What a load of crap

[stang67]

I wish statewide deer surveys were as scientific.

[DoublePslayer]

I picked up the phone this afternoon and called Alec Conrad, who was the biologist with MDWFP in the airplane counting ducks for this survey and several years prior. Basically he goes up in the plane for several days on a designated flight path and counts ducks and geese at roughly 300 sample points. This data is taken back to Jackson and an equation is used to extrapolate the sample estimate across the Delta. Data analysis and report development is done by Houston Havens.

In reference to some of the comments above I will say that I know both of these gentleman well and any claim of "cooking the numbers" for some political or monetary purpose is bull$hit. These men are professionals who do this type work every day and put their name behind it. The BS claims from the arm chair QBs above is pretty much an insult to their personal and professional integrity.

In the wildlife/forestry profession we do a lot of "ocular estimation", that is estimating quantitative parameters with our eye balls. We are trained to do this, but it is an art, something that takes a good bit of practice to do well. For example, a good forester can walk through the woods and call tree diameter within a couple of tenths of inch and tree height within a few feet. Same thing with vegetation surveys where we call percent coverage by species within a certain area. Actual measurements or counts are how we train, and check our estimates as we work, but ocular estimation is how we cover ground in a cost effective manner.

Take this approach to aerial surveys for waterfowl. The reality is that you are in a moving airplane, you only have so long to identify ducks by species and make a count. You can take photographs and do after the fact counts to check your estimates, which is time consuming, but a good way of checking yourself. To give you an idea of how dedicated these guys are to what they do, Alec (poor soul) sits in his recliner in the evening making dots on pieces of paper and flipping through making "ocular estimations" in an effort to improve his abilities. While my work with estimating waterfowl numbers is limited, I can tell you this, when a professional biologist or forester tells you that he is confident in his numbers, you can take it to the bank that its going to be real dad gum close.

With that said, one thing I don't know much about is the equation that is used to extrapolate sample numbers across the Delta. The first thing that popped into my head was, does the equation account for frozen conditions? With fields and shallow water locked up, other than where the ducks were keeping it open, would the concentrated numbers result in an overestimation once extrapolated out? I honestly don't know the answer to that question, but it could be relevant.

Something else to think about is the weather during 2016. Wet spring and summer, bumper acorn and moist soil crop. A drought in the fall resulted in very little crop left in the field and practically every acre broke and turned under. So everything that we can see from the road driving by has practically zero nutritional value, other than some inverts. Everybody I talk to has either had a great season or a horrible season, very few in between.

The final point to consider, is what was happening to the north and west of us during the time frame of the survey. The satellite photo below was taken on January 4th and depicts snow/ice, that should be pretty self explanatory. Also, aerial surveys in Arkansas (which were down) and ground counts from the South Delta further support the higher numbers documented in the survey report.

IMG_0986.JPG

Good read DanP

[Rice]

This week I havent been but I know the first two weeks of Jan there were for sure plenty of ducks .

[Wildfowler]

What an amazing satellite photo.

Thanks.

[GreyDuck]

DoubleP,, that makes a lot of sense to me, what you just said.

And I ask this because I don't know, how do they count ducks flying 130 mph at 400 ft. Do they use a grid match of numbers or something similar, such as to say, okay this xyz hole will hole x number ducks and just work a math formula?? Just curious of how they actually do it..

With practice you learn what 10 birds/100 birds looks like, count the clusters and multiply. On a group of 500 or more birds, you might start by visualizing 100. On a group of 60 birds, you start at 10. On a group of 5300 geese, you start at 1000, count the clusters and add a 500 if you can't make another 1000. Being 200 birds shy of the true value seems like a lot, but it's only 6%.

The primary skill is to be able to accurately ID 10, 100, 500, or 1000 ducks no matter how they are distributed on the water. Shovelers can be difficult in particular because some portion of the flock will cluster in really tight groups while the rest are widely distributed. But even if you are 30-40% off on some marks, you can still come out with an average that is very close to the true value with large enough sample size. In this last survey, I personally logged 300+ GPS points, ducks and geese. That is a very large sample size compared to past surveys.

Going 130 miles an hour in an airplane is definitely a factor, but it really only gets tricky when you have multiple big groups in a row,like on a giant fish pond complex. I would compare it to looking at an objects about 200 yards away while going 70 miles per hour down the highway in terms of the time you have to estimate per group.

