This Statisticians Take

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

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Staff member
This forum has thus far not brought up the flooded corn debate raging everywhere on social media. Early on I came of the opinion the claims coming from some organization calling themselves Flyway Federation were perfect for creating online debate. I also felt the people entrusted at the state and federal levels to monitor and manage waterfowl would not be impacted by such debate. Business as usual... Much ado about nothing... Despite Senator Kennedy's letter to the USF&WS I have my doubts to this organization's claims. Regardless, I am waiting for the USF&WS's response and have steered clear of the debates because I have more faith in data analysis over hunter opinion. I trust the folks who have the data and expertise to analyze it will do so and address Senator Kennedy's concerns.

But having said that I'm struggling to keep quiet in light of recent "data analysis" from Flyway Federation, or perhaps that of its leader, Josh Goins, circulating on social media. You see, when the sport of duck hunting and the field of statistics intersect it gets my attention. Some of you know, and some don't, that my education background is applied statistics and a significant portion of my career has been conducting statistical analysis of weapon systems. I'm not a biostatistician but the statistical principles and practices have considerable overlap. So, with that said I simply want to say as I look at the charts I see a narrative being pushed by someone untrained/inexperienced in statistical analysis. I think they are using gross oversimplifications and characterizations with data lifted from other sources by someone desperately trying to convince you his opinion is fact. A narrative is being constructed with data hand-picked and alternatives to the narrative are not considered. The people doing the work are not scientists seeking truth or a new understanding, rather they are trying to prove "their" ducks are being taken by states to the north.

If you should come across this "analysis" just know that you know one statistician who thinks its biased, inaccurate, incomplete, and hopefully would never be something a policy maker would use to base their decisions.

Rant over.

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I don't know what the major factor in the shortstopping (if it's really happening) of waterfowl is in the Central Flyway. What I do know is the Atlantic Flyway experienced the same thing, especially with geese, without benefit of flooded corn. In the old days, my family went to Mattamuskeet for geese. Then the geese were stopping on the DelMarVa, so we went there. Now many are wintering farther north in NY and NJ.

This year a huge number of mallards showed up in CT when it got cold, more than I can ever recall. Where the heck did they come from, and why?

Prior to the 90's, we were covered up in Broadbill by Thanksgiving. All of a sudden, they were down 90% or more. I found out from a friend that they were overwintering on the Great Lakes, eating zebra/quagga mussels. Yes, they experienced poor breeding success (perhaps because of selenium ingested with the mussels), but the population wasn't down 90%.

Maybe it's farming practices, maybe it's crop manipulation to hold birds, maybe it's climate, maybe it's hunting pressure and the availability of refuges in a given area. I don't know what causes it, but shortstopping/flyway rerouting is a real phenomenon.
 
Flock the FF. Weather moves ducks. Mild weather=no migration. We are on a climate up-swing (and I'm not talking about man-made global warming). The temps on Earth are not static, like politicians acting like weather scientists would want us to believe. They will rise until they start to fall again, in several millennia. If I didn't need to fly south to survive, why would I? Some "calendar ducks" will always migrate on the first few cold snaps or moons, but mostly, ducks don't just pick up and fly south for shits-and-giggles.
 
Steven

You are well aware in our line of work sometimes you can solve a problem by removing a variable and re-testing and seeing if the problem stopped or still exists. This article, to me, is akin to that method. Waterfowl studies in Europe show less migration in recent decades. Flooded corn is not in play. Warmer temperatures are. Seems like they removed the corn variable....

www.climatecentral.org

Rising Temperatures in Europe Leave Ducks Grounded | Climate Central

Some bird species, unable to adapt to rising temps, are simply not migrating as they once did.
www.climatecentral.org www.climatecentral.org
 
I stopped looking at any social media a year or so ago, not that I was ever much of a user, except for a few focused forums like this, so I havent seen any of the debate you mention. But I share your sentiments and have the same pet peeve - and it isnt just social media, mainstream media loves to play the same stupid games with statistics, graphs, and charts. Funny, I just sent off a note to WSJ editors about a totally misleading (or, rather, intentionally leading) chart in a recent article.

I can't decide whether such work is intentional or (and I lean towards this latter) a sign of the ignorance of most people about statistics. There is no doubt most don't comprehend that there is a difference between correlation and causation.
 
FWIW, FF isn't a new org. They have been around, begging for "research money" for several years. It's a bunch of cry-baby dudes who think someone else is stealing "their" ducks. And yes, Eric, their data sets are cherry-picked for a reason.
 
