While the northern breeding grounds capture the headlines and attention of North American waterfowl hunters, the Black-Bellied Whistling ducks have returned to their nesting grounds in the deep south – sporting their breeding plumage for potential mates and the camera of one avid waterfowl hunter.
Hello folks, and as always, welcome to Waterfowler.com.
The May Pond Counts are underway across the North American waterfowl breeding grounds and pond counts are expected to be up significantly over previous years – due to the abundance of precipitation that accumulated over the winter season.
Of course, when it comes to water, too little can often be as bad as too much. Spring flooding in North Dakota has hurt many wetlands, as sediment deposits poured into these shallow marshes from erosion caused by extreme flooding. Within the disaster area, the US Fish and Wildlife services over 54 National Wildlife Refuges and approximately 197,240 acres of Waterfowl Production areas, as well as privately funded conservation projects from Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited and other organizations. In short, the damage is extensive and recovery costs high. Details and a preliminary damage assessment can be found at the FWS website.
With water levels in the U.S Prairie Pothole Region above average, the long-term effects of erosion in some areas will not be visible until the water returns to normal or low levels, and wetlands that once existed have vanished. Waterfowler.com encourages our readers to stay abreast of this issue and voice their concerns to state and federal officials on this matter to protect and obtain recovery funding.
This year, twelve air crews of biologists will fly over the waterfowl survey areas in the United States and Canada to assemble the reports that are used to determine waterfowl season lengths and bag limits. The Habitat and Breeding Surveys will be conducted between now and Mid-June, and readers can find preliminary reports at www.Flyways.us.
Waterfowler.com would like to remind those participating in off-season dog training to check state and local regulations on special restrictions during the breeding season. Simply running your dog off-leash during the nesting season can result in a costly wildlife violation in some areas and states. Many states offer designated dog-training areas where you can legally exercise your dog and not disturb nesting birds. Links to state wildlife management websites can be found on our State Report pages.
For those conducting wetlands projects this year to enhance their private hunting areas, Contributing Editor, Bradley Ramsey has created a new Wetlands Management Blog at www.fourflyways.com. We’re confident you will find his information and experience on the subject extremely helpful. As always, we’d like to thank Bradley for his ongoing contributions to WFC, including the wonderful photo of black-bellied whistling ducks featured on this report (which was shot on his current management project). It should be noted that these whistling ducks, like many across Louisiana and Texas, are expanding their nesting range further north each year and populations continue to dramatically increase.
Until our next report, introduce a friend to the great outdoors!
