It may be too little, too late. But a few astute biologists along the Atlantic Flyway want to perform radical surgery on Adaptive Harvest Management, removing its most malignant feature – maximizing the harvest. The effort comes at a time of deepening despair among eastern seaboard waterfowlers.

Atlantic Flyway duck hunters have fallen on exceedingly hard times. The current decline is unrelated to the loss of the glory days a half-century ago when a skilled hunter could legally kill a limit of four drake canvasbacks on the windswept reaches of Chesapeake Bay or an equal number of wary black ducks on a Long Island tidal marsh. Today’s discontent involves the stark decline in numbers of all ducks and the growing difficulty of killing a mixed-bag limit of less distinguished species.

The new regulatory proposal (with one key exception) circulating among Atlantic Flyway states offers hope the downward population trend can be reversed. Not only does it display a degree of biological enlightenment, but it rejects waterfowl management’s avowed goal of allowing hunters to kill the greatest possible number of ducks, an objective that has caused Atlantic Flyway gunners to face a bleak future, as you can see by looking at long-term winter duck surveys.

ATLANTIC FLYWAY DUCKS

1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Year

Figure 1. The number of ducks counted in the Atlantic Flyway’s winter census has dropped from 3.7 million in 1955 to 1.1 million in 2005, a 70 percent decline. The counts include dabbling and diving ducks, but not sea ducks. Source: USFWS

The data tells us the total number of ducks counted each winter along the flyway has declined 70 percent. The surveys reveal that from 1955-2005 puddle duck populations fell from 1,873,563 to 461,453, a decline of 75 percent. Diving ducks dropped from 1,793,699 to 639,106, a decline of 64 percent. The stark losses are the despair of every eastern seaboard gunner.

But closer examination of the above graph reveals a key insight. The rising population from 1985 to 1995 occurred during a decade of mostly restrictive hunting regulations. The liberalization of regulations in 1994 and then the ultra-liberalization of regulations beginning in 1997 coincided with the current, sharp drop in numbers of ducks. This strongly suggests long seasons and high bag limits are to blame for the increasingly empty skies that hunters have faced since the mid-1990s.

The 1997 liberalization was especially pernicious, for it caused ducks to face a deadly double-whammy. The season length throughout the flyway was extended from 50 to 60 days, a 20 percent increase. But this represented only part of the increase because of a long-simmering dispute involving Sunday hunting.

A number of states in the flyway that banned Sunday hunting had argued for years that a season length based on calendar days discriminated against them. For example, suppose two states under the old regulations each chose a 50-day hunting season from Nov. 1-Dec.20. Hunters in State A (which allowed Sunday hunting) could hunt the entire 50 days, while hunters in State B (which banned Sunday hunting) were restricted to 44 days afield.

No-hunting-on-the-Sabbath states wanted the season length based on total shooting days, not calendar days. They wanted compensatory days to make up for the loss imposed by the Sunday ban. Thus, using the above example, the season for a Sunday-ban state would run from Nov. 1-Dec.27.

For years the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had rejected these pleas. It argued that since state law banned Sunday hunting, it was each state’s responsibility to resolve its problem. But in 1997, the service capitulated and allowed compensatory days.

On heavily hunted Chesapeake Bay, the cradle of American wildfowling, where both Maryland and Virginia ban Sunday hunting, the general increase and the compensatory allowance combined to boost the number of shooting days from 43 to 60 – a 42 percent increase.

That no serious consideration was given to the effect these changes might have on duck populations can be seen in the following example. On Chesapeake Bay, where by 1997 the wintering pintail population had declined 95 percent (90 percent throughout the flyway), the addition of 17 additional shooting days was combined with a doubling of the daily pintail bag limit from one to two. Thus, the maximum allowable seasonal sprig kill per hunter jumped from 43 to 120 – a 179 percent increase.

These actions leave little doubt why Atlantic Flyway duck populations have fallen to grim, record-low levels. Over-shooting is to blame. It is why increasing numbers of hunters today find it necessary to raise and release tens of thousands free-flying mallards on club or private ponds to provide an artificial semblance of the shooting that once existed along the flyway. Atlantic Flyway gunners are believed to release more hatchery produced mallards each year than the combined total of the other three flyways.

The new proposal seeks to prevent over-shooting by reducing the regulatory options from three to two:

• A standard 50-day season with a four-bird daily bag limit with framework dates running from the Saturday closest to Sept. 23 and the last Sunday in January.

   

• A restrictive 30-day season with a three-duck daily bag limit with framework dates running from Oct. 1 to Jan. 15.

   

• In addition, the standard option would allow for an additional 10-day mallard-only special season for the so-called “mallard production” states -- all states from Maine to Virginia.

   

Whether the standard option will allow for a recovery remains problematical. It probably will only slow or stabilize the decline, as evidenced by the Figure 1.

A more pressing question involves the need for a special 10-day mallard season. The mallard today is the No. 1 duck in the bag of Atlantic Flyway hunters. In 2005, the last year for which harvest data is available, it accounted for 28 percent of the flyway kill. The wood duck, the No. 2 species in the bag, accounted for 20 percent of the total kill.

The mallard is key to bountiful hunting in the future. Yet, its numbers also are declining. The long-term trend can be seen in the following graph:

ATLANTIC FLYWAY MALLARDS

1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Year

Figure 2. Atlantic Flyway mallards have declined steadily over the years, falling from 340,736 in 1955 to 131,802 in 2005, a loss of 61 percent, according to winter census surveys. Source: USFWS.

Biologists might argue the above flyway chart is somewhat deceptive because it includes the four “non-production” states – North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, all of which would be exempt from the special mallard season. These states once received significant numbers of northern prairie mallards.

This argument is unpersuasive. The data reveals production-state mallard numbers dropped from 166,460 in 1955 to 109,592 in 2006 – a 34 percent decline.

Why, then, are some advocating a special, 10-day mallard-only season? The purported reason is to protect declining numbers of black ducks. The mallard is viewed by some as displacing blacks from former haunts or seducing it and compromising the species’ genetic integrity that allowed for its survival. Biologist Norman Seymour argues this reasoning is false. (See A Reprieve for the Black Duck , April 10, 2007).

A more plausible reason is political. The politically powerful clubs that release tens of thousands of mallards each autumn demand a longer season. They argue their kill has little or no impact on wild stocks.

Thus, we find the new Atlantic Flyway proposal addresses one problem – general overshooting – but fails to address the flyway’s changing species diversity. The special mallard-only season would allow for the continued over-shooting of the one species that could take advantage of widespread landscape changes and prove to be the salvation of Atlantic Flyway gunners. It is worthwhile to note that from 1997, the first year of the ultra-liberal seasons, to the present, mallard winter survey counts in the production states fell 20 percent. Eliminating the special, mallard-only season, along with the early and late framework dates, might be sufficient for the new proposal to allow for a slow, but steady and long overdue recovery.

Do state fish and game directors, state fish and wildlife commissioners, Atlantic Flyway Council members and U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials possess the courage to take the necessary steps? If history is any guide, they do not. Managerial cowardice thus dooms Atlantic Flyway hunters in the years ahead to poorer and poorer gunning.