2015 Breeding Population Survey

[Darren]

Numbers released today:

http://www.ducks.org/news-media/duck-nu ... ucknumbers

Memphis, Tenn. – July 2, 2015 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) today released its report on 2015 Trends in Duck Breeding Populations, based on surveys conducted in May and early June by FWS and the Canadian Wildlife Service. Overall duck numbers in the survey area are statistically similar to last year and remain strong. Total populations were estimated at 49.5 million breeding ducks in the traditional survey area, which is 51 percent above the 1955-2014 long-term average and the highest count on record. Last year's estimate was 49.2 million birds.

View all the data and get a species-by-species breakdown at http://www.ducks.org/DuckNumbers.

“We are fortunate to see continued high overall duck populations in North America’s breeding areas this year,” said DU CEO Dale Hall. “Though conditions were dry in some important habitats, we had large numbers of birds returning this spring and good conditions in the Boreal Forest and other areas of Canada. It looks like some typical prairie nesters skipped over the U.S. prairies and took advantage of good conditions farther north. This is an important reminder about the critical need for maintaining abundant and high-quality habitat across the continent. The Boreal Forest, especially, can provide important habitat when the prairies are dry. But the Boreal is under increasing threats from resource extraction.”

The main determining factor for duck breeding success is wetland and upland habitat conditions in the key breeding landscapes of the prairies and the Boreal Forest. Conditions observed across the U.S. and Canadian survey areas during the 2015 breeding population survey were drier than last year. Total pond counts for the U.S. and Canada combined were 6.3 million, which is 12 percent below the 2014 estimate of 7.2 million and 21 percent above the long-term average.

“An early spring balanced with poorer habitat conditions was apparent in this year’s survey,” said DU Chief Conservation Officer Paul Schmidt. “In addition to reduced precipitation over the winter and early spring, we have lost critical nesting habitat with the decrease in Conservation Reserve Program lands and continuing conversion of habitat to agricultural production across the U.S. prairies. Fortunately, these conditions had minimal impacts on this year’s overall breeding bird numbers, but hunters should be concerned about these trends and what they might mean in future years. We have experienced good moisture in the prairies and liberal bag limits for more than two decades. Continuing habitat losses and drier conditions have the potential to change this scenario in the future.”

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Apparently numbers are above last year's "record high", despite the drier prairie conditions. Hmmm. But looking good overall despite a few disappointments:

Pins still down, which makes sense considering they're usually a bird of the prairie potholes.
Scaup down a bit as well
and everyone's favorite, the smiling mallard, down slightly.

[Goldfish]

Except for us in MN. We do our own survey. Screw the rest of you guys

[Darren]

Except for us in MN. We do our own survey. Screw the rest of you guys

Was reading a story in this month's Delta Waterfowl magazine about Minnesota's drastically declining hunter numbers. Do you (or anyone else) have any thoughts on that? Has the hunting quality or opportunity declined proportionally?

I know for sure Louisiana's waterfowl hunter numbers are up and can only presume it's the same in Miss/Arky/TX (or south in general) due to fairly decent seasons and the popularity explosion following the Duck Dynasty effect. I'm told here in La we have twice the number as in 2005.

[Goldfish]

It has went up some recently, with lots of douchey kids picking it up with zero instruction from mentors so a very noticed lack of respect and manors, but over all yes, the numbers are down drastically from 20+ years ago. A lot of guys picked ducks back up within the last 5 years because our pheasant populations took a dive as well. We are a deer hunting state tho. That'll never be topped, so that is the DNR's biggest actions, followed by walleye fishing, then pheasant (which at least usually has the side effect of helping ducks), and grouse/turkey/ducks sit low man on the totem poll. We got a new DNR commissioner a few years back who is a duck hunter so he has made some changes to help us, but he's one of those who thinks we can stockpile birds by not shooting them. Hence MN being the ONLY state that doesn't do the early teal season up here, we want to stockpile them, and apparently we are too stupid to tell a teal from other birds do they are "saving us from ourselves" if you will

[Darren]

Sorry to hear how its so low on the pecking list; I guess we're spoiled here in that it would be about equal with the throngs of deer hunters here in La as well (though I have no data on which contingent is actually higher in numbers). I hear ya on the newcomers, we've got plenty down this way as well and they all want to be part of their own Duck Slaying Mafia with their podna's.

as for the early teal season, you do not want to be a flight-capable woodduck or mottled duck in S. Louisiana during the early teal season, plenty of them fall just like the teal each year.

[Steele22]

Candy asses is why. Raising candy asses up there