Waterfowl Counts

[Gary Lee]

After reading some of the articles on Madduck it made me wonder how these counts are done and how accurate they are. Back when I was a hardcore waterfowl hunter I would read as many articles as possible ont he waterfowl counts before season every year. Every year the counts seemed way off but I just blew it off since I'm not in a major trafficway of the flyway. As a matter of fact according to the maps I have seen there is only a very small trickle of birds that passes near here. Being that we only see a minoot fraction of the overall population I saw no sense in taking the counts to heart.

From what I understood biologists sectioned off known nesting areas and counted the eggs found in those areas and by some magical math equation came up with the total bird numbers by species. But at this time what had me stunned was there was big talk of the traditional nesting areas being destroyed, particularly Scaup, and Cans. and how the birds were coping with this. Which made me wonder how in the world any of the counts were to be taken seriously. There are so many factors involved that would affect the numbers outcome.

Then one winter I hunted some stateland west of here. Arriving at the station I looked over that weeks bird counts and was disappointed to say the least. That mornings hunt was unreal, with limits filled quicker than normal and a mixed bag. First thought was that these birds were migrants that had arrived after the count was taken a couple of days ago. Back at the ramp I ran into a couple other parties of hunters that also had great shooting that morning. We started talking about how great a morning it was and I asked when the birds had made it down. The answer was the same with both parties. The birds had been there for a couple weeks with the numbers rising. I have seen this many times since then with stateland, the best being when the estimated numbers were ridiculously low. After seeing the numbers I almost didn't even make the trip to scout since they were taken that day. I saw more birds from the road at one spot than they had on paper. The areas I mention I hunted frequently when I hunted hard and got to know many people that hunted there, as well as people that worked there (many of which hunted waterfowl). To this day I still wonder if these numbers weren't altered to help keep hunter numbers low during peak migration. Add to that mysterious roadblocks were placed on roads leading to ramps where the birds were at certain times of the year. The same happens during mushroom season for some strange reason. Recently (this past season I noticed this) they have given up bird counts period. I'm not sure why this happened but it did.

I am not complaining about lack of birds this past season, but just wanted to hear what your thoughts are on how accurate the bird counts (nationwide) are , and if you have had similiar happenings with stateland.

 

[Steve Sutton]

why don't you ask the "experts" that wrote wahtyour buying to explain it to you?

Get it straight from the horses mouth....

 

[Gary Lee]

That's the thing Steve, looks like a bunch of bichin and complainin on that site. But the articles mentioned the bird counts/numbers, and I have always wondered about the bird counts. Being that there are alot of "seasoned" Waterfowlers on this site, and I have yet to see whining. I figured I could post these questions and get some insight.

 

[Steve Sutton]

the peiple on that site are offering their information as "experts"......asking them to explain what they are saying and how they came to those conclusion would be far more logical than to ask people who didn't write the articles to explain them to you....

 

[Gary Lee]

My intentions weren't to get people flustered. Just serious questions to serious waterfowl hunters. No more, no less. Like I mentioned I have always been curious on these counts both nationwide, and statewide. I shouldn't have mentioned reading an article or two made me ask these questions on here I suppose.

 

[Matt_n_Barb]

The Mad Duck articles are someones opinion, it would be nice if there were some solid, verifiable, data to back up the claims...



I will say this much as a person that does spend a considerable amount of time in the world of modeling.....models can be misused and misunderstood. A model is only a tool and in most cases does require a set of assumptions to handle unknowns and maintain consistency; that is why the human element is required to properly "front load" the model and interput the results. Thus, you best go to the source like Steve suggest, both the opinion writers and the biologist.....

 

[TimJ]

A lot of the counts are based on pond numbers as much as the number of ducks seen. The better the habitat the better the counts. They can count smaller areas and then count the ponds and get a good idea of the overall numbers. The counts are never going to be exact and some years they miss it a little. I don't think they ever blow it by a huge margin. Some ducks like Cans can be a little harder because the areas are smaller for them so the sample size is smaller and likely creates more error....I would guess at least.

It will be interesting to see the numbers of birds killed this year. I know some people who shot a lot of ducks at times last fall, but a lot of those here had slow years. It's hard to tell numbers by that.

