From the Field:

Another nesting season complete

Nesting Success Research 

August 5th , 2008

As we enter August, nesting activity is complete across our study sites. At this point, females that successfully hatched a nest are busy attending to their broods of ducklings. Although scattered thunderstorms have continued to roll across the prairies of the Dakotas, they haven’t resulted in much measurable improvement in wetland conditions. However, when driving through the Coteau now, broods can be seen on many wetlands; the result of production from earlier hatched nests. With nearly 350 hatched nests for the year, all indications are that nesting success overall was average or slightly above average for the ducks that bred across our research sites. However, drier conditions result in poorer wetland conditions that in many cases result in challenges for ducklings and generally lower brood survival during dry times that wet times. The best sites for nesting success this year were Lostwood site 62 (31 hatched nests), Woodworth site 26 (33 hatched nests) and Goebel site 41 (27 hatched nests).

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released their report on the number of breeding pairs of ducks surveyed across the key breeding areas in North America (web-link to press release). The total number of ducks was 37.3 million birds which is down from last year. The pond count across the mid-continent breeding areas was also down by nearly 40% indicating the overall drier conditions across the board. Clearly, drier times affected the number of breeding pairs surveyed this year and production will likely be down as a result. To watch videos about the 2008 conditions by the pilot biologists who conduct these surveys go to: http://www.flyways.us/status-of-waterfowl/video-report.

What is important to keep in mind is that drought conditions are part of the natural cycle and ducks have responded to waxing and waning wetland conditions for thousands of years. What is of far greater concern is the threats to habitat that currently exist. We continue to see conversion of native grassland to cropland, hundreds of thousands of acres of CRP are expiring and being converted back to cropland and wetlands embedded in cropland are being drained and otherwise degraded. We will need the help of everyone across the continent to get involved if we are to maintain the habitat we currently have and continue to see fall flights of large numbers of ducks. And what is especially striking is the fact that we’ll need the support of folks who care about ducks across migration and wintering areas to be especially vocal. Unfortunately, breeding areas are sparsely populated and only a fraction of the waterfowlers live in breeding areas and can see the habitat issues with their own eyes. The good news is that many more passionate duck hunters live in important migration and wintering areas. And all of these folks have invested significant amounts of resources, time and sweat into providing important habitat for the birds where they live. This means that the birds are pretty well taken care of on migration and wintering areas with a few exceptions but leaves breeding areas as the places in greater need of support. Unfortunately, most of the breeding areas are not managed by folks with ducks in mind but instead by farmers and ranchers who must make a living from their land. As a result, to find common ground with producers in the prairies that grow the continents ducks, we must have all waterfowlers from across the continent engaged in public policy and in investing some of their own resources in the prairies. And as always it takes money to protect duck habitat in perpetuity so please consider making an investment in ensuring the future of duck production on a portion of the prairies by purchasing an extra Federal duck stamp and making a donation to DU. If we all don’t get engaged, I’m afraid populations of ducks like we’ve seen in recently may be only a distant bittersweet memory in the future.

We hope you will continue to follow along with our work as we gather finalize the information from the 2008 nesting season. Once complete we will provide a season-end wrap-up report on exactly how the birds fared.