There’s a crowd rooting for shorter seasons and reduced limits. Another group begs for a change related to unharvested crops, while another frets over declining habitat. Then there’s the contingency that believes everything is A-OK because they’ve had good hunting, turning a blind eye to mallard populations being down 16% over the long-term average.
Concerned and frustrated hunters are more vocal now thanks to social media channels, discussion boards and the like. If you want to vent about cruddy duck seasons, there are a multitude of opportunities available and just enough people willing to listen, regardless of how off-the-wall or dubious the theory or fix may be. Echo chambers are easy to find, and the voices are getting louder with each passing season.
But is all this chatter amongst family members, friends, hunting partners —
in some cases, total strangers over the internet — about fresh, hot topics? If you’ve ever laid your hands on a copy of “Waterfowl Tomorrow,” the answer is unequivocally no.
The 770-page book was published in 1964 by the U.S. Department of the Interior. This seminal work offers an in-depth examination of the status, ecology and conservation of North America’s migratory waterfowl, focusing on 48 species of ducks, geese and swans and their challenges for production and survival.
An excerpt from Chapter 1: Waterfowl in a Changing Continent states, “The number of waterfowl vary year to year and decade to decade, depending largely on natural conditions. Lows and highs are normal and to be expected. No one can for sure say how the highs of a generation ago compare to the highs of later years. Many of us believe, though, that the general trend towards peak populations is downward. It could hardly be otherwise in view of the disappearance of breeding places.”
That exact statement could have easily been made this offseason, but it’s over 60 years old. The more interesting factoid is that when the book was written, the Breeding Population (BPOP) count was almost exactly what it is today, with mid-continent mallards in the six-million-ish range, with seasons ranging from 25-40 days long. Those were different times in waterfowl management practices, and long before 1995’s Adaptive Harvest Management (AHM) set the season frameworks as they are still today, with less of a human factor and way more math.
The book goes on to identify issues with habitat loss on the breeding grounds and their winter homes, predators, various angles of negative human impact, cross-border collaboration and suggestions on how to move forward. Sound familiar?
The context or enormity of things was different in those days, but at their core, ducks have it tough and have for decades.
The big difference seems to be the current hysteria that has engulfed today’s waterfowling. Remember, there were two million duck hunters nationwide in the 1960s. Now there are half as many. Maybe it was a bigger deal than we believed back then, and concerned hunters lacked the ability and/or audience to express their worry.
Jump ahead to 20-25 years after the publication of “Waterfowl Tomorrow” during another severe drought on the breeding grounds, causing hunting to get tough again. I’m old enough to vividly remember that era, as I was in college and hunted a lot between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. I don’t have any recollection of my dad and his hunting buddies freaking out in the 30-day, three duck seasons of the late 1980s and early 1990s. We had some excellent days, lots of OK days and a handful of days we wish we had never gotten out of bed, similar to the past few seasons.
Again, the overwhelming worry didn’t seem to exist. I honestly don’t recall my dad and his hunting buddies being obsessed with the demise of duck hunting despite season lengths being half what they are now. Breeding populations of mid-continent mallards were relatively the same, while May ponds were short a couple of million from where we are now.
Man vs. Nature
Another case in point regarding what’s old is new again in duck hunting are the Ding Darling cartoons of the 1920s through the 1940s.
J.N. “Ding” Darling was a popular editorial cartoonist from Iowa who covered various hot topics of the day but mainly focused on politics and conservation. He later played an instrumental role in forming the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, designed the first Federal Duck Stamp and won two Pulitzer Prizes for his cartoons.
Darling took on topics related to wildlife conservation, namely ducks, when limits were much higher than today, and until 1913, hunting ducks in the spring was allowed. Greed was the name of the game at the time, and hunters couldn’t help themselves until ducks took a serious turn for the worse during droughts in the 1930s. This is the same era when Ducks Unlimited started, given that ducks were in bad shape and the hunter’s mindset was all take with no give back.
