Next, let's talk about hunting pressure? What is it, and is it higher now than in the past? After all, what we've heard over the last decade or so is of DECLINING HUNTER NUMBERS despite high duck populations and liberal hunting regulations. Delta Waterfowl called it a "Looming Crisis" and has shifted their focus toward hunter recruitment and retention.
But that isn't necessarily a problem in Louisiana:
For still unknown reasons, the USFWS HIP survey shows we have lost over half our active hunters since 2013, but neither our license sales nor our Big and Small Game Harvest survey (which is sent to a random sample of 6% of our licensed hunters) jibe with that. Most hunters, especially those on public land don't believe that either. Although this graphic only goes back to 2000, when HIP was started, all sources ....... USFWS harvest estimates, LDWF license sales, and LDWF Big and Small Game harvest survey ...... agree that we don't have as many hunters as we had in the seventies or the late-90's.
So "hunting pressure" must not be just the number of hunters.
That makes sense, at least for ducks, because with advancements in hunting equipment, let's just use surface-drive motors as an example, 1 man can disturb a LOT more birds now than in the past. And on public land, it makes sense because rising costs for hunting, expanding exclusivity on private land, etc. has driven many hunters to public land. But according to the extensive hunter surveys I did in 2005, 2010, and 2015, only about 25% of our hunters are hunting public land.
So how do we define and quantify "hunting pressure" if it's not just number of hunters?
Days hunted? That has ALWAYS been the tightest correlation to actual kill. Days kills ducks is the traditional wisdom, not daily bag limit. But some folks, mostly guides and that 1 Commission member, argued that a bag limit of 3 specks would cause more hunting pressure than increasing the season length by 14 days.
What about sanctuary? Does closing at noon or closing 3 days per week or providing inviolate rest areas reduce "hunting pressure" enough to increase kill per unit effort when we do hunt because birds aren't run off an area? Our radio telemetry studies with ducks show they often find un-hunted habitat within areas open for hunting. The Lower Mississippi Valley Joint Venture has incorporated "sanctuary" as a variable in monitoring Wetland Management Units in their database, and we can't even come to a reasonable definition. The same is true for "hunting pressure".
