From coast to coast this past season, wildfowlers were asking one another the same question: “Where are the ducks?” Most of us spent our mornings in the marsh scanning empty skies. A few of us had at least one good day, either due to rare weather or the fact that some waterfowl species, other than most ducks, remain relatively un-hunted and, therefore, reasonably abundant.

Where did Wisconsin's cheeseheads lose it? In an unlikely place like a cedar swamp or pine woods? In a vat of beer or cow pasture? Was it accidentally dropped overboard and swallowed by a giant muskellunge? In the state where Aldo Leopold brought to maturity his seminal outdoor ethic and penned his epochal work, A Sand County Almanac, it is missing. The “it” in this case is that which we purportedly hold dear, our Holy Grail – waterfowl conservation.

Last summer duck hunters from coast to coast received the news they had been praying for: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported a big flight would be on the way. The prairie breeding grounds were bursting with broods. North Dakota had a record number of breeding pairs, South Dakota was in good shape as well and prairie Canada had broken its drought. Another “liberal” hunting season framework was assured which meant the maximum number of days for the season and the highest daily bag limits as provided for by the service.

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.

In my home state, the California Waterfowl Association actively promotes the idea that we have fewer places to hunt and fewer opportunities for the “unattached” hunter – the guy without a club membership, a rented blind or other access to a spot through a friend or relative to get a day in the marsh. To this end, the association works hard on creative initiatives to open up more private land and lobbies for the notion that certain sanctuary areas should be available for periodic public hunting.

"Why is the season always liberal?"

The pintail is a duck in crisis. No other species has toppled from such a lofty pinnacle. No other troubled species has been as ignored by waterfowl management, as evidenced by North American breeding-ground surveys which reveal that the crisis has been building for nearly half a century, as you can see in the following graph.

It is human nature to search for a scapegoat to explain why “duck hunting ain’t the way it used to be,” implying that either the overall population numbers are trending downward and/or the ducks are geographically somewhere else.

In my day, most of us were exposed to ancient Greek philosophy in mandatory high school classes – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle principally. Typically, none of it stuck – except as a vague recollection of inexorable boredom.

Bad movies don’t get better with the second, third or fourth viewing. Repetition of the same mistake, each time expecting a different result, has been aptly described as a symptom of ignorance, if not insanity. Those susceptible to that behavior either do not learn its lessons or choose to reject them.