Darling’s cartoons showcased overcrowded hunting spots, how hard relentless hunting was on the ducks, human destruction of habitat and even private grounds skirting the baiting laws. Hunters of the day took the wildlife and their habitats for granted as if there was an endless supply. Darling’s efforts exposed the realities of overhunting wild things and kick-started the conservation movement.
Darling once said, “If I could put together all the virgin landscapes which I knew in my youth and show what has happened to them in one generation, it would be the best object lesson in conservation that could be printed.”
The issues Darling addressed in his cartoons resemble today’s controversies, nearly 100 years later. The scale of the impact may vary from almost a century ago, given our limits and seasons are much more conservative than those days, but the similarities abound.
The Bouncebacks
Coming out of the aforementioned eras when ducks weren’t doing so hot and hunters were leaning on them pretty hard, ducks rallied. Interestingly, governmental policy played a significant role in the bounce back. And of course, precipitation fell on the Prairie Pothole Regions in reasonable amounts and at the right time, leading to productive breeding seasons.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, the Adjustment Agriculture Act in the 1930s, the Soil Bank Program of the 1950s and two programs in the 1985 Farm Bill, Swampbuster and Sodbuster, played huge roles in protecting habitat and wildlife. Although the current string of dry years isn’t as dire as those days, what legislation is on the table to boost the ducks for another string of good seasons? Without being too political, not much. The Farm Bill is two years into extensions with no end in sight, and divesting in conservation at the federal level feels imminent. Regardless of political affiliations, there’s no denying that, so far, Donald Trump is no Teddy Roosevelt when it comes to conservation.
Veteran waterfowler and acclaimed outdoor photographer Lee Kjos states, “The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in the mid-1980s was a major driver in waterfowl rebounding to levels many of you would consider ‘back in the day’. After peaking in the early 2000s, CRP enrollment has declined at an alarming rate, with the lion’s share of this in (the) U.S. side of prairie pothole country. History tells us policy equals habitat.”
What’s the Current Fix?
Mallards are incredibly resilient. Can the mallards ever reach nine million plus in the breeding population like we saw in the late 1950s, early 1970s, late 1990s and the strong BPOP years of 2011 up until COVID? Those recent years are at the top of mind with today’s duck hunters and the current benchmark against what seasons are judged, while there are far more okay to decent production years in between those booms.
“Waterfowl Tomorrow” and Darling’s cartoons are just a couple of examples of instances in the past in which those who care about ducks took a stance. Other books, articles, editorials and hunter-conservationists over time have rallied the troops to do their part to protect the resource when times get tough.
Are more conservative limits the answer? AHM says no. Hunters from the pre-60 and six era feel differently. Then there is the issue of lower limits leading to reduced pressure, with hunters not being in the field for as long.
Are shorter seasons or the season’s timing a solution? AHM’s matrix plotting May ponds and BPOP says no, for now.
What about the season starting so early in the northern part of the flyway and ending so late in the south? Young ducks pay the price on the front end and breeding pairs on the back.
Without changes on those two fronts, hunters are better served to focus on controlling the controllables. Some clubs self-impose smaller limits or no hens. There are tons of clubs paying a significant amount of time and effort to manage pressure. Everything from ending hunts mid-morning, no afternoon hunting, their paths and manner of conveyance to and from their hunting spots, shooting subgauges and so on.
Ducks and duck hunting have been here before. The trick is now, what will we as hunters do about our beloved while we wait on a wet spring or two? I’m not sure we can regulate our way to more ducks. I’m equally unconvinced that we can shoot our way to more ducks. Habitat first and foremost, but what can be done while waiting on Mother Nature, or if the prairies don’t bounce back like we hope?
“Waterfowl Tomorrow” and Ding Darling changed mindsets, effectively communicated issues and championed solutions. Who does this for the current generation of hunters and the next? Why not me? Why not you?