Reminds me of the guys yelling “intentional short stopping” years ago. As if USFWS had enough money and land to significantly shortstop the migration.
My opinion, and I’ve been in some aspect or another of natural resources and coastal management for 30+ years, is that the change in migration is driven by climate change, primarily.
But also the fact that we now more food on the ground, and more large reservoirs with open water during winter, than ever before. As stated above why fly south if you don’t have too? Especially when areas that used to be frozen over by December are ice free and sometimes snow free almost all winter. This winter’s weather excepted.
And many guys realize that rice field acreage is in a downward spiral too.
I also think zebra mussels in those open lakes and reservoirs partially changed scaup migration patterns.
 
Im not up to date on the debates going around social media. but I agree whole heartedly what @Steven Alexander said. The weather and more so the snow on the groud is what pushes birds here in the central flyway. It can get BRUTAL cold but if there isnt actual snow covering the feed, they aint leaving. One of my best seasons was last year when Colorado got their once in a century snow fall in early november. I had mallard all year, they showed up and never left and my hunts averaged 18 minutes to kill limits. It was flat out disgusting. This year, no migration. Just no snow fall across the northern part of the country. Had some friends go north for a few days and they killed a band that was banded on our refuge just 50 miles south of my house. They band in February, so we know that bird came here in the past, but never made it this year. it just flat out didnt migrate.

So im curious what this debate is all about around flooded corn? Whether it is causing the lack of migration because of more food source and not leaving the food?

Statistics have always been manipulated to benefit those producing the data. Just look at the last presidential election cycle.... didnt they say a certain lady who could barely put a sentence together had that election in the bag? Faintly remember seeing daily statistics about something like that and ended up being very wrong in the end.
 
Im afraid that these opinions FF trots out as the smoking gun are not at all science based. Tell a lie long enough people start to believe it . The many working biologists I know just discount their flooded corn theory as junk science. But as PT Barnum put it , "There's a sucker born every minute".
I have hunted in Illinois all my life and as well, have had a lease in SWLA for over 25 years. When I was there a couple of weeks ago the corn topic was front and center and my friends wanted a Yankee opinion. Mainly their opinions were rooted in old wives tales like red legged mallards from the freezing north or the teal only migrate because the northern clubs have not pumped water on the corn yet. Not a lot of facts.
Its too bad the state of Louisiana has not done to much to retain or enhance it's own landscape. Lost acres of rice production,sugar cane, crawfish farming, vanishing hardwoods and alluvial floodplain . The fact is in the old days in Cajun country, you didnt need to do much, just buy a box of shells and your hunting license the night before the season and shoot your limit in the morning. The ducks always came. Up North we always had to try to manage what we had and try to improve our habitat. They have legally been growing corn and flooding it in the Illinois river bottoms since the 1960's. Its nothing new. The mid 1990's study that is routinely cited by that group only deals with codifying definitions and penalties. Growing ag crops for waterfowl were not illegal before that study, nor after.
We have 900,00 duck hunters in a country of 320 million and now that we get fractionalized it wont be good for us. If the followers of this FF group can not seperat truth from fiction then what can we expect from the other 319 million when they see the population numbers down 40 percent across the board in 9 years and ask why are we still hunting 6/60 or even plain why are we hunting?
This is a production problem . A drought cycle that we have been through before. A dust bowl in the 1930's brought together far sighted sportsmen to found Ducks Unlimited and cited a singular purpose to save and create habitat. Today we get finger pointers, crybabies and Monday morning biologists.
 
You mean to say my two bushels of corn is not going to keep MY ducks from getting shot up in Alabama? Say it isn't so.

For what it's worth; todays report; 20 inches of ice on the water in places, open flowing water in other places, exposed grass and fields in most areas of the state
 
SJ Fairbank said:
I don't know what the major factor in the shortstopping (if it's really happening) of waterfowl is in the Central Flyway. What I do know is the Atlantic Flyway experienced the same thing, especially with geese, without benefit of flooded corn. In the old days, my family went to Mattamuskeet for geese. Then the geese were stopping on the DelMarVa, so we went there. Now many are wintering farther north in NY and NJ.

This year a huge number of mallards showed up in CT when it got cold, more than I can ever recall. Where the heck did they come from, and why?

Prior to the 90's, we were covered up in Broadbill by Thanksgiving. All of a sudden, they were down 90% or more. I found out from a friend that they were overwintering on the Great Lakes, eating zebra/quagga mussels. Yes, they experienced poor breeding success (perhaps because of selenium ingested with the mussels), but the population wasn't down 90%.

Maybe it's farming practices, maybe it's crop manipulation to hold birds, maybe it's climate, maybe it's hunting pressure and the availability of refuges in a given area. I don't know what causes it, but shortstopping/flyway rerouting is a real phenomenon.
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That's certainly true.

I recorded a temperature of -1°F at my home last week.

And yet we had enormous push of Canada geese over the next several days.

