50% Decline in Mallard Population Sparks Research Efforts

[Ben Lamb]

Per the discussion about abundance creating sloth in advocacy, and the loss of keystone hunting species, here's an interesting article that just popped up:

News stories have moved.

www.esf.edu

 

[Mallardsx2]

We don’t know the mechanism' that is causing the drop

Its called the Mojo duck. lol

 

[NDGuy]

We don’t know the mechanism' that is causing the drop

Its called the Mojo duck. lol

Can't forget fully flocked FFD's and 15 year old prostaffers decked out in Sitka camo that hunker down in blinds where camo doesn't matter anyways!

 

[WalkingBird]

My old huntin buddy was a part of this study, and in comparison, they’ve found that the Black Duck population has stabilized and they doubled the daily limit in the Northeast for that species. I think a huge portion of this decline is that the mallard isn’t really adapted to the habitat native to the Northeast, and were only predominant because of the huge amount of farming and subsequent waste grains found in the region, but with farming gone and many of the old fields reverting to forest, the area is again becoming better habitat for Black Ducks who were the originally “mallards” of the area where they prefer to nest on the bogs and beaver ponds of the region

I should add/edit that I'm mostly referring to the breeding/nesting habitat used by Mallards and Black Ducks (who are in the "Mallard Complex"). Canada Geese are in the same pickle, they're not historically native to the area, at least not in the large populations, the area only supports them because of the Ag industry, any areas without Ag are mostly without many Wildfowl