harvest trends in your state

Thanks so much for this site. I found it interesting especially when they talked about "Mexican like" ducks!
Al
 
I looked at the Alabama Trends.
Like I have said before, the good old days are now. Since the mid 90's, we've been consistently above any of the best years since 1960. I was here for the peak years in 1999-2000 and it was quite incredible. Limits of gadwalls were easy. We would get bored shooting gadwalls and pick days to go shooot teal or divers instead.

Look how the increase in gadwalls numbers tracks with the increase in harvest. I looked a mallard, scaup & teal harvest, they do not track this closely.

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I have seen a graphic at various meetings that shows harvest trends for each state in the country by color coding the state by % increase or decrease over a certain time period maybe the last 20 years. MN, WI, IA, MI are way down and several of the Southeastern states are up by over 100%

Harvest in LA and AR are up, but not dramatically.

Living in and around states that have seen dramatic declines in harvest, I found it very interesting that other states had seen dramatic increases. With all the regional complaining + southern complaints about "short stopping" I had gotten the feeling harvest was dropping all over.
 
Interesting data. I did quick search to see how many state migratory birds stamps were issued in Oregon. I wanted to see what the bird:hunter ratio was but was only able to find a chart without any data. I also agree that the good times are now!
 
I am glad to hear that this site is useful to you. A couple of words of caution about sample sizes in small states and infrequently harvest species and comparisons with the breeding population survey.

The sample sizes from some states can be quite small and infrequently harvested species estimates may be based on a very sample number of wings submitted. I would caution against making conclusions without thinking about those limitations. For example the number of waterfowl hunters in Wyoming harvesting harlequin ducks is likely small and the likihood that a hunter would submit a wing from one is remote but if a hunter shot a brood of harlequins and submitted the wings that could show a high estimate for the entire state. For more abundant species and for harvest totals by state or flyway the estimates are pretty reliable.

Second caution: the sampling frames are different so don't try to subtract the harvest estimates from the breeding population estimates to figure out the proportion of the breeding population that gets harvested. In some cases you might calculate that hunters shoot over 100% of the breeding population of some species in some years. Obviously that can't be true.

But wander through the site and learn about waterfowl management.
 
I am glad to hear that this site is useful to you. A couple of words of caution about sample sizes in small states and infrequently harvest species and comparisons with the breeding population survey.

The sample sizes from some states can be quite small and infrequently harvested species estimates may be based on a very sample number of wings submitted. I would caution against making conclusions without thinking about those limitations. For example the number of waterfowl hunters in Wyoming harvesting harlequin ducks is likely small and the likihood that a hunter would submit a wing from one is remote but if a hunter shot a brood of harlequins and submitted the wings that could show a high estimate for the entire state. For more abundant species and for harvest totals by state or flyway the estimates are pretty reliable.

Second caution: the sampling frames are different so don't try to subtract the harvest estimates from the breeding population estimates to figure out the proportion of the breeding population that gets harvested. In some cases you might calculate that hunters shoot over 100% of the breeding population of some species in some years. Obviously that can't be true.

But wander through the site and learn about waterfowl management.
Click to expand...

Hey Brad,
Your comments reminded me of a particular year when Tim M. and I were hunting a particularly hot area for teal. It happened to be the last day and we ended up each taking 36 birds for the 9 day hunt. Both of us had been chosen for the survey and all Tim said was, "Boy will this throw the curve out of whack! It will look like there are a lot of teal shot here and there really aren't."
Al
 
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