If you are talking about the fall and winter fly over counts they do on refuges, river systems and some large bodies of water then I think they are basically a fly over and count set areas. I always have a hard time with the idea that they would fudge the numbers. All the photos, maps and counts are open because of the freedom of information act. It just takes way too many to go along with it or info would be all over the place.

btw I think the pond counts are going to be very good this spring in SD and MN.

Tim

 

[Matt_n_Barb]

Tim,

I hear that in Western MN there is still a bunch of snow on the ground,,,,thus many ponds at snow melt? or many ducks at snow melt? or both?


Matt

 

[Brad Bortner]

I won't try to explain in too great of detail but the breeding duck population survey that is used as one piece of setting regulations is aerial survey flown 100 feet off the ground at about 100 knots. The USFWS pilot/biologists and observers count ducks on 44,000 miles of 1/4 mile wide transects throughout the major breeding areas of North America. A subsample of these transects are counted also by USFWS/CWS/state agency and volunteer ground crews. The ratio between air counts and ground counts is used as a correction factor. The survey provides a species-specific duck population estimate with confidence intervals around the estimates. I'll let Eric translate this if necessary. This survey is the most comprehensive, large-scale wildlife survey done in the world. It has been reviewed by statisticians many times and it is solid. I believe it gives a true estimate of the number of birds in the surveyed area.

That said, the breeding population estimates have a weak relationship at best to hunter success and satisfaction. The estimates are of the size of the breeding population of ducks period. People assume that more breeding ducks will always means more hunter success and satisfaction. This assumption totally ignores everything that all of factors that affect the size of the fall flight such as summer weather which effects recruitment, fall and winter weather, and quantity of water and food resources on migration and wintering areas. Hunters also assume that because regulations package selected under AHM is titled liberal that they can expect to shot limits every day. Waterfowl biologists have struggled for years to try to explain that the regulations are set on the ability of the population to withstand harvest pressure not some expected number of dead ducks.

Sure, hunters in some areas this year had poor seasons. As Eric found out, when the Arkansas bottonlands flood from heavy rains the ducks spread out and are difficult to kill. When early fall rains saturate soils in South Dakota and farmers have to leave thousands upon thousands of acres of corn unharvested and mild temperatures prevail later than normal, waterfowl don't migrate further south and South Dakota hunters had a great season. The past few years the same has happened in Missouri. When arctic weather freezes everything north of the Gulf Coast and snow covers vast areas of the mid-continent, the coastal hunters of Louisiana and Alabama have great shoots. That happened this year but it has been years since it happen last.

You can read all of the nay-sayers you want about the surveys and the methods, but I don't see them proposing any viable alternatives.

 

[TimJ]

Tim,

I hear that in Western MN there is still a bunch of snow on the ground,,,,thus many ponds at snow melt? or many ducks at snow melt? or both?


Matt

There is a lot of snow everywhere around eastern SD and MN to melt. I think ND is doing ok on snow too. Normally we lose a little in late january or early february but not this year. No january thaw at all, we are over 80 days without hitting 40. It's been hard to hit 30 with all this snow. FEMA has already been here telling everyone to get ready for flooding. NE SD has an area that the estimates look like there is 9+ inches of moisture in the snow there. That's a lot for this part of the country. And we were in good shape on moisture last fall.

Tim

 

[tod osier]

I read though those "articles" and was umpressed and they came across as sour grapes to me. I put articles in quotes because they were more on the line of rants than articles.

Either way, long on opinions and short on facts. I wasn't compelled by either of them that Worth highlighted.

As far as the techniques used to estimate populations, Brad has it covered above.

