State and federal regulators claim that “science” guides their actions. Most state waterfowl associations make the same claim. Anyone who questions the wisdom of their announced order, or any part of it, is challenged to support his or her position with data considered “scientific” by the party or agency questioned. And that data will then be criticized as based on an inadequate sample or some other deficiency. In this fashion, the debate deflects from substance to process, from principle to minutiae, like a river that flows out onto desert sand and disappears.

In the meantime, we proceed along a path filled with anomaly. For example, the adaptive harvest management “scientific” formula has given us a liberal framework this year, despite the fact that mallards, pintails, widgeon and scaup stand at numbers well below North American Waterfowl Management Plan targets. In California, we have a mallard count significantly below our ten-year average – and the Fish & Game commissioners have just authorized us to take seven mallards per day, two of which may be hens, over a 99-day season. These are the same commissioners who typically conduct their meetings under a banner proclaiming that preservation and enhancement of wildlife resources constitutes their primary mission.

How can this be? How can the so-called (and self-proclaimed) stewards of the resource even propose, let alone adopt, these sorts of regulations under the circumstances, invoking the banner of science all the while? The ghost at the dinner table – the ugly shiftless uncle in the upstairs closet – is, I submit, the compensatory kill theory.

Compensatory kill theorists contend that hunting does not affect populations one way or the other. In their view, the number of birds killed by hunters would die of natural causes in the ordinary course of a migration cycle. Indeed, some even argue that thinning out the breeding stock improves production by reducing densities on the nesting grounds. Under this form of mathematics, and all other factors being equal, ten hens in a one hundred acre patch will produce fewer total ducklings than five -- and so forth. Make sense to you? How about two hens in that hundred acres? Or none at all?

At this point in our history, and for the last decade, compensatory kill theorists have been in the ascendancy. Thus, we see the debate over regulations influenced time and again by the observation that, at the end of the day, hunter take does not really matter. This, we are told, is based on a series of “scientific” studies showing no correlation between estimated harvest and population trends.

I have always had a lot of trouble with the compensatory kill concept. First, it’s counterintuitive. A dead duck is a dead duck. Dead ducks don’t lay eggs. I have always thought it a bit of a stretch to assume that each and every bird on my strap and those of my companions would hit a power line in the next county if we hadn’t shot them first.

Secondly, if they are so sure of their position, why don’t the compensatory kill theorists argue for an elimination of all hunting regulations, i.e. no closed season and no bag limit? To date, none of them have done so, at least publicly.

Third, the scientific “studies” on which they rely have the same sort of sampling and term deficiencies that these same people cite when they seek to discredit data uncongenial with their preconceived notions -- such as, for example, those studies that demonstrate the increased lethality of spinning wing decoys.

When you confront a compensatory kill theorist in face-to-face dialogue, you can readily force them to admit that the subject is far more complex than the simple notion that ducks killed by hunters would die in any case. For example, most of those I have challenged in this fashion quickly point out that pintail populations did not rebound in response to a drastic restriction on pintail take. But none of them have the courage to contend that the opposite is also true, that a seven-bird limit on pintail would not depress the population still further and be pernicious to the survival of that species when the counts stand at current low levels.

In California, certain leading compensatory kill theorists grudgingly concede that harvest may be “additive” rather than compensatory when our mallard population is in decline, thus adding negative leverage to a downward spiral. They insist, however, that hunter take is purely compensatory at high and rising population levels. When you press them on that point, they will tell you that they base their conclusion on the concept that populations will rise and decline as part of a normal cycle, you can’t “bank” ducks and if we have them, we might as well kill them. Think about that. In other words, we are powerless to improve habitat conditions and at least partially insulate ourselves from the extremes of the swings. And yet, these same worthies lead the charge when it comes to seeking more money and resources for habitat enhancement.

