Duck Populations Remain High for 2017
8/25/2017 11:39:07 AM
From MDWFP
Photo by: Chris Hutcheson
JACKSON – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service, along with other partner organizations, recently completed their annual waterfowl breeding population and habitat surveys in the northern United States and Canadian provinces known as the waterfowl “breeding grounds”. These surveys monitor breeding duck populations and critical wetland habitat conditions, which are directly related to the number of birds available to head south during the upcoming fall and winter. Estimates from these surveys are used to help set waterfowl hunting season frameworks like bag limits and the number of hunting days allowed.
Population estimates for four of the ten surveyed duck species in the traditional survey area increased this year. Following a record year, mallard numbers decreased by 11 percent but still remained well above their long term average. Blue-winged teal and gadwall populations showed the greatest increases (18 percent and 13 percent, respectively). Northern pintail and northern shoveler populations also experienced increases. Other duck species with reported decreases in their overall numbers were American wigeon, green-winged teal, canvasback, redhead, and scaup.
“Despite decreases in estimates of total ducks and some individual species, breeding duck populations are still doing very well, overall,” said Houston Havens, Waterfowl Program Coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks. However, Mississippi hunters are reminded that many factors will combine to determine whether or not large numbers of migrating waterfowl show up in Mississippi wetlands. Fall and winter weather, as well as wetland habitat conditions here on the wintering grounds, play major roles in duck migrations, which will ultimately define the quality of this hunting season for Mississippi’s duck hunters.
For more information regarding waterfowl in Mississippi, visit our website at www.mdwfp.com/waterfowl or call us at (601) 432-2199. Follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mdwfp or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MDWFPonline.
