# Dennis Anderson: When ducks direly need help...



## Matt Jones (Mar 6, 2002)

Dennis Anderson: When ducks direly need help, rule makers look the other way

Dennis Anderson, Minneapolis Star Tribune 
July 23, 2004 ANDY0723

What we know about duck hunting for sure is that it hasn't been very good of late. Crumble the cookie any way you want. But when Arkansas doesn't have mallards in December and January, and Louisiana hunters have trouble finding even gray ducks, it can be fairly said there aren't many ducks.

When the subject is bad news, Minnesota duck hunters, of course, are in a class by themselves. With most of our wetlands gone and many that remain severely degraded, it's little wonder Minnesota, which once ranked second to none as a stopover for migrant birds and was also pretty darn good for duck-rearing, now is mostly a state vacated by waterfowlers come October.

But not everyone has trouble finding ducks. Consider not only biologists, particularly those employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but also those working for the various states, among them Minnesota.

Where others see only empty skies, these folks can find ducks, mallards in particular, even if only on their laptops. And this is a fear that should strike close to the heart of anyone who loves waterfowl.

Many of these duck experts are in Duluth this week for the Mississippi Flyway Council meetings. Similar gatherings of the Atlantic, Central and Pacific flyway councils also are occurring, as state biologists use data gathered by the Fish and Wildlife Service to propose season length and bag limits for the fall.

Though it was widely believed up and down the Mississippi Flyway at the end of the last duck season that hunting would be severely restricted in 2004-05, with the season lasting no longer than 30 days (down from 60), and daily bag limits reduced to three from six, there is no suspense over changes this week in Duluth.

The reason: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists have indeed, again, found plenty of ducks in their spring breeding-pair surveys, thereby greasing the skids for another 60-day, six-ducks-daily season.

Perhaps North America's waterfowling history, which dates to the days of the punt gun, knows no greater irony than the Flyway Council's meeting this year in Duluth, home of Dave Zentner.

In the past year, Zentner organized a group of concerned waterfowlers that included Roger Holmes, retired director of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Fish and Wildlife Division and one-time chairman of the Mississippi Flyway Council; Harvey Nelson, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bigwig and former chairman of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan; and Art Hawkins, retired Fish and Wildlife Service Mississippi Flyway biologist.

Funny thing, but these guys think ducks are in trouble, and in a report, they suggested the Fish and Wildlife Service reorient its approach to duck management.

Rather than being, essentially, a broker of ducks that distributes the annual kill among states, Zentner's group argues that the service should become an advocate for a more conservation-oriented duck-hunting ethic.

This might include allowing shooting to begin not a half-hour before sunrise, when species identification is difficult, but instead at sunrise. Perhaps also hunters should be encouraged, if not required, to count unrecovered ducks as part of their bags.

Most important, the panel said, the service should begin weighing habitat considerations and hunting ethics equally with bag limits and season lengths.

The good intentions of Zentner's group notwithstanding, it's doubtful such changes will occur. Its head in the sand, and comfortably so, the service believes its duty is not to pass judgment on those state biologists who yearly push for the maximum duck kill - but rather to find ways to accommodate those demands.

This while, literally, Rome is burning in the form of lost waterfowl habitat - in the Dakotas, Louisiana and every state in between.

It is on the issue of lost habitat that Fish and Wildlife Service (and state) biologists are most culpable.

No one knows better than these professionals that this continent cannot sustain its duck populations - whatever their actual numbers are - at the current rate of habitat loss. Regarding this, we are, each of us, watching a tradition as old as the nation itself disappear while, as in Duluth this week, we debate the length of the coming season and the number of ducks we can kill.

Everyone knows the general public is indifferent to, if not ignorant of, the welfare of waterfowl and waterfowling, if not indifferent to the welfare of the planet itself.

Which is why those whose special interest in, and knowledge of, such matters bear a special burden. They alone see the big picture. And as Zentner's group argues, that picture should include more than the number of dead ducks a given year's population can sustain.

Some years ago in Louisiana, on a peerless January morning deep in a coastal marsh, with the wind blowing and ducks flying, a friend and I were talking.

The friend, a Louisiana native, said:

"I believe when the last damn duck flies over this state, everyone who's able will jump up to take a crack at it."

