Hunting Archery Duck Deer

Duck hunting experiment includes Wyo - Since 1995, duck hunting regulatory alternatives have been set by the Adaptive Harvest Management process. Regulatory alternatives (restrictive, moderate, liberal) are based on duck breeding habitat, mallard breeding population status and estimated mallard harvest rates.

Although the season-setting process is good for mallards, it presents complex problems for other species such as canvasback and pintails with low populations that may not be able to take long hunting seasons. For example, to compensate for faltering canvasback and pintail numbers, regulations have included closed seasons and seasons within seasons for those species. So a hunter shooting those species accidentally most likely will not report it.

* The challenge

For federal and state wildlife officials, it is to incorporate other duck species into the AHM process. Officials want to limit harvest on those species requiring special consideration while maintaining hunting opportunities on more abundant species of ducks. What’s needed is regulations that are simple, enforceable and acceptable to hunters.

* The proposed solution

The Hunter’s Choice Bag Limit. The proposal would limit harvest on species needing special consideration, maintain hunting opportunities on abundant species such as drake mallards, prevent season closures, and reduce the complexity of regulations and bag limit changes.

Quick, up in the sky! Is it a drake mallard, a teal, a gadwall or perhaps even a female widgeon heading toward your duck blind?

For even the most experienced duck hunter, it can be difficult to tell the differences among in-flight species of duck. Shooting the wrong duck, even inadvertently, can result in violations with some species. And it can lead to more restrictive bag limits for those duck populations in decline.

So federal and state officials are attempting to tweak the system to set duck and goose seasons and make it a bit more user-friendly, Wyoming Game and Fish Department officials said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering adopting a five-year, alternative duck harvest management approach under a 10-state experimental project.

The pilot project aims to reduce harvest on those duck species needing additional protection while maintaining hunting opportunities on the more abundant species, Game and Fish officials said.

Wyoming has been selected by the federal agency to implement the experimental project called Hunter’s Choice Bag Limit on portions of the Central Flyway. Officials said the central flyway covers most of Wyoming.

The Central Flyway Council is pursuing the alternative approach to duck hunting regulations that will include a review of duck seasons in the 10 states, Deputy Director Bill Wichers told Game and Fish commissioners during a recent meeting in Casper.

Wyoming and New Mexico were chosen as partner states — along with Nebraska and South Dakota — to implement the experimental duck season, which would begin in the fall of 2006 pending Fish and Wildlife approval, he said.

“The goal is to manage the harvest of multiple species of ducks,” said Wichers, one of Wyoming’s representatives on the council.

“We believe Hunter’s Choice Bag Limit is a simpler (management) system, and once Wyoming hunters become familiar with it, we anticipate they will like it and back it,” he said. “Nationwide, there’s a lot of interest to see how this works here in Wyoming.”

Two duck categories

Under Hunter’s Choice, there would be two categories of ducks, and all ducks would fit into one category or the other. The total duck category would include abundant ducks such as drake mallards and teal. The aggregate category would include pintails, canvasbacks and hen mallards.

Under the system, a hunter would be allowed only one duck from the aggregate category. Allowing only one bird would reduce the harvest of birds in that category, Wichers said.

He said hen mallards, an abundant duck, will have a significant buffering effect on other species in the aggregate category and allow the pintail and canvasback seasons to run the full length of the duck season without increasing the take on the two species.

“That’s where the Hunter’s Choice comes in … it’s a big change from the old system,” Wichers said.

He said if a hunter accidentally shoots a pintail, canvasback or hen mallard, he hasn’t violated any laws. And it is the hunter’s choice to continue hunting for birds that fall into the total duck category.

Wichers said given the relatively low number of canvasbacks and pintails that are harvested in Wyoming, the Hunter’s Choice bag limits provide a preferable alternative to the current closed or partially closed system.

He also noted the new system should also influence hunter behavior, including duck identification skills.

If the hunter isn’t any good at identifying ducks on the wing, he might choose to pack up and go home rather than risk bringing down another bird from the aggregate category. So it is in the hunter’s best interest to learn proper duck identification.

Wichers said the data from the four experimental Hunter’s Choice states will be compared against the last three years’ worth of duck season data from the other six states during the evaluation period.

He expects Fish and Wildlife will approve the Hunter’s Choice pilot project proposal in the summer of 2006 in time for the fall duck season.

Reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at (307) 875-5359 or at gearino@trib.com.
By JEFF GEARINO
Star-Tribune staff writer