Last year, I had the opportunity to spend significant time over a leisurely dinner with three prominent waterfowl biologists, all with doctoral degrees, representing in the aggregate perhaps as much as seventy years of professional post-doctoral experience. They conceded that whether kill is compensatory or additive can vary from species to species and from circumstance to circumstance along the ebb and flow of population cycles. What is true for pintails may be false for mallards and what is true one year may be false the next. War stories, anecdotal evidence, a series of remarkable and inexplicable exceptions to supposedly general rules flew back and forth across the dinner table, accelerating with the consumption of wine and as the scientists became less wary of the cynic in their midst.

After about an hour of this, I made the following suggestion: Suppose that a panel of experienced waterfowl biologists (including those present), representing all of the Flyways, convened to design a protocol for scientific studies that would examine the compensatory kill theory and come up with definitive answers for the various species under the range of varying circumstances that are generally predictable in the waterfowl cycle. What sort of studies would be required, where and when, over what period of time and at what cost? If such a protocol could be agreed upon, I personally promised to seek funding for it and I am reasonably confident that I could have succeeded in that effort. There are a lot of wealthy, concerned waterfowlers who would probably contribute to such a project. (For example, the remarkable Arkansas study referred to below was privately funded, apparently by a single donor).

I expected my experts to greet the suggestion with interest. That’s not what happened. The three men at the table told me almost immediately that no such study could be designed, even if unlimited funds were made available to pursue it. Why? Too many variables. No way to establish the base case. No way to control the experiment in order to derive useful, reliable and repeatable data. “Science,” after all, is the search for and discovery of “quantitative formulation of verifiable general laws . . .” Webster’s Third International Dictionary p2032 (Unabridged, 1976). Apparently, the compensatory kill theory isn’t quantitative, verifiable or general in any accepted sense of those words. It’s as ephemeral as a wisp of fog.

The Duck Committee of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation released a study in August 2003 entitled: “Improving The Quality Of Duck Hunting In Arkansas: Findings and Recommendations.” We at Madduck believe that study to be the most important waterfowl management treatise that has been published in several decades. Although it focuses on Arkansas, its observations have validity far beyond the local concerns that prompted the study in the first place -- the decline in quality of Arkansas duck hunting over the past few years.

The committee identified many forces contributing to the decline. It cited excessive hunting pressure as a major factor, with impacts both direct and indirect. Simple stuff: More hunters, greater kill, fewer ducks. But in addition, circumstances contributed to a higher take of mature hens, that 20% of the population segment that produces 60% of the ducklings each year, that segment of the population with proven survival skills and not likely to die of causes other than gunshot wounds. Shooting late in the year interferes with pair bonding. Busting bonded pairs interferes with nest formation and brood production. Here again, it strains credulity to assume that these birds -- survivors of 150 days of gunning from the beginning of the northern seasons to the end of the southern ones -- would all die anyway. The committee further found that in the effort to avoid increased hunting pressure, flight patterns change as the birds imprint on sanctuaries that may not have the diversity of food types that they need (and would derive from a wider range of habitat types) to prepare for the northern migration and the nesting effort.

All of the committee’s conclusions and recommendations were based on careful analysis of the factual record, field research, numerous interviews, all buttressed by the opinions of respected scientists and wetlands managers. Virtually all of the Committee’s conclusions and recommendations are incompatible with the compensatory kill theory. Indeed, the AWF Duck Committee Report may (should) have established the Arkansas experience of the last five years as the test case that discredits the compensatory kill theory once and for all. For the hunting in Arkansas has deteriorated in direct proportion to that state’s economic success in billing itself as the “Duck Capital Of The World” with concomitant increase in hunters, hunter days, hunting pressure and related disturbance of the wintering flight.

There’s a scene in the Wizard of Oz when a screen falls away to reveal that the Great and Terrible Oz is just a white-haired old fat guy pumping on a smoke machine. All of us who care about our birds should extend our thanks to the AWF Duck Committee for giving that screen the stout kick it so richly deserves.