Our snow geese are somewhat further south, but I anticipate will be back in the area with warmer temperatures predicted to the end of next week.

It definitely seems there's an agenda being pushed, but for what reason I am not sure.

The motivations have not come to late yet. Whether it is just jealousy or whether there is membership drives etc. for the Federation, who knows.
 
I've been monitoring this for weeks, I've been trying to stay out of the fray. I guess i'll offer a couple of points now.

Ramsey Russell has a podcast on this topic coming out soon. There also have been a couple of good articles published too. Suffice it to say, there are many factors involved, but this complaint happens on a regular basis every time breeding populations get low and hunter expectations remain high. But simple statistics are not going to point out anything except that we have had 10 years of marginal production on the prairies, deteriorating conditions in southern habitats, and many other factors. Interesting that they point to 2000 as the start of the decline, didn't spinning wing decoys hit the market in 1999? How about mud motors? ATVs, side by sides, etc.? The changes in agriculture (ethanol corn, new varieties of short growing season corn and soybeans, canola, loss of CRP, declining grasslands and 🐄grazing, sugar cane, etc.) could explain a lot. Throw in mild and dry winters, hurricanes on the Gulf coast and the list of complicating factors gets longer and longer. As mentioned above bird distribution changes with time, there are multiple examples across the flyways. My personal opinion is that there is a strong undercurent of competition that leads jealousy and greed in our pasttime. Hunters should band together inside of going at each others throats.

Conducting a properly designed study to answer the right question would cost USFWS most of the Migratory Bird Program budget. I don't see it happening in this budgetary climate.
 
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Anyone that thinks the biggest problem ducks face is being short stopped by flooded corn, is delusional. There's been flooded corn since there was duck hunting and that's not going to change. The real problem is that there are only 34 million birds left to cover 9.5 million square miles of North America. If even 1/2 of that number is hens, we are in deep doo doo because they just cannot crank out the volume of ducklings there once were.

I will admit to a corn problem though but it is far different than flooded corn. Here. and a lot of other places I've seen, every corn field is chopped at 6" or so and there isn't a scrap of waste grain left for the birds anymore. Modern farming is so efficient now, geese come into a field after it's cut, spend 1 day there and never come back. The old trick or finding a flock using a feed doesn't work anymore. There's nothing we can do about it, but it's sure changed goose hunting here in NW Pa..

just my 2 cents.
 
@ericpatterson I say Flock The Flyway Federation as well. Guy is a thief . I fell in line with his sentiments , ordered about $250-$300 stuff to support him and never got what I ordered nor were any further emails answered once the guy got my money.

So at this time my opinion is the guy is just pissed off he can’t afford the flooded corn property .


Now to the topic of hand . I think the migration failure is multifactorial . Talking with a couple of guys from South Daakoota the biggest thing is we aren’t getting the weather we used to. I remember we used to get snow fairly common north of us, and the snow combined with freezing temperatures would lock up the water and cover the food forcing them to push south . The SD farmer said they haven’t been able to break out the snow mobiles in several years and he remembers the drifts used to be as high as fence posts and they just don’t see that weather and haven’t for a while.

I also have a teenage co-worker his moma moved him down here on a whim from Minnesota and he was telling me he hasn’t been able to go Ice fishing the past several years confirming the South Dakootanz

Another thing is magnetic 🧲 north keeps jumping all over the place if anyone has looked at it. I feel this coincides with the weather as well. Paleontology friend of mine says if you look through the sediment layers we are way way over due for a complete poll flip.. and kind of cool but scary if we are alive to see something that hasn’t been witnessed since Grog the caveman was alive ..History suggests weather events the likes of us have never seen. On one hand the B rated sci-fy guy in me has the popcorn bucket waiting for the catastrophes … but the practical side of me says either quit messing with the migration or else give me some white cheek pintails up this way from Argentina .

Now do I think the flooded corn fields are a SMALL component of the equation yes .. as long as they have food and don’t have to expend the energy why would they? , but I think the weather is the biggest issue.

I also think the flock counts are way Way over estimated. While good in theory I do wonder how genuinely accurate they can be flying over real quick in a plane … yeap saw 50 nests ….there has got to be a satellite technology that can be utilized and be much more accurate … but the cynic in me doesn’t trust gooberment to not manipulate the data to an anti-hunting position regardless of what’s determined…In the back of my head I do wonder how much hunting pressure is hurting the population more than we realize

Short of stopping theoretical cloud seeding by B52’s I don’t have a good answer nor do I have a solution. I wish I did but I don’t
 
My personal opinion is that there is a strong undercurent of competition that leads jealousy and greed in our past time.
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Absolutely. I chuckle when I say duck hunters hate each other, only half tongue in cheek.

