Duck Numbers Not Like I hoped

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

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2022 Duck Population Numbers | 2022-2023 Waterfowl Season (ducks.org)

Looks like the late wet conditions didn't really help as much as I hoped for. Wow, poor pintails. What is going on? So maybe someone (hey Brad!) can help me out. Have seasons/limits already been set? Going back as long as I can remember seasons were set in late summer after breeding surveys were completed. But I believe that system changed a few years ago and I'm unclear as to the new season setting process timeline. Can anyone clear this up? Thanks.

Eric
 
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IMO Numbers mean nothing if we don't get the weather to push the birds from Canada
 
Historically, our season in Vermont was not set until mid August, but the last few years the dates and limits were set in June.


Vermont Syllabus.PNG
 
Matt C said:
Historically, our season in Vermont was not set until mid August, but the last few years the dates and limits were set in June.
Click to expand...

A few years back FWS went to a 2 year season setting rotation
 
Has the breeding data been tabulated by June? If not are you saying two seasons are set based on data from the previous year's survey? E.g. they set seasons for two years every other year based on survey date from the previous year? This isn't making sense to me.

Eric
 
Eric,
To my understanding they changed it a few years ago to use the previous years survey to set dates instead of the current year. We use to not have dates published in the NC regulation digest because the dates were set after publication was printed. Now they are set before the publication is printed and are in the book.
 
I think your answer is somewhere in Adaptive Harvest Management. Here is a link to a pdf from USFWS about this years seasons and information that probably answers some of your questions.

https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/adaptive-harvest-management-hunting-season-report-2022.pdf

AHM is definitely a new program for managing migratory birds, and is the latest iteration in management strategy. Time will tell if this stays as the philosophy on how to set the seasons.
 
Howdy folks, been away from duck boats.net for a few months on all sorts of projects. I'll update you soon.



Yes, FWS and flyways agreed to change the timing of regulations publication a few years ago. They now set the regulations a year in advance instead of the same year. They did this to facilitate getting the regulations published in time for the seasons and there was the added benefit for hunters knowing the season dates well in advance of the season. Currently FWS publishes the proposed seasons in December for the following fall. That gives the states and federal governments time to select and publish regulations before the hunting seasons. The companion report (AHM report) is the first step in setting next year's regulations and it recommends the optimum regulatory package for next year is the liberal package of duck regulations (I.e., no change from this year). So next year should have the exact same bag limits and season length as this year.

Duck populations are down as a result of a couple years of dry conditions on the prairies and poor recruitment. But conditions are looking like there should be good recruitment this year that should result in a higher proportion of young in the fall flight and this could be the beginning of the next up cycle of ducks if we swing back into a wet cycle.
 
Brad

So simply put the surveys and AHM published last August (2021) is what set the bags/seasons for the upcoming 2022/23 season? Correct? I can see the benefit for generating/distributing state season publications earlier than with the old system. But what about the fact this upcoming hunting season doesn't take into account the most recent breeding season? Seems like we could have liberal regs after a terrible breeding season, or restrictive regs following a banner year on the prairies. Am I still confused? If not did COVID give us a liberal season because the 2021 survey's weren't performed, and had they been the drier conditions would have dictated moderate or restrictive bags/seasons?

Eric
 
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Part of this change, from what I remember, is that they are going with the trend in population.
This will avoid a bad breeding year plummeting us from liberal straight to restrictive without a year of moderate in between. Or vice-versa coming out of a recovery from a string of bad years.
Overall this makes sense statistically.

And pintails, cans & bluebills have a separate formula, so they can catch those and adjust if needed.
 
Given the warming trend, it's safe to say that ducks will keep wintering farther and farther north.
Which is a positive for them and a negative for hunters on the southern end of the flyways.

I am interest to see if any species (other than whistling ducks which already are and have been for 20 years now) are pushing their breeding areas farther north??
 
Eric

These changes in season setting happened on my watch mainly because the red tape processes in federal and state governments happen too slowly anymore. There were a couple of years when seasons almost occurred before state or federal regulations were published.

We also came to realize that harvest pressure has been declining over the years and the regulations could be set without depending on how many young were in the fall flight. AHM started in 1995 and has been testing various hypotheses about how duck populations work. It has also delivered 27 years of liberal frameworks. We are no longer in the days when we chase populations with regulations.
 
Not very generous with the mallards in Vermont. We can shoot 7 a day for 107 days in Washington State. Only which two can be hens.
 
Tony, that is the differences between the 4 flyways, Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific. It all goes back to how many ducks, hunters and habitat there is in each flyway. The formula was carved in stone tablets found in a Louisiana bayou and guarded by water moccasins and big gators. [cool]

Table 1 in this report shows the difference between flyways at liberal, moderate and restrictive levels. There is a lot of other information in this report too.View attachment AHMReport2023.pdf
 
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Brad,
It"s interesting to see "harvest pressure declining over the years" mentioned. I have never heard this before. Is this a new variable considered for season dates and bag limits? I know in my area Covid brought duck hunters out in large numbers. It seems that anyone with a boat filled it with their buddies and hunted a lot which could be a good thing for recruitment. I did see quite a few dads hunting with their kids. They probably learned more in the duck boat than on their remote learning schedule.

RVZ
 
Brad

That kind of seems like a paradigm shift from what I gathered over the early years of my waterfowling career. I really need to read the 2022 AHM report without getting bogged down in the details (which lose me every time I try) and simply try to digest the main points.

Let me ask you this, do you foresee a time when drake/hen distinction is removed from the regs? If harvest pressure is not only down, but also not as big of a contributor to waterfowl pops and once thought (do I have that correct?), will we arrive at the point where drake/hen restrictions are no longer necessary and dropped. In recent years I've had a hard time understanding mallard drake/hen bag strategies while Pintail and Scaup numbers are down but no differentiation between the sexes in bag limits is made. I guess more evidence you can't chase populations with regs. Am I really saying that????

Eric
 
This is something I have always wondered about as well, why we didnt restrict the hen limit to 1 for pintails, scaup, redheads and cans when you could have 2 or more in the bag limit??
 
Talk about ducks not traveling south.
In the last 3 years we have not seen any numbers of ducks on Lake Erie until the season is over in first week of January!!
 
Eric et al.,

I'll be blunt. There is little basis for it from a population management standpoint. The mallard hen restriction is vestigial, carried over because no one wants to deal with the political/social costs of making the change. Its been in place so long that duck hunting "tradition" and non-hunting public opinion see it as necessary. So it hasn't been high enough priority to dedicate the staff time and political/social capital to change it.

Yes, things have changed. The 1980' and 1990's theoretical debates over the effect of harvest on population dynamics have given way to more robust analytical understanding of population dynamics and the factors that effect duck abundance. There have been essentially stable regulations since 1995. Despite this hunter numbers are declining as is harvest. I've attached the companion harvest survey report to the status and AHM reports. Take a look at the long-term trends in duck harvest.

View attachment Migratory Bird Hunting Activity and Harvest Report 2020_21 and 2021_22.pdf
 
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