One Scaup Limit?

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

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The Alabama tentative season was posted a few days ago. It won't be official until after the federal framework is published but they have listed the bag limit on bluebill as one. Anybody heard of a one bluebill limit coming out of the feds?

Eric
 
In New York it will be one bluebill per day for 40 days of the season, and two per day for 20 days.

Pretty sad.

Mike
 
I heard a while back it would be either one or two and/or a split season.
 
PA is looking at the same. Ours will be one bird for the first 20 days, two birds for the middle 20 days and end with one bird for the final 20 days. The Feds will allow the the 2 bird limit anywhere within the window. We selected the middle to try to catch the peak of the scaup migration.
 
Looks like FL bluebills will be 1 bluebill Nov 21-29 and Dec 12-Jan 11. Then 2 bluebills from Jan 12-end of season.
 
Does anyone know why the Blue Bill numbers are down? Or are we more concerned about how many we can shoot.

Tom
 
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I went back and found an earlier thread on this topic, below, and what I'm trying to figure out is why some states offer a portion of the season with a two bird limit while other states, like mine, are one bird per day all season. Is this a case where each flyway is has different limits/season lengths? Is the Atlantic flyway less restrictive than the MS flyway on bluebill? Or has my state decided to be more restrictive. Or perhaps they are just waiting on the federal framework to sort out all the details and the limit stated thus far is just a placeholder. It will all be sorted out soon enough but it does make me wonder if individual states will be more restrictive than the Fed framework, and in those cases I'm interested in the rationale. I've contacted my state and am waiting to hear from them.

http://www.duckboats.net/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=328955;do=post_view;search_string=scaup#p328955
 
Well I just got my answer from the State. The Alabama season will have a one scaup limit even if the federal framework allows two for a portion of the season.

Eric
 
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Sorry for not responding sooner Eric. I will try to explain the regulatory process in understandable terms. Seasons are set now under a predetermined set of rules or strategies. The trigger points are determined from models of expected harvest from certain population sizes and survival rates (and other factors). This is all done under the overall umbrella of Adaptive Harvest Management (AHM), i.e., the mallard season sets the overall length and bag limit of the season and less abundant species bag limits are set on this overall season framework. Look at table 10 in this report https://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/management/AHM/AHMReport2020.pdf

Scaup have a separate harvest strategy because they have been declining and are not recovering like other species. The BPOP survey is used as the key indicator along with realized harvest (you'll remember my post about the harvest survey estimates a few weeks ago). In 2019 the breeding population dropped below the threshold calling to move from the moderate to restrictive season in 2020. Each flyway will be in the restrictive package for scaup in 2020 (and 2021 because of the COVID cancelled surveys). Table 10 shows you the packages under liberal, moderate and restrictive in all 4 flyways. If you read starting on page 32 you can read all about scaup. Read the whole report and you'll get the strategies for all species and an honorary Ph.D.
 
Brad

Thanks for the info. I had forgotten that the decision making timeline changed and the framework is no longer set in August like was done for many years. That makes my question somewhat mute. Now to see if my statistical skills are not too rusty to read the report and see how it all works. I'm betting they are too rusty :) That and the fact the Ph. D. I worked for many years poo-pooed Bayesian analysis in favor of Frequentist methodologies so my exposure to Bayesian techniques is quite limited.

Before diving into the report I scanned the Exec Summary and was surprised by the fact mallard populations do not figure into the Atlantic flyway harvest strategy, rather wood ducks, ringnecks, goldeneye and greenwing teal populations do. Did I read that right? I always had it in my mind mallard pops dictated hunting seasons in all four flyways.

One more question, I keep seeing harvest rates as very small numbers, like .12. In plain English is that 12/100 ducks are killed by hunters? Just trying to make certain I understand the most fundamental measure repeatedly mentioned in the report.

As always, thank you for taking the time to help us understand how the process works.

Eric
 
Thats funny Eric. My father who had advanced degrees in Math and Physics said they always thought Bayesian approaches would be superior but they had no way to compute them back then. I was trained in parametric statistics before the Bayesian craze, but I was high enough on the food chain at that point I just needed to generally understand it well enough and not do the actual calculations or programming.

Atlantic Flyway mallards were the basis but the regulations in the Flyway years but they have been wanting to develop a multi-stock approach. Relatively few mallards in the Atlantic Flyway actually come from the mid-continent so they wanted a system that gave them some independence from the cycles of the prairies. The Pacific Flyway has a western mallard model that relies breeding ducks in California, Oregon and Alaska in addition to a small area of SW Alberta.

Yes a harvest rate of 0.12 means 12% of that species/age/sex cohort is harvested. That rate (12%) would be typical of adult male mallards back when I followed things more closely.

Hey I am retired.
 
Yes eric. Mallards are not the determiner in the eastern flyaway anymore. I think our waterfowl folks here in CT announced that change last year, but I can?t remember. If it wasn?t covid I could walk to Min?s desk and bother him, but no longer.
 
thomas wilkins said:
Does anyone know why the Blue Bill numbers are down? Or are we more concerned about how many we can shoot.

Tom
Click to expand...

Tom
Here in WNY on lakes Erie and Ontario and the Niagara River about 3-4 years ago we had a very large die off due to a severe winter. I feel most were bluebills that wintered here. Some estimate thousands died and that 70% were hens. You could walk the shoreline and find bird after bird, and also see them frozen on the ice. Ever since that winter I've seen less bluebills. Cans and redheads seemed to fair better than the bluebills.



View attachment A2DB9340-7904-44B0-B4F3-D6C7028F164E.jpeg

View attachment A2DB9340-7904-44B0-B4F3-D6C7028F164E.jpeg
 
Thanks for the response Patrick. If you google THE GREAT SCAUP MYSTERY this will give you some insight on the struggling rebound of the Blue Bill.

Tom
 
Darin Clark said:
Patrick
Are you sure the cold weather got them? From your picture they may have just fallen off the earth! [smile]
Click to expand...

Darin
You may be right.
Somehow when posting photos they rotate 180 degrees
 

Appears doubtful that USA waterfowlers will be able to enter Canada this year/season, due to Covid, and it should be taken into consideration IMO.

Could be helpful to some waterfowl. (Yet not helpful for the local, regional economies, as well as conservation organizations, etc..)

Just maybe, that and the lower USA bag limit on Scaup, will give their population a bit of help.

Ya gotta look for silver linings anywhere ya can find them these days.


While searching for more fly fishing books the other day in our home. I found the old, PRAIRIE DUCKS by Lyle K. Sowls. Could be it's somewhat outdated like myself, yet I began to reread it. The book is still very interesting and enlightening.



VP
 
Patrick, LOL I had the same question about upside down. But you are ahead of me. I can't figure out how to post any pictures at all! I keep getting a "not Secure" error.

BTW for 12 years we lived in Endicott NY, our house sat waterfront about 100feet elevation above the Susquehanna River. I regret that I didn't do any duck hunting while living there--too busy with work, kids, etc. although I have a few great memories of a couple trips with goose hunter friends, lying in white Tyvek suits on our backs in the snow, single digit temperatures in corn stubble on the shores of Cayuga Lake (King Ferry, maybe)?

I could go for some cooler weather now--recently moved from balmy coastal NC to Richmond--it was over 100 degrees (true temp, not Heat Index) earlier this week.

Thanks for the interesting and cool picture.
 
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