Should that fateful day ever come, the next spring, Fish and Wildlife Service biologists probably again will find just enough birds - if only on their laptops - to offer a 60-day season again.


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## tmorrie (Apr 1, 2002)

Great article by Dennis Anderson as usual who calls it as he sees it. His articles are one of the few things I miss about living in the Cities. We need somebody like him in ND with an editorial voice to stand up for sportsman and hold decision makers accountable.


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## bubolc (Aug 11, 2003)

You know irony of this article, is that Dennis is the voice of the sportsman that have been saying the exact same thing since last season..."Where the hell are all the ducks this year?" All reports said that numbers were great yet everybody I talked to, from MN and ND said that they were absolutly NOT seeing these "numbers" that experts projected. What a great article.


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## Field Hunter (Mar 4, 2002)

tmorrie, DITTO.....You would think the Fargo Foolum could employ someone that actually knows and for that matter cares about the issues. Never agreed with Lohman all the time but at least they had someone that new what consistantly was going on in the hunting and fishing world and didn't just print associated press articles originating in Bismarck.


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## Perry Thorvig (Mar 6, 2002)

You should see the comments on the Minnesota board at refugeforums.com related to Mr. Anderson and his article. It is unbelievable how some of the "kill-as-many-of those-damned-ducks-as-possible" crowd are mocking Anderson, and the rest of us for that matter, for crying wolf. They are anti-science, anti-government, and anti-conservation. Their great, great grandfathers shot all the buffalo and passenger pigeons. It runs in their blood.


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## cootkiller (Oct 23, 2002)

Sorry guys, but I gotta say ARE YOU KIDDING ME!
Obviously some of you boys have not gotten out of the city this summer. If you drive out into the heart of the flyway, mainly North Central ND you will see hundreds of refurbished waterholes with brood upon brood of ducks in them. Just because the park ponds in Fargo and Minneapolis aren't bursting with ducks doesn't mean that the REAL population isn't as healthy as ever.

cootkiller


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## fishhook (Aug 29, 2002)

Heres what i know from driving. Water is much better in southern manitoba this year. However they still claim 70% wetland loss. I did not see many broods up there or many ducks at all for that matter.

In north dakota from what i have seen the duck broods that have hatched are quite a bit behind. They seem awful small for this time of year. And I do believe the number of young is way down this year. I don't know if has to do with the snowstorm in may, the freezing temps in june, or lack of water in "most" of the state.

I think you could be generalizing your area coot and assuming the rest of the state has had good production.


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## Perry Thorvig (Mar 6, 2002)

I absolutely believe that Coot knows what he is talking about. If he says there are ducks, then there are ducks IN HIS AREA.

But, Dennis Anderson, and others are talking about ducks over a much larger area. That picture appears to be pretty bleak.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

coot is right about the stock waterholes...the government had a program to clean them out last year because it was dry for the first time in ten years. There is normally one to two pair of various ducks nested in each of these secluded areas.

Overall there are a lot less ducks here, north central ND, than just a couple years ago. It was real dry here when the migration went thru this last spring and not as many as usual stayed here to nest because of the lack of standing water. It's all OK again as far as water but alot of ducks had to change their habit of nesting here so it will be interesting next year to see if any revert back.


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## bubolc (Aug 11, 2003)

Perry that is exactly what I was going to write. :thumb:


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## bubolc (Aug 11, 2003)

By the way coot, thanks for the tip, see you this fall!


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## HUNTNFISHND (Mar 16, 2004)

I have seen very few broods compared to the last few years and they also seem to be much smaller then past years too. Roughly from Valley City to Devils Lake. Good water conditions right now though. I think the late spring rains had a big impact on the hatch.


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## Perry Thorvig (Mar 6, 2002)

By the way, Coot. You would be amazed at the number of waterfowl that are raised here in the Twin Cities. I was on my way out to the trap range on the developing north edge of the Metro on Wed. night. Right off the freeway, amid heavy traffic and asphalt parking lots, there was a little pond that you could throw a stone across that was just teaming with ducks!! I just scratch my head and wonder why we can't raise more ducks out in the country if we can raise that many amidst concrete and asphalt???????????

By the way, in the next mile from the freeway interchange to the trap range, I saw about a dozen Canada geese grazing along side the road and then a flock of a dozen turkeys!!


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