Why are Adaptive Harvest’s duck seasons always liberal?

It is a question concerned waterfowlers are increasingly asking, especially those who have seen fewer and fewer ducks with each passing season. We have had 14 consecutive years of liberal regulations under Adaptive Harvest, the regulatory protocol that determines season length and bag limits. Some suggest Adaptive Harvest be re-named Nothing But Liberal.

When Adaptive Harvest was introduced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated liberal seasons would prevail 57 percent of the time; moderate, restrictive and closed seasons would account for the remaining 43 percent. Nothing remotely approaching this has occurred. The addition of more days to the liberal season length, as well as increasing the daily bag limit, and expanding the frameworks to allow for earlier opening dates on the northern breeding grounds and later closing dates on the southern wintering grounds, has not caused Adaptive Harvest to change. It has produced only liberal seasons. Fourteen consecutive year’s worth of liberal frameworks. No duck hunter living today has ever before experienced such a long, consecutive run of liberal regulations. This has occurred despite sharply fluctuating numbers of potholes on the northern prairies, the ephemeral nesting and brood-rearing wetlands that are key to bountiful fall flights. 

Liberal seasons have been the rule even as the Service fine-tuned Adaptive Harvest by creating individual protocols for three separate mallard stocks – the Midcontinent population (Mississippi and Central Flyways), Eastern population (Atlantic Flyway) and Western population (Pacific Flyway).

Why have none of the other regulatory alternatives ever been selected? Is Adaptive Harvest biologically flawed? Has the bar been set too low to allow for a moderate or restrictive season?

To answer these questions, we begin by first looking at the Midcontinent model. It embraces the greatest geographical area, as well as the greatest number of mallards. Its geographical range extends from the South Dakota-Iowa border north and west to Alaska.  It embraces the all-important prairie-pothole and parkland breeding grounds. Think of it as the traditional North American breeding-ground survey area, less Alaska but with the addition of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Since 1992 the mallard breeding population has averaged 8.3 million.

Historically, the North American survey was used to set regulations for all four flyways. When potholes were plentiful and breeding populations abundant, the production of young soared and fall flights were bountiful, allowing for liberal seasons. Season lengths and bag limits were reduced when numbers of breeding mallards and/or potholes declined, resulting in reduced numbers of juveniles in the fall flight. This was thought necessary to preserve our breeding stocks.

The Midcontinent model appears to reflect this historic relationship, as you can see in the following 2008-season Adaptive Harvest table. To determine the regulatory choice for the Mississippi and Central Flyways, you simply look down the vertical, left-hand column (“Bpop”) to find the number of breeding mallards (7.7 million this year) and then move right along the horizontal axis to find the appropriate number of Canadian potholes (3.1 million this year). Where the two intersect (the shaded block) reveals the “optimal regulatory choice.” 
 

As you can see, this year’s choice is liberal.

A casual glance at the multitude of moderate, restricted and closed options might suggest that all alternatives are in play. But this would be an optical illusion. The table is heavily biased in favor of the liberal alternative in order to achieve what Adaptive Harvest describes as its “dual objectives of maximizing long-term cumulative harvest and a breeding-population goal of 8.5 million mallards.” This bias can be seen by looking at the following graph detailing the minimum number of potholes necessary for a liberal season under varying mallard breeding populations. The graph is based on the choices listed in the above table.

As you can see in the above graph, Adaptive Harvest renders wetland habitat conditions on the continent’s most productive breeding grounds virtually meaningless. The Canadian prairies (where nearly 70 percent of our continental potholes are found) could be as dry as toast and we could still have a liberal season. The trendline shows that Adaptive Harvest’s 8.5 million mallard breeding population goal needs no assist from the pothole count (or Ducks Unlimited’s Canadian habitat efforts) to allow for a liberal season. If we have 7.75 million breeding mallards, Adaptive Harvest calls for a liberal season even if there are zero potholes in Canada.   

