It is called the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. It has been adopted by the United States, Canada and Mexico as “a clear and well-defined blueprint” for waterfowl management. Interior Secretary Gale Norton predicted the latest version of the plan, adopted recently, will “launch a new era in wildlife conservation.”

But what will the plan do for duck hunters? Will it correct past mistakes and provide bountiful fall flights and the continuation of duck hunting far into the future?

Or is it, as critics suggest, more political claptrap from Washington designed to cover-up past failures?

These questions lie at the heart of any discussion about the plan. They demand answers, for they come at a time when increasing numbers of hunters believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is abandoning its historic role as the guardian of our migrant flocks and waterfowl hunting.

The plan is the latest updated version of the first North American plan adopted in 1986. According to the latest document, “The basis of all plan activity is its waterfowl population objectives.” It hopes to achieve these population goals “by conserving landscapes,” primarily through habitat joint ventures, the latter being partnerships between private organizations, individuals and government objectives.

The duck population objectives are simply the average breeding population levels of the 1970s. The plan explained that “duck populations during this decade were generally thought to meet the demands of both consumptive and non-consumptive use.”

What are we to make of this?

We begin with habitat. “As of the end of 2003,” the service said, “plan partners (since 1986) have invested more than $3.2 billion to protect, restore and/or enhance more than 13.1 million acres of habitat.”

What has the expenditure of this sum accomplished?

We can judge the results by comparing the 2003 breeding population, a year of average water conditions on the northern prairies, to the population goals which were first set in 1986. The exception is the black duck, whose goal is based on midwinter survey data.

As you can see, the results are mixed. Four species have exceeded the population objectives, four are below. And three are more or less on target.

Most importantly, three of waterfowling’s five premier species – pintails, black ducks and scaup – are significantly below their respective population goals. Special restrictive regulations have been imposed to protect the canvasback, along with hen mallards.

The service’s own data therefore tells us the plan has failed to increase, maintain or secure for the future the species we most value, the species which once defined the grand tradition of wildfowling.

Part of the problem is that most of the $3.2 billion has been spent outside the prairie pothole region, where most of our ducks are produced, even though the 1986 plan “identified prairie pothole breeding habitat in Canada and the United States as the top priority for protection.”

More important, perhaps, are the plan’s omissions.

The plan fails to address the fact that today we have more breeding habitat than ducks to occupy it. (The Adaptive Harvest model stated there is sufficient North American breeding habitat to host as many as 16 million mallards.) The plan does not suggest filling existing habitat to carrying capacity. Instead, it calls for the preservation of still more habitat, even though “the cost of conserving all North American waterfowl and their habitats will be many billions of dollars, far beyond the means of traditional waterfowl conservation resources.”

In simplest terms, the plan calls for acquiring more habitat, for which there is insufficient money, even though the newly acquired habitat presumably will be as sparsely occupied as today’s habitat.

A second key omission is the lack of a fall-flight objective. Unlike its predecessor plans, the latest version focuses solely on breeding populations. This is important because juvenile productivity is declining due to widespread nest predation.

We do not hunt the breeding population. We hunt the fall-flight, which consists of both adults and juveniles. Declining productivity means that identical breeding populations will not produce as large a fall flight today as in the 1970s. To produce equivalent fall-flights, we need to increase the number of breeders to offset the decline in juvenile productivity.

Failure to increase the population objectives tells us with mathematical certainty that in future autumns we will see fewer ducks than in the 1970s, given equivalent breeding populations.

Thus, we find the much ballyhooed North American Waterfowl Management Plan to date has failed to meet all of its objectives, especially for premier species. Its latest update focuses on acquiring more habitat even though much today’s habitat is not filled to capacity. It calls for diminishing numbers of ducks winging southward, with no hint of how it plans to restore the populations of beleaguered premier species.

Does this suggest the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency “charged with protecting and enhancing the populations and habitats of migratory birds” is taking its lawful obligation seriously? Does this suggest the service wants to maintain bountiful fall-flights and preserve waterfowl hunting far into the future? Does this suggest the service is abandoning waterfowl hunters, its original and most important constituency?