What four Ducks?

[Scruggz]

Mallards bro

[SCswampCAT]

I believe you don't have a clue then. I killed one banded in Ontario and know of two others that were Banded in NY and killed 40 miles from the Florida boarder.

This. The one banded wood duck ive killed came from Michigan. Two of the boys I hunt with have killed one themselves one was banded in Indiana and the other was somewhere in Canada also. During the summer on one of my better woodies holes i only hold probably 10 or so ducks. In the winter ive seen close to 150 before, in the upstate.

[2thDoc]

Ive killed a wood duck from Ontario also . We killed one this year in January that was banded in September in Vermont.

keith is making a good point.

it matters WHEN it was banded, too.

[Fishinmission]

I shot a 4-1/2 yr old wood duck banded in New york this year. In the same spot a few weeks after my buddy shot a 4 year old banded from Vermont.

Definitely not all local

[welltaut]

Not trying to derail the wood duck talk (my only banded woody came from Vermont)....but this seems somewhat appropriate in this thread.

Atlantic Flyway Council and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are poised to reduce the mallard bag limit in the Atlantic Flyway from 4 to 2 birds per day starting with the 2019–2020 hunting. Mallards are managed as three distinct population units including Western (California, Oregon and Washington), Mid-continent (prairie pothole region, parklands and boreal forest) and Eastern (northeast states and eastern Canada). Bag limits and season lengths for the Atlantic Flyway are primarily influenced by the population status of eastern mallards through an adaptive harvest management (AHM) framework. Band recovery information suggests that most mallards harvested from North Carolina to eastern Canada are produced within the region. In recent years, the breeding population of mallards in eastern Canada has been stable but declining in the northeastern states especially New York and Pennsylvania. The decline is significant enough to cause the current AHM model to predict restrictive seasons in the Atlantic Flyway.

Based on historical records, mallards in northeastern North America were common migrants but rarely bred there. Depletion of wild stocks due to market gunning and later the outlawing of live decoys resulted in the wholesale release of captive mallards. Thus, the release of captive reared birds was likely more responsible for mallards appearing in the northeast than eastward expansion from the core range in the Prairie Pothole Region. In fact, recent genetic studies suggest eastern mallards are more closely related to Old World mallards than their prairie brethren. Manmade modifications to the landscape allowed mallards to nest in areas previously unexploited by the species and populations of mallards in the northeast grew significantly over time as they pioneered new habitat.

Duck harvest management in the Atlantic Flyway was historically based on the status of prairie ducks and later mallards via adaptive harvest management (AHM). Drastic population declines due to drought on the prairies during the 1980s, resulting restrictive seasons (3 birds/day and 30-day seasons) and band recovery data suggesting few prairie ducks are harvested in the Atlantic Flyway served as an impetus for data collection and investigating AHM for eastern mallards. Following a decade of data collection through the Atlantic Flyway Breeding Waterfowl Survey, the Eastern Survey Area Breeding Waterfowl Survey (Canada) and intensified preseason banding, an AHM model for eastern mallards was established in 2000 and has informed harvest management in the Atlantic Flyway to present.

The eastern mallard breeding population reached a peak of 1.1 million in 2004 but has significantly declined since and last year’s estimate was approximately 650,000. While the population in eastern Canada has largely been stable, it has been declining in the northeast U.S., especially in New York and Pennsylvania. The decline since 2004 represents about 420,000 birds and is significant enough for the current AHM model to recommend reduced hunter harvest.

The cause of the eastern mallard population decline is undetermined. Hypothesized reasons for the decline include loss of carrying capacity on breeding and non-breeding areas, reduction in “artificial” winter feeding activities in the NE states, over harvest, and the population exceeding carrying capacity and stabilizing at a lower equilibrium population near carrying capacity (e.g., like reintroduced wild turkey populations). Biologists are currently examining existing data sets (juvenile/adult age ratios and banding data) to identify potential issues with production and survival.

Atlantic Flyway biologists from the states and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are currently working towards a new multi-stock AHM model that will include mallards and four additional species including green-winged-teal, wood duck, ring-necked duck and goldeneye. Collectively, these species make up about 60% of the Atlantic Flyway duck harvest. Consequently, hunters will likely retain liberal or moderate season packages (60 and 45 days, respectively). Despite this forthcoming change, the Atlantic Flyway is proposing to reduce the mallard daily bag limit from 4 to 2 starting in 2019. Modeling suggests that reducing the bag in this manner will reduce harvest by 25% and achieve a sustainable harvest level.

Ramifications of the observed decline are complex and extend beyond eastern mallards. Like eastern mallards, the American black duck, a flagship species of the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture and high priority NAWMP species, harvest is managed via a species-specific AHM model. Within the black duck AHM model it is hypothesized that the abundance of eastern mallards adversely impacts the black duck population via reduced production. The mechanism for this potential impact is via competition during the breeding season as these species are closely related both morphologically and genetically. There is also potential for hybridization between these two species where they overlap on non-breeding areas. Thus, there are potential tradeoffs when considering management decisions surrounding these two species. """

[WNM]

The first duck I killed this year in SC was a wood duck banded in NY in 2015. I noticed some wood ducks were a lot fatter (more fat on the breast) than others. Don't know if that has anything to do with where they came from but thought it might.