Adaptive Harvest dismisses as irrelevant everything we know about potholes and breeding mallards, including history’s profound truth that the largest fall flights across the Great Plains and along the Mississippi River have occurred when we have had great numbers of potholes and high populations of breeding mallards. It dashes our hopes for bountiful fall flights in the future by seeking to limit the breeding population to 8.5 million – and never mind habitat conditions. It reduces Ducks Unlimited’s mantra – “More habitat on the ground means more ducks in the sky” -- to a quaint, obsolete notion reflecting yesterday’s biological truths.
 
The Midcontinent model does not represent our dreams; it represents our nightmares. It eviscerates our long cherished hopes for restoring yesterday’s bountiful flights, the idea that fostered the birth of waterfowl conservation.

What about the other flyways?

Adaptive Harvest’s Atlantic Flyway regulatory options focus strictly on the number of breeding mallards counted during spring surveys in southern Ontario and Quebec, and in the northeastern United States. The counts date back to 1990.

As you can see, the Eastern mallard population has never been and is nowhere near the minimum number required for anything less than a liberal season. The lowest total – 815,000 in 2008 – would have to decline 57 percent before restrictive measures would be imposed. It is why one recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis concluded “the Atlantic Flyway is projected to be under a liberal season nearly 100 percent of the time.”

On the Pacific Coast, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopted this year a specific Adaptive Harvest model for Western mallards. It keys on the relationship between the number of breeding mallards surveyed in California-Oregon and Alaska. 

The following table shows the regulatory options, with this year’s choice (532,000 Alaska mallards, 381,000 California-Oregon mallards) being liberal, as shown by the shaded block. (The table is lifted directly from the service’s Adaptive Harvest handbook. Note that the shaded block does not match the service’s survey data.)

This table is scientific claptrap. It tells us that if we find 100,000 breeding mallards in Alaska, but none in California and Oregon, the season will be liberal. But if biologists find no mallards in Alaska, at least 350,000 must be counted in California and Oregon for a liberal season. Moreover, if 50,000-99,000 mallards are counted in California and Oregon, then 450,000 Alaska mallards are necessary for liberal regulations. A friend with a math Ph. D. described these relationships as “transcending mathematical analysis.” Spring survey data shown below is more enlightening. 

As you can see, the minimum combined population of Alaska, California and Oregon mallards from 1990-2008 is 748,000 (465,000 in California-Oregon and 283,000 in Alaska.) This compares to a 100,000 minimum for a liberal season. The lowest number ever recorded in Alaska is 283,000 in 1993 and 355,000 in California-Oregon in 2004. If these two record low populations had occurred simultaneously this year, the season still would have been liberal. For California this year the consequences could be disastrous, because the model does not specifically or adequately address the state’s near record-low resident mallard population that provides the bulk of its mallard harvest. (See Ducks and Resilience , September 2, 2008) The record reveals that barring a mallard epizootic, Adaptive Harvest’s current protocol along the Pacific Flyway will always call for a liberal season.

What these flyway analyses tell us is that Adaptive Harvest reduces the regulations-setting process to absurdity. Adaptive Harvest’s flawed models are rigged to achieve its avowed goal of maximizing the kill. It is why we have had 14 consecutive years of ultra-liberal regulations -- and why we are seeing fewer and fewer ducks with each passing season.

Adaptive Harvest dismisses long-held biological truths. It views the critical relationship between prairie potholes and breeding mallards as virtually meaningless. It effectively reduces Ducks Unlimited’s Canadian wetland developments to nothing more than “feel-good projects,” concluding potholes are unnecessary if the mallard breeding population is 7.75 million or greater, which has been the case 75 percent of the time. It sets false triggers in all flyways for less than liberal regulations. It throws under the bus our historic conservation goal of restoring fall flights to teeming multitudes. 

None of these are minor alterations to our traditional beliefs. They constitute a frontal attack on our cherished heritage. They seek to subvert everything we once embraced. They lead to one conclusion: Adaptive Harvest is the anti-Christ of waterfowl conservation.

Think about this during the coming autumn when you sit in your blind staring at empty skies.