When you are sitting in your blind this autumn, staring at empty skies and wondering what happened to the great flights of mallards that once winged the length of the continent, consider the following U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forecasts of the effects liberal hunting regulations on our breeding stocks. We begin in 1997, the year the service adopted the longest season lengths, earliest opening dates and latest closing dates in more than half a century.

• In the summer of 1997, after surveys found 9.9 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 9.6 million.

• In the summer of 1998, after surveys found 9.6 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 8.1million.

• In the summer of 1999, after surveys found 10.8 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 10 million.

• In the summer of 2000, after surveys found 9.5 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 8.1 million.

• In the summer of 2001, after surveys found 7.9 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 7.3 million.

• In the summer of 2002, after surveys found 7.5 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 6.5 million.

• In the summer of 2003, after surveys found 7.9 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 7.6 million.

• In the summer of 2004, after surveys found 7.4 million mallards on the breeding grounds, biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package would cause the mallard breeding population the following spring to DECLINE to 6.8 million.

If you are wondering about this year, the prediction is the same. Aerial surveys found 6.8 million mallards on the North American breeding grounds this spring, the lowest number in more than a decade, and biologists predicted the adoption of the liberal regulations package will cause the mallard breeding population next spring to DECLINE to 6.7 million.

“Wait a minute!” some will exclaim. “Why haven’t we heard about this before?”

The answer is that the service does not make its prediction public in a timely, open fashion. It waits a year, and then publishes the data in a manner that camouflages its impact. This protects the service from the howls of protest that would erupt if it announced each summer it planned to gun down our breeding stocks.

To those who believe the service acts in the best interests of concerned hunters who want to increase the number of ducks that wing southward each autumn, the predictions tell us otherwise. In six of eight years the Adaptive Harvest mallard management model has correctly forecast the subsequent decline in our mallard breeding stocks.

Further, the predictions expose the sham of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, which calls for maintaining a breeding population of 8.2 million mallards under average pothole conditions. This spring’s pothole count was average, but mallards declined to 6.8 million mallards. Yet the service endorsed another year of liberal regulations even though its biologists predicted another liberal season will cause a further drop in numbers of nesting mallards.

These findings should cause every conservation-minded duck hunter to ask,

“Does the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service care about the mallard decline?”

The answer can be summed up in one word: “No.” Paul Schmidt, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assistant director for migratory birds, recently stated, “We are extremely heartened by what Adaptive Harvest is telling us.”

Schmidt apparently is “extremely heartened” that Adaptive Harvest is telling us that we are facing smaller and smaller mallard breeding populations and subsequently smaller fall flights.

The situation is slightly different for the four flyway councils, which each year must pass judgment on the proposed duck-hunting regulations. The council decisions are based largely on the Adaptive Harvest pond and mallard breeding-population matrix, provided by the service. This year’s matrix looked like this:

The councils look on the vertical axis to find the mallard breeding population (which includes the traditional survey area, plus the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan), then the horizontal axis to find the number of Canadian ponds. The intersection tells the councils which regulatory option – liberal, moderate, restrictive or closed – the Adaptive Harvest model finds appropriate for the upcoming season. (In the above model, the preferred choice is highlighted in gray.)

The matrix, however, only reveals the regulatory option preferred by the Adaptive Harvest model, which is designed to maximize the kill. It does not describe the impact on subsequent breeding populations.

It is critically important to note that the service does not inform the councils what effect the liberal regulatory option will have on subsequent breeding stocks. Instead, it waits until the councils have made their decision before crunching the numbers to arrive at a prediction.

This precludes a council member from making a meaningful judgment. If one should be so impertinent to ask, “If we approve a liberal season, what effect will this have on next year’s breeding population?” the service can answer, “We don’t know at this time, but we are extremely heartened by what Adaptive Harvest is telling us,” a la Schmidt.

Thus, the predictive value of Adaptive Harvest – the very heart of Adaptive Harvest management – is rendered meaningless in the decision-making process.

It would only take minor additional effort by the service to provide the councils with the pond count and breeding-population matrix, and then state: “If the liberal option is approved, we predict next year’s breeding population will decline. If the moderate option is chosen, we predict next year’s breeding population will be …” and so on. Only then can the councils reasonably assess the likely outcome of their decisions. But the service prefers to keep them – and us – in the dark.

Naturally, all this must be put into proper context. In a surprisingly forthright admission, the service this summer informed the councils that the proposed pintail season expansion this autumn would increase the kill and likely cause the breeding population to decline from 2.6 million this year to 2.3 million next spring. It made no difference. The councils approved the expanded season, anyway.

These actions raise a key issue: Do authorities want to increase our beleaguered breeding stocks? The actions of both the service and flyway councils provide the answer. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not. The flyway councils do not. The service and the flyway councils confidently look forward to fewer mallards and fewer pintails on the breeding grounds next spring. This is their choice, as it has been for mallards for the past nine years.

If the political and biological entities that comprise “waterfowl management” do not want to increase our breeding stocks, the question must be asked: “Who does?”

Is it any wonder we are looking at increasingly empty skies?