{"id":524,"date":"2024-07-01T17:24:28","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T22:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/?p=524"},"modified":"2024-09-09T17:43:48","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T22:43:48","slug":"2024-spring-duck-breeding-survey-just-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/2024-spring-duck-breeding-survey-just-released\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Spring Duck Breeding Survey Just Released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Bruce Ross, Executive Director <a href=\"mailto:bross@wisducks.org\">bross@wisducks.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association\u2019s July, 2024 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisducks.org\/newsletter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Newsletter<\/a> edition<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Three days ago, the Wisconsin DNR released its <a href=\"https:\/\/widnr.widen.net\/s\/ksrvtqqkbc\/waterfowl_breeding_population_2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Waterfowl Breeding Population Survey<\/a>.\u00a0 I think this may be the best early season predictor of our fall hunting season.<\/p>\n<p>According to the DNR, most ducks harvested by Wisconsin hunters are Wisconsin-born. These are generally mallards, blue-winged teal, and wood ducks.\u00a0 The numbers of waterfowl harvested by the large early season group of duck hunters outweighs the harvest of the seasonally smaller number of duck hunters in late October and November. Most late-season harvested ducks are grown north of our borders.<\/p>\n<p>Based on data from flights conducted in April, the recently released DNR report estimates available ponds\/wetlands for brood-rearing and provides breeding populations of Wisconsin\u2019s most harvested waterfowl species (mallard, blue-winged teal, wood duck, \u201cother\u201d, and Canada Geese).<\/p>\n<p>My summary is based on that report\u2026. But I\u2019m quick to say that (1) late spring\u2019s rains may have improved nesting\u00a0 conditions; and (2) fall conditions are the trump card for the waterfowl season. For example, last year\u2019s spring report was pretty good (better than this year\u2019s), but dry fall conditions made hunting more challenging \u2013 at least for me.<\/p>\n<p>That said, at this early point, I\u2019d say the message remains mixed.\u00a0 Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wetlands (\u201cbasins\u201d in report parlance) are down less than 10-24% from last year, but up 23-84% over the long-term average. (The consistent rain we\u2019ve gotten over the past two months may have helped improve breeding conditions from this numbers.)<\/li>\n<li>Breeding pairs: \u201cOverall, the duck population estimate for 2024 was similar to what we have experienced over the last few years (2020-2023) and above the average total duck numbers experienced across the prior ten years.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mallards<\/strong> were 7.9% below last year, and 17.6% lower than the long term average (LTA), continuing a concerning downward trend.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Blue-Winged Teal<\/strong> were up over last year (2.4%), but still slightly lower than the LTA (1.3%)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Wood ducks<\/strong> are marginally lower than 2023 (.5%), and 13% higher than the LTA<\/li>\n<li><strong>Other Ducks (likely Wisconsin breeders like ringers, redheads, shovellers, green wings, ruddy, mergansers)<\/strong> was the same as last year, but 126% greater than the long-term mean.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Canada Goose <\/strong>breeding populations are down 3.5% from last year, but more than double the long-term mean (126%)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_526\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-526\" style=\"width: 1586px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a ref=\"magnificPopup\" href=\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-mallards.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-526 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-mallards.jpg\" alt=\"Estimated breeding abundance mallards\" width=\"1586\" height=\"1108\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-mallards.jpg 1586w, https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-mallards-600x419.jpg 600w, https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-mallards-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-mallards-1024x715.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1586px) 100vw, 1586px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-526\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 1: Breeding Mallards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In total, there are about half a million ducks breeding this year in Wisconsin, representing about a 4% decline from last year, yet 13% above the LTA.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_527\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-527\" style=\"width: 1586px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a ref=\"magnificPopup\" href=\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-527 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance.jpg\" alt=\"Estimated breeding abundance Wood Ducks\" width=\"1586\" height=\"1152\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance.jpg 1586w, https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-600x436.jpg 600w, https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-300x218.jpg 300w, https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Estimated-breeding-abundance-1024x744.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1586px) 100vw, 1586px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-527\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Figure 2: Breeding Wood Ducks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span>All you duck nerds out there can check out the report for yourself:\u00a0 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/widnr.widen.net\/s\/ksrvtqqkbc\/waterfowl_breeding_population_2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/widnr.widen.net\/s\/ksrvtqqkbc\/waterfowl_breeding_population_2024<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bross@wisducks.org This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association\u2019s July, 2024 Newsletter edition Three days ago, the Wisconsin DNR released its Waterfowl Breeding Population Survey.\u00a0 I think this may be the best early season predictor of our fall hunting season. According to the DNR, most ducks harvested by Wisconsin hunters&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}