you consider that two-thirds of the
Prairie Pothole Region exists on the Canadian side of the border,” says
Delta Scientific Director Dr. Frank Rohwer of Louisiana State
University. “Delta has been saying for years that Canada is broken, and
the latest survey numbers once again bear that out.”
Under normal conditions, those results would be cause for celebration,
but the good news from the U.S. was offset by concerns about ongoing
losses of the habitat that attracted those ducks in the first place.
“We heard from a lot of duck hunters who told us the recent season
didn’t live up to their expectations after the great wetland conditions
last spring,” says Delta’s John Devney. “The best explanation is the
ducks that settled in the Dakotas and Montana a year ago weren’t as
productive as they were in the 1990s because there was a lot less
nesting cover than there was in the ‘90s.
“The Dakotas have lost close to 2 million acres of grass since
1999--that’s more than 3,100 square miles--and another 2 million acres
of CRP are scheduled to expire by 2012.
“Research conducted by the Service showed that upland-nesting ducks need
large blocks of grass to produce at population-expanding levels, but
we’re losing Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and native prairie acres
at an alarming rate. Not only are we losing grass, but also the
high-quality wetlands embedded in those acres.
“The take-home message is that the U.S. side of the region carried
Canada during the wet cycle of the 1990s, but if the U.S. keeps losing
habitat, who’s going to pick up the slack?”
The U.S. side of the region attracted 1.4 million pintails compared to
just 592,000 in prairie Canada. Last year was the first time ever that
more pintails settled in the U.S. than in prairie Canada.
Other stunners included 4.2 million blue-winged teal in the U.S. to 1.9
million in prairie Canada and 3 million mallards in the U.S. to 2.6
million in the prairie provinces.
Under normal conditions, those results would be cause for celebration,
but the good news from the U.S. was offset by concerns about ongoing
losses of the habitat that attracted those ducks in the first place.
And what about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico where some ducks
winter? Waterfowlers everywhere have expressed concern about what impact
the BP oil spill will have on the estimated 5 million ducks that will
begin arriving in less than two months from now.
“The oil spill is an environmental disaster that could affect ducks and
duck hunters for years to come,” says Rohwer. “We have no experience
with this kind of disaster, so it’s impossible to predict what will
happen.
“It would appear that diving ducks like scaup, canvasbacks and redheads
will be most at risk because they sit in the coastal bays where there
has been a lot of oil in recent weeks.”
“It’s great to hear the report of steady duck populations, but habitat
loss continues to be a significant threat to North America’s waterfowl,”
said Dale Hall of Ducks Unlimited. “For most species, this year’s
numbers are encouraging, but DU must remain dedicated to its mission of
long-term, landscape-level habitat conservation if we are to meet the
life-cycle needs of the continent’s waterfowl.”
“I would expect to see a fall flight similar to last year’s,” DU
biologist Dale Humburg says. “But everyone must keep in mind that
weather and habitat strongly influence the timing and distribution of
ducks in the fall flight, and these factors are very dynamic.
Like a brisk north wind escorting a cold front, duck hunters will take
good news anytime we can get it. It appears ducks did well on the
breeding grounds and now it’s up to winter weather to push them south.
Mother Nature has been pretty good so far. Let’s hope she stays in a good
mood as season approaches.
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