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Waterfowlers may not get as many hunts While no one is saying yet that Washington waterfowlers will see more restrictive hunting regulations this fall, severe drought conditions in prime duck breeding areas may make it inevitable. Migrating ducks returning this spring to nesting grounds in the northcentral United States and southern Canada faced extremely dry conditions, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's annual spring survey. Bob Trost, Pacific Flyway representative for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Portland, said the population of breeding ducks in parts of the United States and Canada fell to about 31.2 million birds, a 14 percent decline from last year's survey of 36.1 million. The number of ducks also is 6 percent below the long-term average since surveys began in 1955. The service's waterfowl breeding ground population and habitat survey is the largest and most comprehensive survey of its kind in the world, Trost said, sampling about 1.3 million square miles of critical breeding areas in the prairie pothole regions of the northcentral United States, southcentral and northern Canada and Alaska. The survey is conducted jointly by the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service. While the annual survey is important to the federal agency in managing its waterfowl conservation programs established under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, it also greatly affects hunters. Working with representatives from the four flyways - the Atlantic, Mississippi, Central and Pacific - the service also uses the survey information to establish waterfowl hunting season lengths, dates and bag limits. And, with the survey showing waterfowl numbers in decline, it's possible hunters will see reduced hunting opportunities this fall. "Because we've had an abundance of both water and waterfowl, hunters have seen liberal hunting regulations for several years. However, duck numbers have been declining since 1999, so a change may be in order. But it's just too soon to say," Trost said. Waterfowl hunters should know what to expect in Washington this fall by late July or early August. What waterfowl managers do know is that mallards - which account for about 35 percent of the nationwide harvest - saw a slight decline, along with blue-winged teal and gadwall. Pintail breeding numbers, however, continue to plummet, falling 46 percent from last year's survey to 1.8 million. The pintail population also is 58 percent below the long-term average. Blue-winged teal, numbering 4.2 million, fell 27 percent from last year's estimate, but are near their long-term average. The breeding population estimate for green-winged teal was 2.3 million, a number comparable to last year and 28 percent above its long-term average. Most other species, however, saw declines from last year, including gadwall (down 17 percent) and northern shovelers (down 30 percent). Scaup, American wigeon and canvasback populations largely were unchanged from last year yet remain below their long-term averages. Trost said the decline in ducks is a weather-related phenomenon and is a natural process for the prairie potholes. "These immense duck breeding areas go through natural cycles of dry and wet periods and it's necessary for this to happen to provide the best habitat for future generations of ducks," he said. However, falling duck numbers could force the agency to mandate more restrictive hunting regulations under its adaptive harvest management program. Established in 1995, the process, based on numerous factors, offers four basic hunting packages - liberal, moderate, restrictive and very restrictive - from which state and federal waterfowl managers can choose. Each package has a specific level of hunting opportunity and bag limits. For the past few years, the liberal harvest has been in place for hunters nationwide. In the Pacific Flyway, the liberal package resulted in a hunting season of 107 days, with a seven-bird limit and no bag restrictions on mallards. Hunters could also shoot two hen mallards. Under the moderate framework, hunters would have 86 days to hunt, with a mallard restriction of five, including two mallard hens, in a seven-bird limit. A restrictive package would limit hunting to 60 days, reduce the total bag limit to four ducks, including three mallards and one hen mallard. Trost said a very restrictive season would limit hunting to 38 days, cut the limit to four ducks and limit the mallard take to three, including one hen mallard. The shortest hunting seasons that Pacific Flyway hunters experienced were 1988 through 1993 when the season ran about 59 days. The shortest waterfowl hunting season ever seen was during the Dust Bowl era of 1934-37 when the season ran only 30 days. "What hunters in the Pacific Flyway need to realize is that they have the longest season in the U.S. Sixty days is the norm in the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways, while the Central averages about 74 days," Trost said. Trost added, however, that the reason why the other flyways have shorter seasons is because they harvest the bulk of the nation's waterfowl. Most biologsists say the length of the hunting season, not the bag limit, has the most effect on waterfowl populations. While we're on the subject of harvests, Washington hunters saw a drop in their total bags from 403,000 ducks a year ago to about 333,000 this past season, of which about 200,000 were mallards. "That's about a 20 percent decline in mallards from the 2000 season," Trost said. In the Pacific Flyway, hunters last season bagged 2.2 million ducks (970,000 mallards), down slightly from the 2.3 million harvested (1 million mallards) during the 2000 season.
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