This autumn, when we sit in our blinds staring at empty skies, we might want to mentally pass the idle time by “doing the math” – the numbers that tell us what is happening to our ducks.

We begin with the Conservation Reserve Program, known by the acronym CRP.

By unanimous agreement CRP has been a godsend to ducks on the northern U.S. prairies, a landscape ravaged by agriculture. The U.S. Department of Agriculture program has converted nearly 1.9 million acres of cropland to lush grassland across the prairie-pothole country of the South Dakota, North Dakota and eastern Montana. These grassy expanses are eagerly sought by upland-nesting hens.

What has this meant for ducks?

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study recently estimated that CRP grasslands from 199297 annually produced on average an additional 2.1 million juvenile ducks. This is CRP’s contribution to the fall flight, the number of ducks added to the autumn migration. This total consists of five upland-nesting species --- mallards, pintails, gadwalls, shovelers and blue-winged teal.

These ducks are a welcome addition to the autumn migration and come at a time when biologists tell us great expanses of upland-nesting habitat are increasingly degraded or ravaged by predators, resulting in fewer young.

Initially, CRP’s contribution to the fall-flight was minimal. From the mid-1980s, when Congress authorized the program, through 1993, drought gripped the northern prairies. With the return of water in 1994 millions of ducks descended on the Dakotas to nest and rear broods.

The return of water was followed in 1995 by the service’s introduction of its new regulatory protocol known as Adaptive Harvest Management (AHM). It focuses on mid-continent mallards that dominate the kill in the Mississippi and Central Flyways.

At first, AHM maintained traditional hunting regulations that in wet years called for a maximum season length of 50-days in the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways, 60 days in the Central Flyway and 93 days in the Pacific Flyway.

Then in 1997 the service, under political pressure from Congress and the state-dominated flyway councils, enacted the longest-running, most liberal hunting regulations in half a century. It gave hunters 60-day to107-day seasons, depending on the flyway. These were coupled with significantly higher bag limits. What has been the result?

We can compare the average annual kill in the Mississippi and Central Flyways from 199296 to1997-2001. This tells us the combined kill of the five species in the two flyways jumped from an average of 3.6 million in 1992-96 to 6.6 million from 1997-2001, an 83 percent increase.

How does this increase in the average annual kill, when adjusted for a 20 percent crippling rate, compare to CRP’s contribution to the fall flight? The following graph tells us all we need to know.

CRP vs. AHM

 CRP AHM

Figure 1. The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) produces an estimated 2.1 million additional ducks per year. Adaptive Harvest Management regulations have increased the kill (plus cripples) by an estimated 3.6 million per year, effectively eliminating CRP’s potential to increase our beleaguered breeding stocks. Source: USFWS.

As you can see, what CRP giveth, AHM taketh away– and then some. AHM’s average additional kill, when adjusted for crippling, exceeds the average additional CRP production by some 1.5 million ducks.

Is it any wonder that we are seeing fewer and fewer ducks over our decoys with each passing autumn?

Is it any wonder that:

• The mallard breeding populations has declined for the past three consecutive years?

   

• The gadwall breeding population has declined for the past three consecutive years?

   

• The shoveler breeding population has declined for the past three consecutive years?

   

• The blue-winged teal breeding population has declined for the past three consecutive years?

   

• The pintail breeding population has declined for the past two consecutive years?

Adaptive Harvest’s proponents seek to escape criticism by telling us the declines are due to the drought conditions on the northern prairies during two of the past three years.

Of course, we cannot escape the consequences of drought, although CRP country has been less affected by drought than the Canadian prairies.

The real question to be answered: Would our breeding flocks have declined as radically if we had reduced the kill during the past three years?

The answer is obvious.

Indeed, the outlook for the coming months is not promising. Not only will we see few young this autumn, but AHM’s long seasons and high bag limits, coupled with this year’s shameful early opening and closing framework dates, will cause a further decline of our breeding flocks next spring. It will mark the fourth consecutive year of decline for most species.

Does the service’s data suggest it is time to toss Adaptive Harvest on the trash heap, return to more moderate regulations and let CRP work its magic?

This is something to think about this autumn while we sit idly in our blinds staring at empty skies.