Is it possible to judge the success or failure of waterfowl management?

Yes.

We can examine what management thinks it can do – and then determine if it has succeeded.

This test differs from the one applied by most waterfowlers. If they see a lot of ducks, they tend to believe authorities are doing a good job. If they see few, they declare them incompetent -- or worse. But these conclusions are based largely on anecdotal evidence, a form of proof scientific authorities easily dismiss.

Our analysis will be more scientific. We will look at waterfowl’s management’s population goals for five highly desirable species. And then we will compare the goals with the numbers of ducks counted this year on the breeding or wintering grounds. We will confine our analysis to official U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological data.

Keep in mind that management’s population goals are not overly ambitious. It wanted objectives it could easily meet. It dismissed pleas from concerned hunters that waterfowl management could achieve more.

Our analysis is especially important today because flights are declining. It is key because the service recently declared in the Federal Register that “Adaptive Harvest Management represents state-of-the-art science...that…provides a formal mechanism for learning from experience.” (Italics ours.)

We, therefore, must ultimately ask: What has waterfowl management learned?

Mallards: Population goal: 8.1 million. Current population: 7.5 million.

The North American breeding-ground survey reveals mallards have steadily declined for the past three years, falling from 10.8 million in 1999 to 7.5 million this spring – a 31 percent drop. This is the largest three-year loss in more than four decades. Everyone expects it to decline further this coming spring.

What is waterfowl management doing to reverse this trend and meet its goal? It is continuing the longest hunting seasons in half a century, extending early opening and late closing dates (which will increase the already high kill) and maintaining high mallard bag limits.

Why is management failing to restrict the kill this autumn?

Part of the reason involves Adaptive Harvest’s astonishing fall-flight forecast. It is based on breeding-ground data.

A review of the data finds this spring’s mallard breeding population declined five percent, the number of June potholes (critical for early nesting species like the mallard) dropped 41 percent. Brood counts across the prairies fell 35 percent and July potholes (critical for brood survival) fell 36 percent. The late-nesting or re-nesting index was 43 percent below the long-term average. Despite all these double-digit losses, Adaptive Harvest estimated this autumn’s mallard fall-flight would decline only nine percent.

Is this a reasonable estimate? Or does it suggest Adaptive Harvest’s population model is fatally flawed?

Pintails: Population goal: 5.8 million. Current population: 1.8 million.

No prairie-nesting species has fared as poorly as the pintail. Its numbers have fallen from

10.4 million in 1956 to 1.8 million this spring, an 83 percent decline. It is the sole prairie-nesting species that failed to recover during the record wet years from 1994-99.

The pintail management plan calls for restricting the kill to allow a six percent annual increase in the breeding population. In 2001 the breeding population totaled 3.3 million. This spring biologists counted only 1.8 million, a 45 percent decline. (This loss is probably exaggerated because of the drought.)

The Mississippi Flyway Dabbling Duck Committee reported that to achieve a six-percent growth rate, the flyway kill during the 2001 season could not exceed 19,000 pintails. Harvest data reported 128,640 sprig were killed. If we factor in a 20 percent crippling rate, it means the kill was eight times greater than allowable to meet the population goal. Comparable data is unavailable for other flyways.

Is it any wonder sprig are not recovering?

This autumn the service has called for a pintail “season-within-a-season,” limiting the number of days in which pintails can be killed to 30 days in the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways, 39 days in the Central Flyway and 60 days in the Pacific Flyway.

Is a 30-day season sufficient to reduce the Mississippi Flyway kill below 19,000? This is doubtful, since every state will select its 30-day season at a time when its sprig flights peak. Moreover, as some biologists point out, the “season-within-a-season” concept has never achieved its objectives, witness black ducks and canvasbacks.

Canvasbacks: Population goal: 580,000. Current population: 487,000.

This population has declined for the past three years. The management plan calls for closing the season if the breeding-population falls below 500,000. The state-dominated flyway councils this year called for lowering the closure bar to 400,000. But the service to its credit ignored these self-serving demands and is closing the canvasback season. The question that lingers is why more restrictive actions were not taken earlier to avoid the closure, especially since a record 848,000 canvasbacks were counted in the spring of 1996.

Scaup: Population goal: 6.2 million. Current population: 3.5 million.

These popular diving ducks, whose breeding population once totaled nearly 8 million, continue their perilous decline. No new gunning restrictions are proposed for this season. Interestingly, the scaup kill increased from 393,800 in 2000 to 421,400 in 2001.

Black Ducks: Winter population goal: 380,000. Current population: 295,000.

This species, once the most common duck in the bag of Atlantic Flyway gunners, has been below its long-term average for more than a quarter-century even though its breeding habitat has not been subject to the same degree of devastation as the prairies. No new black-duck gunning restrictions are proposed for this season.

Thus, we find the service’s biological data provides ample proof that waterfowl management has failed to meet its self-serving, mediocre goals.

This brings us to the final question: What, as the service asserted, has waterfowl management “learned from experience” over the years?

Apparently nothing.

For the rest of us these findings provide a stark portent. The record reveals waterfowl management has failed in the past, is failing today and will continue to fail in the future unless it changes it ways. If waterfowl management bases it actions on “state-of-the-art science,” as the service asserts, then its state-of-the-art methodology must be viewed as the “science of failure.”

Duck hunters have given several billion dollars to produce bountiful fall flights. Don’t we deserve better leadership?