[Tuffy]

Very interesting. What's the source for that?

[BRR]

Funny, the banded Mallards I have shot here were all banded in the northern midwest. They all flew diagonally across.

JAB where have most of yalls Mallard bands come from?

[darealdeal]

https://flyways.us/sites/default/fil...ahm_report.pdf

This the AHM from 2017 hunting season. Reading some of it now.....

What I am trying to do is get a better understanding of what ducks come from which areas and how does SC manage for those duck populations.
What other states regulate for ducks from those same breeding areas and is that state doing a better job then SC and if so what is that state doing differently.........
Is that population of duck going to increase the overall health of our flyway or is that money better spent on a different management strategy for a different species that will have a larger impact as well as increase other populations as well.......
Curiosity has gotten to me and seems like these are question that have an answer and most likely someone much smarter than myself has already answered..........

[JABIII]

JAB where have most of yalls Mallard bands come from?

Mallards- Great Lakes
Wood Ducks- Upper eastern Atlantic

WNM, we have killed summerducks that were fat as pigs from feeding in corn ponds, only to have a massive cold front blow in, bringing us new ducks that had only a thin skin late in the season. Forget about picking them whole.

[WNM]

...WNM, we have killed summerducks that were fat as pigs from feeding in corn ponds, only to have a massive cold front blow in, bringing us new ducks that had only a thin skin late in the season. Forget about picking them whole.

Kind of opposite of my intuition, but it makes perfect sense.

[Tuffy]

Mallards- Great Lakes
Wood Ducks- Upper eastern Atlantic

WNM, we have killed summerducks that were fat as pigs from feeding in corn ponds, only to have a massive cold front blow in, bringing us new ducks that had only a thin skin late in the season. Forget about picking them whole.

Think the researchers have concluded that we see TWO groups of Woodies. One moves OUT for the winter to the Gulf Coast and the other arrives from up north. Don't think we shoot much of what we raise. Louisiana gets them.

[BRR]

On warm years the ones that raise here get extirpated

[Sportin' Woodies]

All our banded mallards have come from Ontario.

One from Ontario also came from Saskatchewan (3 years apart)

[2thDoc]

i would like someone to show me all these "local" wood ducks this june.

[jws]

Lots of cinnamon teal and eurasian wigeon this year with some harlequins and king eiders thrown in

[Hogg]

Had a friend shoot a woodie that was banded in Idaho.

[ChickenFlip]

Had a friend shoot a woodie that was banded in Idaho.

Assuming that you mean it was shot in SC, that mf'er was lost!

[Hogg]

It was shot here.

[ajwf662]

So what matters to a duck in the winter? Food. Safety. A place to pair bond. Maybe something else but that's what I can think of.

How do we manage for those things? grow a ton of food and make it available. provide a safe place and have time to meet (sanctuary areas)

Do different ducks eat different types of food? Yes and no and kind of. Most ducks are generalists though teal probably eat more small seeds than acorns (moist-soil) and gadwall probably eat more wigeon grass than small seeds (submerged aquatic vegetation) and shoveler eat more invertebrates than acorns (moist-soil OR SAV) and wood ducks eat more acorns than anything (flooded timber)

The thing that might make more difference than the type of food is the water depth at which fields are flooded to make food available. Teal need more shallow flooded habitat than ring-necks. Gadwall and mallard and wigeon and shoveler are generally the same size and can feed in deeper water than teal. Most fields that are managed for submerged aquatic veg are kept at a level where the vegetation is topped out so the depth doesn't really matter as long as there's plants floating on the top.

Broad scale winter habitat management goals and objectives are usually made at the type of duck (dabbler vs diver) level more than the specific species level. Small scale (individual property) goals too for that matter.

It is generally accepted that food is not a limiting factor for wintering birds. To put it another way, we don't send skinny birds to the nesting ground for lack of food. This has been researched to the nth degree in the Lower Miss and Gulf Coast regions, but not so much in the South Atlantic Region. We can extrapolate and estimate based of MAV and Gulf Coast research and there is a push to get more research to determine this for the South Atlantic flyway.

What might be limiting is the right kind of calories (protein [inverts] needed late in season for egg production more than carbs [corn]), enough space to spread out and be safe and not flush and expend calories every time a gun goes off or a bird watcher walks by, and enough space and time to hook up. And also, habitat in the late late season - when we drain our water just after hunting season we might not have enough habitat available for them to top off on food before heading north. Migration season and hunting season aren't the same on the calendar. There could be other limiting things and we could find out that food really is limiting in certain portions of winter...

Does SC and the South Atlantic Region provide enough habitat of the right types to meet population objectives? We don't know. How much habitat do we need to meet population objectives? We don't know. The Atlantic Coast Joint Venture has not set habitat objectives like the Gulf Coast Joint Venture and Mississippi Flyway Joint Venture. There's a push for that to happen too.

I don't think I answered your question but those are the things I think about when people start talking about goals and managing for a specific duck species on the wintering grounds.