Panel concerned about duck populations

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Panel concerned about duck populations
Regulations may need to be revised
By TIM EISELE

Madison Wisconsin - Duck hunting regulations for this fall won't be established until August, but two avid Minnesota hunters are urging regulators to err on the side of conservatism.

Dave Zentner, an avid waterfowler from Duluth, Minn., and Harvey K. Nelson, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl administrator from Bloomington, Minn., told outdoor writers at the Outdoor Writers Association of America annual meeting in Madison on June 20 that they think hunting has a bigger impact on waterfowl populations than what is generally believed. They would like to see a more conservative approach when establishing hunting regulations.

"We all share a common passion - duck hunting - and we're concerned about its future," Zentner said.

Zentner and Nelson are members of The Concerned Duck Hunter's Panel. The panel includes distinguished waterfowl authorities such as Arthur Hawkins (retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and Roger Holmes (retired from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources), and other avid hunters who are questioning the state of the waterfowl resource, and whether the duck harvest is becoming a limiting factor in duck breeding populations.

Their motto is 'to err on the side of resource conservation,' and they ask that hunting regulations use a more conservative model, noting declines in recent years in lesser scaup and pintail populations.

Zentner and Nelson agree on the importance of habitat for duck production but say there is a disconnect between many hunters seeing empty skies and what is implicit in 60-day seasons and six-bird daily bag limits.

Zentner said Louisiana's legislature held hearings this year asking, "Where are the ducks?" Hunters in Minnesota and Iowa ask similar questions.

"Maybe some of the birds are hunted hard enough that they are staying in refuges until after dark, or different types of cultivation are changing movements," Zentner said. "But it does remind me of stories when old buffalo hunters questioned where are the buffalo? Nobody believed that the buffalo could be gone."

Zentner, who has spent his life supporting biologists and professional management rather than attacking the professionals, believes there are too many variables with which biologists have to deal.

The panel is concerned that biologists rely largely on the mid-continent mallard population to determine seasons and bag limits, which may lead to the unintentional over-harvest of other species and other mallard populations.

The panel recommends:

• Current regulations put emphasis on the maximum allowable harvest, which may be at the expense of breeding populations. Instead seasons should be shortened, starting no earlier than Oct. 1, and bag limits reduced.

• Try to find ways to give more protection to hens. Ducks are relatively long-lived birds and older hens may be more successful breeders.

• Shooting hours should be shortened, open only from sunrise to sunset. Poor light conditions one-half hour before sunrise make that time difficult to identify species and hens.

• Ethical considerations should be reviewed. Hunters should include unretrieved, crippled birds in their daily bag limit. State regulations prohibiting shotguns from being loaded while a motor is on hamper retrieval of crippled birds.

• Electronic spinning-wing decoys may have a negative affect on the waterfowl resource and diminish the core value and quality of duck hunting. Prohibit any electronic device, including spinning wing decoys, except where the goal is population control.

• Make waterfowl enforcement a higher priority for state and federal conservation wardens.

The Concerned Duck Hunters Panel says it could be wrong in asking for more conservative regulations. "But so could the regulatory folks be wrong," Zentner said. "Let's err on the side of the resource."