Written By: Hannah Riggs
A pretty lengthy Ducksouth thread popped up in 2001 with many different users giving their views of shooting hens. Many guys felt that shooting hens was overall not a good idea. They believed it could lead to a decrease in duck populations and therefore would prefer to shoot only drakes unless they were having a slow morning, or could not tell at such a far distance if the duck was a drake or hen.
Fifteen years later that debate still rages on in the duck hunting community, so to help sort this belief out waterfowl expert J Paul Jackson was consulted. Not only is Jackson very experienced in the biological side of waterfowl, he is also well researched on the subject. Based on that, he feels that as long as hen numbers are well above the long-term average shooting hens has no impact on the overall population whatsoever.
“Hunters can certainly have an impact on the Mallard population by shooting hens, but only under certain circumstances. When you have a population the size that it is today, hunter impact by harvesting hens is almost non existent,” Jackson said.
Our impact as hunters shooting hens is really only makes a difference when numbers are already low to begin with. Currently mallard numbers are 51% above the long term average so the killing of hens will not affect this population at all.
“Take a look at other healthy populations such as widgeons, green-winged teal, gadwalls, and Rocky’s favorite duck, the Northern Shoveler. There is no limit on the number of hens you can kill in these species, yet the populations continue to grow,” Jackson said.
However, as previously stated there are some situations where hunter imposed mortality on hens can be more significant.
“Take a look at pintails. This is a population that is well below the long-term average. So yeah, not shooting hens does make a difference. Hunters can definitely an impact by not shooting pintail hens,” Jackson said.
By going to The 2016 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Waterfowl Population Status and checking out pages iii and iv and the substantial data listed further down, you can find out for yourself exactly what the duck populations looks like. Currently, the only populations that are below the long term average are northern pintails at -34% and goldeneyes at -14%.
“It is a noble idea to not shoot hens, and there are certainly times when hunters can have an impact on the overall population by killing hens. However, most of the time hunter mortality imposed upon the hen population is insignificant. In the big picture there are other factors such as drought and loss of habitat that have a much greater potential to cause a decrease in the overall duck population than the number of hens killed by hunters ever will”, Jackson said.