While on my soap box, I'll say for the thousandth time IMO the biggest problem for the long term future of waterfowling is guiding. They lock up hunting areas with leases so the working Joe can't gain access. How does somebody break into the sport, unless they pay for a day?

Easy picking populations like scoters and eiders are crushed for money. Give a guy a boat and a six pack ticket and he'll have videos of limits every day for sixty days. Google "seaduck hunting", there's more videos put out by guides than movies on netflix. I've hunted the three seaduck species my entire life, way before it became a money grab. When Long Tailed ducks were Old Squaws, scoters were coots and eiders were hunted from mud bars rather than shot for money from TDB's. The thrill is entirely in doing it yourself. Going with a guide makes a hunter a shooter, nothing more.

I can't sell the birds I shoot, as it should be. Noone should be taking money to take others to shoot the same birds. It's only 7:20 am, I feel better already. :D
 
Great discussion. One item I think missed is the development along the coast creating mini refugees in the retention ponds where waterfowl can winter.
 
I have followed the ridiculous corn pond debate for a while. I was born ('66) and raised in MI and remember what winters were like as a kid, especially during the late 70's, so I understand weather has changed. I have lived in SC since 1987 and I've witnessed the waterfowl decline in SC in the late 90's to early 2000. I don't believe the Atlantic Flyway "shifted", it's just fizzled out as duck numbers declined and habitat disappeared due to tremendous development, pollution killing eelgrass, spraying waterways to kill hydrilla and winters became more mild. Private and State / Federal funded impoundments are the saving grace to provide habitat to the few ducks we have wintering in SC.

My first visit to SELA was in January 2000. There were so many ducks you couldn't fall asleep in the tent due to the quacks, peeps, chirps and whistles. After hurricane Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ivan, Isaac, Laura, Ian, etc........we have a mere fraction of marsh habitat from what we had 26 years ago. The invasive legless mealy bug has also destroyed 1000's of acres of roseau cane, the fabric that holds our life building sediment in the marsh. I have shared a camp in SELA since 2010 and I've been front row to the decline in waterfowl numbers coupled with habitat loss over the last 26 years. My biggest concern is where are the photo period, aka "calendar" ducks? Early season aerial surveys show the decline in our photo migrators. Have the milder winters reduced the number of photoperiod migrators? I doubt they're holed up in Tony Vandamore's corn ponds, lol.

You'll never hear me complain about the lack of ducks in Louisiana since we still harvest over 1,000,000 ducks annually, it's just gotten a lot harder to find and hunt them. (not a bad thing IMO) Technology changed with the invention of surface drive mud boats which allow easier access to areas that used to give ducks refuge on public property. Mud boats destroy aquatic vegetation, saltwater intrusion kills our SAV, subsidence and erosion are washing our marsh in the Gulf. Louisiana is the poster child of suffering from slow death by 1,000 cuts.

Personally, I'm afraid the unintended consequence of the "lack of ducks" conundrum has led to overharvest of our Bluewing and Greenwing Teal population. 10-20 years ago teal always got a pass. We never shot teal during big duck season, now they make up 90 to 100% of our bag. IMO, we are harvesting too many of them.

I'm praying for heavy late season snow pack and Spring rains to revitalize the prairie potholes.
 
SJ Fairbank said:
Absolutely. I chuckle when I say duck hunters hate each other, only half tongue in cheek.

While on my soap box, I'll say for the thousandth time IMO the biggest problem for the long term future of waterfowling is guiding. They lock up hunting areas with leases so the working Joe can't gain access. How does somebody break into the sport, unless they pay for a day?

Easy picking populations like scoters and eiders are crushed for money. Give a guy a boat and a six pack ticket and he'll have videos of limits every day for sixty days. Google "seaduck hunting", there's more videos put out by guides than movies on netflix. I've hunted the three seaduck species my entire life, way before it became a money grab. When Long Tailed ducks were Old Squaws, scoters were coots and eiders were hunted from mud bars rather than shot for money from TDB's. The thrill is entirely in doing it yourself. Going with a guide makes a hunter a shooter, nothing more.

I can't sell the birds I shoot, as it should be. Noone should be taking money to take others to shoot the same birds. It's only 7:20 am, I feel better already. :D
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I'm adamantly opposed to prostituting waterfowl for profit. Slaughtering waterfowl for social media clicks and "likes", it's a shame.

 
Paul Taylor said:
I'm adamantly opposed to prostituting waterfowl for profit. Slaughtering waterfowl for social media clicks and "likes", it's a shame.

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The social media click thing is all about money too, isn't it? Those professionally made videos are for profit as far as I can tell. The clowns doing this have no concept of how the non-hunting public perceives hunting. Imagine somebody who never hunted surfing the net and this kind of video pops up? Ignorant goons.
 
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