The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service once again is reviewing the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), the document that purports to set the goals and objectives waterfowl management views as necessary to maintain bountiful populations of ducks.

The latest effort involves an 87-page report produced by a small group of biologists charged with conducting “the first comprehensive biological assessment of the plan.” The biologists consulted with flyway councils, habitat and species joint ventures, the Pintail Action Group, the NAWMP Science Support Team and so on, and then wrote their report and made recommendations.

The recommendations do nothing to resolve the underlying flaw that has plagued the management plan since its inception – the service’s failure to provide a sound biological foundation and defend the plan’s goals vigorously. Since this is key to understanding today’s issues, a bit of waterfowl management history may be helpful.

At the time the plan was conceived in the 1980s, the northern prairie breeding grounds were seized by drought. The service had followed tradition and imposed short seasons and low bag limits to preserve breeding stock. This prompted incessant, bothersome complaints from members of Congress, state officials, flyway councils, Ducks Unlimited and aggrieved citizens who wanted longer seasons and higher bag limits.

The service concluded a management plan would reduce or halt the complaints. In 1986 it issued the North American Waterfowl Plan. Its goal was to restore our flocks to 1970s population levels.

Interestingly, the population goals were not based on a rigorous biological analysis of such factors as (a) the amount of breeding habitat and (b) the number of breeding ducks the habitat could support. Instead, the goals were chosen because the 1970s represented a time when complaints were minimal. This was because good water conditions on the northern prairies and abundant breeding populations allowed for long seasons and high bag limits.

But after 20 years of existence, certain results become apparent:

The plan failed miserably to quell political interference in the regulation-setting process, as evidenced by today’s politically motivated ultra-long seasons, early opening dates, late closing dates, high bag limits and so on.

It failed to prevent an alarming decline in numbers of some ducks, especially the pintail, black duck and bluebill, three popular and once abundant species. (Interestingly, the report noted that of the species that have met their population goals or are increasing, no evidence directly links these successes to NAWMP initiatives.)

It failed to alleviate the disappointment of many hunters who see fewer and fewer ducks each year.

The only saving grace of the plan is that it established population and habitat goals as a management objective, a long overdue idea.

It is against this backdrop that we must consider the report of the “Assessment Steering Committee” – the group of biologists asked to conduct what the service described as “the first comprehensive biological assessment of the plan.”

The biologists were especially critical of “Joint Ventures” – habitat acquisition programs on geographically defined areas such as the Canadian prairies that bring together various interests to increase habitat.

They noted that most Joint Venture habitat efforts are judged solely by one metric – the total number of acres acquired, leased or otherwise protected or improved. Most Joint Ventures have only “a limited ability to determine the effects of habitat accomplishments on waterfowl reproduction and survival,” the committee stated. Additionally, most joint ventures cannot estimate the net change in landscape habitat conditions.

Thus, after spending hundreds of millions, we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot determine with certainty which habitat projects succeeded or failed. We cannot learn from the results to insure future projects do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The committee urged more biological and financial accountability.

A second major issue involves the sport kill, an issue that takes on greater importance because of today’s ultra-liberal hunting regulations. The committee noted the 1986 North American Waterfowl Management Plan recognized the importance of harvest management to maintain “adequate abundance and diversity of waterfowl populations.” But the service soon began ignoring harvest issues, it added, allowing them “to devolve to the control of flyway councils and federal and state agencies.” The report made no mention of the fact that Adaptive Harvest Management, the current regulations setting protocol, actively seeks to reduce breeding populations below plan goals in order to maximize the harvest.

Why were harvest issues suddenly ignored? The answer to this question represents the committee’s greatest insight. “Curtailment of harvest to achieve plan population goals would be viewed as a failure by members of the plan community,” it said.

This is a profound statement. It tells us that those in charge of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan believe that by spending hundreds of millions willy-nilly on habitat programs, they can increase juvenile production sufficiently to offset the increased kill. Moreover, they are so confident in this outcome that to date they have found no need to audit the results of their work to determine precisely how many additional ducks are produced on NAWMP-based projects.

This head-in-the-sand attitude is reprehensible. One recent study concluded that hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the Canadian prairies since the inception of NAWMP-based habitat initiatives produce only 6,000 additional ducks annually, far too few to offset the increased kill.

“Without a well-defined linkage between harvest management and habitat conservation,” the committee said, “optimal decisions regarding the waterfowl resource cannot be made. Effects of harvest and natural environmental variation on waterfowl populations and, hence, on plan goals require further consideration.”

Is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listening? Will it make the necessary changes? Only time will tell.