Drop in ducks highlights concerns over habitat
Water plus habitat equals ducks. The validity of that equation has been proven by decades of sciencebased waterfowl assessments in North America.
If conditions become too dry, bird numbers drop.
If the acreage of breeding habitat – found in both wetlands and grasslands – is reduced, waterfowl abundance follows suit.
So when the 2018 Waterfowl Population Status report showed a 13% drop in continental duck numbers, it elevated a lingering concern among the conservation community.
Are we doing enough to protect waterfowl habitat?
The question comes in an era of declining enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a key federal program to protect wildlife habitat.
Significantly, it also comes as Congress works to cobble together the 2018 Farm Bill.
The legislation isn’t just important to agricultural producers, it’s one the most important conservation planks among federal agencies. The 1985 Farm Bill, for example, created CRP and Swampbuster, programs that over the next three decades helped waterfowl populations soar to new heights in the
“That (Farm Bill) was transformative,” said John Devney, senior vicepresident of Delta Waterfowl, the conservation organization based in Bismarck, N.D.
Enrollment in CRP, which provides a subsidy to farmers and other landowners to allow mostly marginal agricultural land to go fallow, climbed rapidly in the late 1980s. In 1987, 15 million acres were enrolled in CRP and by 1990 topped 30 million acres.
Participation in CRP averaged 33 million acres from 1990 to 2012 and peaked at 36.8 million acres in 2007.
Continental duck numbers increased along the same general timeline, from 25.1 million in 1990 (the lowest in the last 50 years) to populations consistently north of 40 million since 2007, including a record 49.5 million in 2015.
However, CRP is now enduring cuts. The most recent farm bill reduced the CRP enrollment cap from 32 million acres to 24 million acres by the 2018 fiscal year.
In April 2017, 23.5 million acres were enrolled, the lowest level since the late 1980s, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
On the bright side, Swampbuster, which provides incentives to farmers who protect wetlands, has been retained by each Farm Bill since 1985.
The program protects two-thirds of the carrying capacity of breeding ducks in the U.S. prairie pothole region, Devney said.
The 2018 waterfowl census provides cause for concern, however.
The data are derived from aerial surveys on more than 2 million square miles of the principal waterfowl breeding areas in North America.
The continental survey has been conducted annually since 1955 and provides the single best picture of waterfowl populations. The USFWS released the 2018 breeding duck results on Aug. 20.
From the long-term perspective, the 2018 data were good. The 41.2 million ducks were 17% above the long-term average.
However the recent changes bear close consideration.
Mallards and blue-winged teal, the two most abundant species in the 2018 survey, showed drops of 12% and 31%, respectively. More broadly, nine of the top 10 species showed lower numbers this year.
And, although precipitation patterns and amounts have varied, the 2018 population estimate is the third consecutive drop since a record high 49.5 million ducks was reported in 2015.
At the state level, concern for wetland habitat was ratcheted up last year when the Legislature passed a bill that will allow as many as 1 million acres of isolated, non-federal wetlands to be filled.
Is the decline in duck numbers a temlor porary trend that will reverse itself ? Or a sign we are failing in our efforts to protect waterfowl and other wildlife that depend on wetland and grassland nesting habitat?
“This year’s breeding population decline is a reminder of the need to sustain the capacity of breeding habitats, particularly in the prairies as we go through natural variation in wetland conditions,” said Tom Moorman, chief scientist for Duck Unlimited.
“Waterfowl populations are adapted well to short-term swings in habitat conditions, but we must continue to guard against the long-term loss of prairie breeding habitat.”
Information from the 2018 breeding waterfowl survey will form the basis for U.S. waterfowl harvest regulations for the 2019 hunting season.
The 2018 regulations have already been set based on 2017 data. Under a process initiated in 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses breeding waterfowl data from the previous year to establish hunting regulations for the following year.
Once again this year, waterfowl hunters in Wisconsin have been offered the longest and most liberal framework allowable, including a 60-day duck season with a six bird daily bag limit.
The same general liberal regulations are likely to be offered in 2019, said TayU.S. Finger, migratory bird ecologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
Finger just returned from a Mississippi Flyway meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba, at which wildlife managers reviewed the 2018 breeding duck data.
He said since duck estimates remain above the long-term average it would take a larger drop to put hunting regulations into the “moderate” category with a 45-day season.
The last time Wisconsin had less than a 60-day duck hunting season was in 1996, Taylor said.
As someone who was old enough to hunt during the shorter seasons of the 1980s and ‘90s, I’d prefer to keep duck populations as healthy as possible and continue the streak of liberal season formats.
It may be too early to say the decline in CRP is driving the drop in continental duck numbers.
But here’s something that’s beyond debate – programs put in place by our elected representatives at the state and federal levels can have a profound impact on wildlife.
With election campaigns running hot over the next couple months, it’s an excellent time for those of us who value wildlife, wetlands and grasslands to remind candidates our votes depend on pro-conservation actions.