A lifetime of reporting has taught me never to immediately accept at face value the government’s word. This is as true for conservation organizations as it is for the federal government, although the latter generally is more sophisticated in its shadings of reality.

Many citizens who adopt a healthy skepticism involving government pronouncements on larger issues often are surprised to discover governments and nonprofit organizations routinely distort reality on issues most view as minor or unimportant, such as waterfowl hunting.

The key to understanding how this works is to realize that our agencies rarely state bald untruths. Instead, they cite selective facts that support their view, but fail to mention other key findings that cast doubt, hoping in this manner to sway the public to accept as gospel a partial truth and the management policy that derives from it. In intelligence agencies, this is known as creating “disinformation.” In polite society, it is known as “spin.” Whatever you call it, it reflects a deliberate distortion of reality.

All of this came to mind when I calculated a fall-flight forecast for the upcoming duck season.

This year’s “truth” sweepstakes began last month with the publication of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service publication, “Trends in Duck Breeding Populations.” It summarized the data from this year’s survey of the breeding grounds – a continental survey that extends from South Dakota north to the Beaufort Sea.

“The total duck population estimate was 32.2 million birds, 11 percent below last year’s estimate and three percent below the 1955-2003 long-term average,” the service announced.

The average waterfowler might conclude a breeding-population drop of 11 percent will result in fewer ducks winging southward this fall, but hunters should still experience reasonable success because this year’s breeding population is only three percent below the long-term average.

The problem is that we do not hunt the breeding population. We hunt the fall flight, which consists of both adults and juveniles. The number of juveniles each autumn is dependent in large part on the number of nesting and brood-rearing potholes on the northern prairies during the breeding season. More potholes mean more young ducks, all other things being equal.

“The estimate of May ponds was 3.9 million, 24 percent lower than last year and 19 percent below the long-term average,” the service continued. This tells us fewer young will accompany the adults southward this autumn, and the fall flight will be lower than the breeding-population would indicate.

Yet, the waterfowl management community did not want to focus on this gloomy news, which it could not deny. Then, nature provided an escape.

“Moisture conditions have improved markedly since the surveys were conducted, and our research biologists are currently observing a very good late nesting effort,” said Ducks Unlimited.

The state of Illinois reassured its hunters that the northern prairies “received heavy rains after the May surveys and late-nesting ducks and re-nesting ducks should do well. Brood survival also should be enhanced by these additional rains.”

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Steve Williams, after authorizing a continuation of the most liberal regulations in half a century, regulations designed to maximize the kill, declared, “Overall the habitat and populations of key waterfowl species are sufficient to justify the hunting opportunity these regulations afford.”

Thus, authorities assured us the fall flight will not be as bad as the breeding population and pothole counts would indicate.

What should you make of all this? Is it accurate to describe it as “spin” or “disinformation”?

The first thing to note is that long-term breeding-population and pothole averages are deceptive comparisons because of declining juvenile productivity. A population today of, say, 30 million ducks and 5 million potholes will produce a significantly smaller fall flight than the same combination in the 1950s. The reason is reduced nest success.

The statement that our breeding population declined only 11 percent from last year also fails to note that our breeding population has declined 27 percent in the past seven years. Indeed, this 27 percent declines dates to 1997, the first year of our current ultra “liberal” regulatory policy when management’s effort to “maximize the kill” shifted into high gear.

Moreover, after seven years of record high kills, this year’s breeding population is lower than in 1994, the first year water returned to the prairies after a long drought.

And that’s only the breeding population, which is the standard by which we measure management’s success in maintaining our breeding stocks.

The situation is far worse for hunters. The fall flight – what we witness while we sit in our blinds during autumn and winter – will be markedly lower.

Service biologists, in a rarely quoted document, rated production from the prairies as “poor to fair.” Birds that over-flew the parched prairies “encountered winter-like conditions in the bush, and nesting success may have been curtailed. This is especially true for mallards and pintails.”

Our fall flight estimate, based on a somewhat complex equation involving breeding populations, potholes, summer mortality and juvenile gunning vulnerability, suggests this year’s fall flight will be 28 percent below last year – and 46 percent lower than 1997. (See Our 2004 Fall-Flight Forecast , August 31, 2004.)

These numbers do not reflect the optimistic statements of waterfowl management and its nonprofit cohorts. Nor do these numbers justify today’s long seasons and high bag limits.

Thus, we come to the question: Is waterfowl management guilty of “spin” or “disinformation”? Are its public utterances designed to pull the wool over hunters’ eyes in order to continue its deranged policy of maximizing the kill?

You are not required to reply immediately. But think about your answer this autumn and winter while sitting in your blind staring at empty skies.