North Dakota Outdoors - Managing Ducks

Duck and goose hunting seasons in the United States are based on large and comprehensive wildlife surveys that provide waterfowl managers with mountains of data to consider as they establish daily bag limits, species restrictions and season lengths.

And yet, not everyone always agrees with the final guidelines when they are brought forth by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in August each year. I say “guidelines” because the Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t actually set specific regulations for states. Rather, the FWS establishes “frameworks” that include the maximum number of days, and maximum bag limits for a particular season.

State wildlife agencies then use those frameworks to set their regulations. A state can set lower limits or shorter seasons, but states cannot exceed what the frameworks allow.

Ducks have different frameworks than geese, and the guidelines can vary between the Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific flyways. For instance, North Dakota, as part of the Central Flyway, can (and does) have a 74-day duck season this year, with a daily limit that can include five mallards. Iowa, as part of the Mississippi Flyway, can have a 60-day duck season, and a daily limit that can include no more than four mallards.

Since 1995, state and federal waterfowl managers have used a process called Adaptive Harvest Management as the basis for setting duck season frameworks. It’s a sophisticated statistical model that uses spring pond and breeding mallard numbers, as determined by the FWS’s continental spring waterfowl survey, as the criteria for setting season lengths and bag limits.

These frameworks come in three packages – called liberal, moderate and restrictive, and each package is designed to provide for maximum hunter opportunity. Maximum hunter opportunity can be loosely defined as allowing for an overall duck harvest that would lead to about the same duck population the next year, given similar habitat conditions.

North Dakota, and most other Midwestern states, whether they’re in the Central or Mississippi flyways, have been offered the liberal package ever since AHM was developed.

Maximum opportunity, however, is not the same as unlimited or unrestricted opportunity. That’s what took place starting 150 years ago when unmanaged recreational and subsistence hunting, combined with commercial market hunting, served to decimate many game populations and eliminate some, like the passenger pigeon, all together.

At the time, not many people thought about habitat or leaving enough animals or birds as the “seeds” for the next year. There are many historical examples, however, of why Sohunters today should care about some of these intricate details of wildlife management.

And that’s why it’s a good thing that people who care are asking questions about the current set of waterfowl framework packages. Some hunters, wildlife managers and biologists are wondering whether the current liberal package generated by AHM is just that, too liberal for current populations, specifically mallards. They feel that current hunting pressure may cause the mallard population to decline, given similar habitat conditions, which goes against the maximum hunter opportunity philosophy.

Keep in mind that AHM recommendations include reduced bag limits, season lengths, or both, for species that waterfowl managers want to see increase, such as pintails, canvasbacks and scaup.

What’s different today than 150 years ago is that most facets of wildlife management are at least somewhat analyzed and studied, and if things don’t turn out as anticipated, adjustments can be made the following year. Given the same amount of habitat, there may be a lower bag limit or shorter season length option that will serve to increase a wildlife population. That’s not always true, however, because hunting has little year to year influence on some wildlife populations, like pheasants and grouse.

The key is to maintain or add to the habitat base. While debate over hunter harvest on waterfowl is generating some interest at the moment, long-term habitat protection and enhancement will benefit ducks even more.

Leier is a biologist with the Game and Fish Department. He can be reached by email: dleier@state.nd.us