T

 

[Al Hansen]

Gary, I used to get caught up in this "political tussle" when I was younger but no more for sure. I found out that when you have experts doing a job that you are most interested in, seek the advice of the expert. If something is wrong with your physical body, you seek the advice of a doctor, etc.
A number of years ago I had the occasion to have dinner with two waterfowl biologists, one who had started his career in aerial waterfowl counts back in 1962 which was only 7 years after the feds began this program. It was one of the most interesting times of my life because of my love of waterfowl. I found out that counters for sure NEVER want to overestimate any count that they make.
Not, too long ago I was given a picture of an aerial shot of snow geese in which the counter had "estimated" the flock to be at 24,500 when he looked out the window and saw this flock on the ground. The actual count was 25,200 birds. Yes, someone took the time to count every bird in the picture just to see how close the spotter was.
Over the decades I have seen much that has been written about the swings of waterfowl populations,especially when there is supposed to be a large number of birds but certain areas, like the Mississippi Flyway, for example, don't seem to shoot as many birds as they (normally) do.
I, for one, will continue to follow the experts in the waterfowl field and take each duck season one day at a time.
Back in Minnesota during the middle 50's I was able to witness a mass migration from Canada that preceded a harsh blizzard that the PPR got in November. I know I saw hundreds of thousands of ducks that day. Well, Minnesota didn't have such a great year that year but it was good one. Then in one day we had a wonderful hunt and the day after, you might as well of closed the season because every duck headed south. Mom Nature at work again.
Al

 

[tod osier]

I won't try to explain in too great of detail but the breeding duck population survey that is used as one piece of setting regulations is aerial survey flown 100 feet off the ground at about 100 knots. The USFWS pilot/biologists and observers count ducks on 44,000 miles of 1/4 mile wide transects throughout the major breeding areas of North America. A subsample of these transects are counted also by USFWS/CWS/state agency and volunteer ground crews. The ratio between air counts and ground counts is used as a correction factor. The survey provides a species-specific duck population estimate with confidence intervals around the estimates. I'll let Eric translate this if necessary. This survey is the most comprehensive, large-scale wildlife survey done in the world. It has been reviewed by statisticians many time and it is solid. I believe it gives a true estimate of the number of birds in the surveyed area.

That said, the breeding population estimates have a weak relationship at best to hunter success and satisfaction. The estimates are of the size of the breeding population of ducks period. People assume that more breeding ducks will always means more hunter success and satisfaction. This assumption totally ignores everything that all of factors that affect the size of the fall flight such as summer weather which effects recruitment, fall and winter weather, and quantity of water and food resources on migration and wintering areas. Hunters also assume that because regulations package selected under AHM is titled liberal that they can expect to shot limits every day. Waterfowl biologists have struggled for years to try to explain that the regulations are set on the ability of the population to withstand harvest pressure not some expected number of dead ducks.

Sure, hunters in some areas this year had poor seasons. As Eric found out, when the Arkansas bottonlands flood from heavy rains the ducks spread out and are difficult to kill. When early fall rains saturate soils in South Dakota and farmers have to leave thousands upon thousands of acres of corn unharvested and mild temperatures prevail later than normal, waterfowl don't migrate further south and South Dakota hunters had a great season. The past few years the same has happened in Missouri. When arctic weather freezes everything north of the Gulf Coast and snow covers vast areas of the mid-continent, the coastal hunters of Louisiana and Alabama have great shoots. That happened this year but it has been years since it happen last.

You can read all of the nay-sayers you want about the surveys and the methods, but I don't see them proposing any viable alternatives.

USFWS could increase the sampling budget by 100X and that would probably increase the precision by 5-7% at least! Then we could read rants that the program is bloated and those monies should be going to X other program. Lose - Lose.

And if anyone has any question, I am very pleased with the way my tax dollars have been spent in this regard and I have confidence in the numbers for WHAT THEY ARE NEEDED FOR.

T

 

[Carl]

This survey is the most comprehensive, large-scale wildlife survey done in the world. It has been reviewed by statisticians many times and it is solid. I believe it gives a true estimate of the number of birds in the surveyed area

You pretty well nailed it.
Except for one point:

"When arctic weather freezes everything north of the Gulf Coast and snow covers vast areas of the mid-continent, the coastal hunters of Louisiana and Alabama have great shoots. That happened this year but it has been years since it happen last."

Nope, didnt happen in coastal Alabama this year. That is what used to happen, but has not for the last 3 years. We dont know why, but I have a feeling when we lost most of our grass beds a few years back, migration patterns changed and it will take a few years of good grassbeds coverage to reverse the change. May try to fund some analysis of this next fiscal year; compare grassbeds acreage to the pre-season & mid winter counts and see what the statistics say.