[GreyDuck]

A friend of mine flies the plane for these guys, and they usually take 3 days to cover the entire delta. 3 Days. He fly's a pre-programmed grid on an east-west line and starts from greenwood and goes north one day, south the next, and finishes up around Vicksburg the 3rd. Now think about how much a duck will move in a day north of south. There is a strong possibility that they are counting the same ducks multiple times. Fly one line from Rosedale to Oxberry, and then move over a mile and fly another. Hell, they could be counting the same duck 20 times during the survey. Now I'm not saying the data is purposely inaccurate, but you can't expect it to be completely accurate either. Also, the guy doing the counting is moving at 130mph and only 400 ft off the ground, so you know he is not on the money with his counts.

Just and FYI.

DoublePslayer,

You make some good points. Rapid weather changes may indeed cause birds to move long distances, in or out of the Delta and probably even within the Delta. It's not uncommon for a major weather change to occur during the survey, and that is exactly what happened during this survey. We actually started this survey in the South and worked our way up. We flew a half a day and had to quit due to low visibility. When we resumed most shallow water areas were locked up with the exception of places where the birds could keep water open.

We make the survey as concise as possible to get the best snapshot we can of whats out there. An airplane is the only practical/cost-effective way to accomplish this currently.

I going to go out on a limb and say that prior to the big cold front, we probably didn't have near the birds that it brought. When they got here, they were forced to hold tight to areas of open water. I would suspect that a few people really smoked them during that time while a lot of people didn't. Once it thawed, I have no clue what birds did. I suspect that when temperatures rose, birds found food and stayed tight on it. Then the 60 and 70 degree temps hit. I can't comment on what the majority of birds did then because I don't put my confidence in what I see out of truck.

[Blackduck]

I'm not doubting the guys at the MDWFP are doing a solid job. I don't believe they would cook any kind of number either. Most fields that hold big numbers aren't the kind you can usually see from a good gravel road and certainly not on the blacktop. Regardless the reports I've heard and participated in do not resemble 1.4 million birds. I will say that anectodal stories and reports are often crap as well.

I don't know the truth.

[JaMak84]

Seems I may have been a little out of line with this post. First, I'd like to apologize to Alec and all of the men and women who dedicate their time and effort into providing the public with this information. I never intended to imply that the information was purposely misleading. While I may not agree with the reports, it was uncharacteristic of me both professionally and personally to dismiss such without regard for the work and effort put forth by these individuals. "A load of crap" was and is a poor choice of words for something this armchair biologist disagrees with based merely on my personal observations and the hearsay of my limited circle of contacts. This post was made purely out of frustration from what has easily been the absolute worst season in my 20 years of duck hunting. I've only been on 8 hunts this year. 2 of those I fired my gun. The other 6 I don't even think I took the calls out of my pocket. The majority of people in my circle share the same sentiment. I'm not trying to make excuses, just trying to share my perspective. As bad as the last 2 years have been for me, it was very hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that the largest population count conducted by this method in the last 12 years was this year. That being said, if the numbers were there, then so be it. Wouldn't be the first time I acted like and ass by opening my mouth when I shouldn't, and probably won't be the last. Again, Alec I apologize and I'll leave the duck counting to the professionals from here on out.

[DoublePslayer]

Seems I may have been a little out of line with this post. First, I'd like to apologize to Alec and all of the men and women who dedicate their time and effort into providing the public with this information. I never intended to imply that the information was purposely misleading. While I may not agree with the reports, it was uncharacteristic of me both professionally and personally to dismiss such without regard for the work and effort put forth by these individuals. "A load of crap" was and is a poor choice of words for something this armchair biologist disagrees with based merely on my personal observations and the hearsay of my limited circle of contacts. This post was made purely out of frustration from what has easily been the absolute worst season in my 20 years of duck hunting. I've only been on 8 hunts this year. 2 of those I fired my gun. The other 6 I don't even think I took the calls out of my pocket. The majority of people in my circle share the same sentiment. I'm not trying to make excuses, just trying to share my perspective. As bad as the last 2 years have been for me, it was very hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that the largest population count conducted by this method in the last 12 years was this year. That being said, if the numbers were there, then so be it. Wouldn't be the first time I acted like and ass by opening my mouth when I shouldn't, and probably won't be the last. Again, Alec I apologize and I'll leave the duck counting to the professionals from here on out.

If a lot more people in the world acted like JaMak did right here, then the world would be a lot better place. (Myself included)

Bravo JaMak