AGFC to tackle spinning wing decoy issue
Saturday, Sep 11, 2004
By Joe Mosby
A discussion topic for Thursday's meeting of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is spinning wing decoys - electronic decoys or "Robo-Ducks" to many waterfowl enthusiasts.
Should they be banned in Arkansas?
It's a little surprising, but at this point, a great furor over the issue has not erupted in this state where duck hunting reigns in spite of the numbers of participants being greater for deer hunting. Duck hunters tend to make more noise, to exert more influence.
A highly informal survey by this writer resulted in mostly ho-hum responses from 10 longtime duck hunters. Not one was strongly in favor of continuing the use of the electronic decoys. Four of the 10 said something like, "I used to use them but not any more." A different four liked the idea of making the ban effective in 2005, not this year. One, just one, of the 10 raised the question of ethics: "If we can't use electronic duck calls, then we shouldn't be able to use electronic decoys."
A point mentioned at the August meeting of the AGFC was a need for information and research on spinning wing decoys.
There is such information available, and AGFC helped compile it. But it's far from a definitive research project on the issue.
Arkansas was one of five states and one Canadian province that participated in a two-hunting-season study of the effects of spinning wings decoys. This was 2001-02 and 2002-03. Then the leader of the Arkansas portion of the study, waterfowl biologist Mike Checkett, left to join the staff of Ducks Unlimited.
What the study found, in brief, was spinning wings decoys help attract some ducks to within shooting range, but they are less effective in the southern portion of the nation than in Canada and in northern states.
Ducks apparently get smarter after experiencing the motion decoys - those ducks that don't get killed from their use. The study refers to "naïve" ducks. Hunters long have believed young ducks are easier to fool with calls and with decoys than older ducks that have made the migration at least once previously.
This two-year study was headed by biologist Josh Ackerman of the United States Geological Survey. He's stationed at Davis, Calif. Participating states and provinces were California, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, Arkansas and Manitoba.
Selected or volunteer hunters were used in California, Minnesota and Manitoba. Wildlife agency personnel were used in Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas, along with some "guests." Each hunting party used a scheme of traditional decoys and also traditional decoys with one or two spinning wing decoys mixed in. the spinning wing decoys were turned on and off at intervals. Hunters used calls if they wanted to. The spinning wing decoys were placed within 15 meters (a bit over 15 yards) of the hunters.
The report said, "At all study sites, more ducks were harvested when spinning wing decoys were used than when only traditional decoys were used."
Participants in the report also estimated the numbers of hunters in each state and province who were using the electronic decoys. These percentages seemed high, and the estimate for Arkansas appeared extremely high - even unrealistic.
Users of spinning wing decoys in California was estimated at 46 percent of duck hunters; Minnesota 46 percent; Missouri 60 percent; Nebraska 36 percent; and Arkansas 88 percent, Manitoba didn't have a figure here.
In Arkansas, 88 percent of the duck hunters were using electronic decoys two and three years ago? That's seven of every eight hunters. Seems much too high.
Testing the wind, there seems to be a good chance the AGFC will outlaw spinning wing decoys but not for this year's hunting. A massive outcry from hunters could alter this, but there's no indication of such a groundswell of opposition.
--------
Joe Mosby is the retired news editor of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and Arkansas' best known outdoor writer. His work is distributed by the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. He can be reached by e-mail at jhmosby@cyberback.com.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks