Questions heard when concerned waterfowl hunters gather in the evening by a fireplace often include interest about what waterfowl research is being done and who is doing it. Doubts about season lengths, bag limits, waterfowl health, habitat components, and other such matters generally conclude with the question, “Why aren’t they doing something about it?” Who are “they’ and what exactly is the “something” we want defined? The answers to these questions are to be found in an examination of waterfowl research today. Who controls waterfowl research? Who determines what studies are funded? Who decides what to study? Is increasing fall flights a priority? What agencies and non-government organizations are involved? Who administers grants or decides which studies get reviewed in peer-reviewed journals?

To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand the evolution of waterfowl management generally in the past 85 years and particularly in the past 30 years.

From 1787 to 1917, migratory birds were no different than moose or turkeys or rabbits. That is to say they were under the primary jurisdiction of state governments. The federal government began conducting research on wildlife damage by waterfowl to crops in the late 1800’s because the large migratory flocks crossed state boundaries.

In 1917, the federal government signed a treaty with Great Britain (on behalf of Canada) to protect and manage over 100 named species of migratory birds. When ratified by the Senate, the federal government assumed legal control over the named migratory bird species. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) then initiated federal waterfowl research in order to set seasons that would assure sustainable harvests and healthy populations. These efforts rested with the old Bureau of Biological Survey that eventually was transferred to the Department of Interior and renamed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service).

Waterfowl research was one of the federal government’s highest wildlife priorities for half a century. State and private organizations like the Illinois Natural History Survey and Delta complemented early federal waterfowl research. The Service’s Research Division became the focal point and administered the University Co-op (short for Cooperative) Units and biological investigations at places like Patuxent Research Center in Maryland and the Northern Prairie Waterfowl Research Center in North Dakota. Waterfowl hunter/biologists worked hard to assure the best fall flights. All that began to dissolve 35 years ago.

I was hired as a wetlands biologist in 1968 and began working in the Service Wetlands Office in Devils Lake, North Dakota. A Service research biologist stationed in Towner, N.D., helped me to estimate waterfowl production on a North Dakota watershed in order to protect wetlands and maintain waterfowl production in a large federal project. When he retired in the 1970s he was not replaced. When I transferred to Minneapolis and then Nebraska as a US Game Management Agent I also banded ducks in Saskatchewan, doves in Nebraska, and worked each spring as a “ground-truther” of aerial waterfowl surveys on the annual air/ground survey in the Dakotas. Today, federal wildlife law enforcement agents do not participate in such management activities nor do they work with waterfowl researchers, except for the possible exception of forensic work for court purposes.

I transferred to Washington, D.C, in 1973 and never left. What has occurred since that date is vital to understand the status of waterfowl research today. In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s endangered species advocates obtained bird treaties with Japan and Russia that included all the migratory bird species that had been purposely excluded from the earlier treaties with Canada and Mexico. Suddenly the Service’s Migratory Bird Program and Research Division were responsible for all hawks and owls and real problem species like cormorants. This diluted the focus on waterfowl research and waterfowl management activities.

Additionally, top Service management jobs were “reformed.” No longer were high-ranking administrators the older, experienced veterans of what they managed (Research, Refuges, Migratory Birds, etc.). Beginning in the late1970’s they began coming from Congressional staffers who lost their jobs, offspring of powerful politicians, or members of environmental advocacy groups.

In the 1980s the Service’s concern with its new environmental image resulted in the transfer of all Animal Damage Control (including all waterfowl depredation management and research) to the U.S. Department of Agriculture while the Service retained all management authority. Waterfowl depredation management research today is conducted by the USDA’s Denver Research Center. Two years ago when I was writing a paper on waterfowl pollution impacts, the total lack of any such wild waterfowl research data was confirmed to me by Denver research personnel. They told me that the Service would have to request and probably fund such research (resident Canada geese and airports were big concerns) because USDA could only do what the Service authorized.

In the mid-1990s the Secretary of the Interior was frustrated that Congress would not fund a large environmental research initiative. He responded by transferring most of the Service’s research programs to the U.S. Geological Survey (Survey). Overnight, dollars and personnel that had historically conducted waterfowl research were given new goals in a new organization contained within an agency dedicated to geology.

Today, the service’s Migratory Bird Program is a shadow compared to just 15 years ago. Money, personnel, and agency influence have been scattered to other agencies and to the ascendant Endangered Species programs. The annual mid-winter surveys and the July pond counts have been cut back and in some cases eliminated because of funding shortages. So, what of waterfowl research today?

Recently, I recently asked a Service migratory bird program manager, “Who is in charge of waterfowl research today?” His answer was “probably Northern Prairie (the Research Center in North Dakota) or the Southern Science Center.” Since both of these are in the Survey, I asked if that meant the Survey plays the lead role today in waterfowl research? He replied, “Not really.” He explained that the Service negotiates with the Survey when waterfowl research is needed and then tries to provide funding. When I mentioned issues like the pintail problem he said there was concern about that but given the new role for the Survey the pintail problem was not given the priority that it might have had 15 years ago. He added that depredation research or health impacts of resident Canadas would also not be a high Service priority. He suggested I call the Survey manager of the Co-op Units and Research centers in Reston, Virginia.

The Survey Co-op Unit manager was very patient and anxious to explain how waterfowl research is managed. The Survey is the “science arm” of the Department of the Interior, he said. It makes every effort “to stay out of policy and management.” It responds to aspects involving “the biological process.” It “develops protocols” for other agencies. Regarding waterfowl research, it works directly with “states and the Service.” When I asked about pintails, he explained that the Service’s role was to survey and manage while the Survey might answer population model questions or investigate juvenile recruitment.

He mentioned how the Service was getting “more say” in Co-op Unit activities. (Apparently they have had little such “representation” previously.) Then he mentioned that migratory bird issues, refuge issues, and even endangered species issues are having a tough time competing for funding with new priority research into global warming and fire ecology.

He agreed that there were “far fewer classically trained waterfowl biologists” than when biological research was under the Service. However, he was excited about how the Survey now has “human dimension” experts and “geneticists” because the Service and state agencies requested that they develop such expertise.

It is my very clear impression that the Service’s commitment to increasing fall flights is tepid at best and suspect at worst. This means that their increasingly limited “resources” will go to things like getting mute swans and other purported “non-native” species removed from the migratory bird treaties while species like cormorants and resident Canada geese are used to get more money from Congress with little results on the ground. Waterfowl research into species like pintails, harlequins, canvasback, and mallards will continue to get less attention.

The Survey’s research activities increasingly focus on satellite telemetry, energetics, and environmental problems that completely ignore the specific difficulties of maintaining and increasing fall flights. Survey personnel rightly point out that the Service plays the lead role for federal government waterfowl management, and add that the Service does not provide enough funding or leadership for the Survey to emphasize waterfowl management.

I was struck by how there is little mention of any other players in the waterfowl research process today. Years ago the roles of Flyway Committees, certain state agencies, and organizations like the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Ducks Unlimited, and the Wildlife Management Institute were prominent in any discussion of current and future waterfowl research. Perhaps it is the diminishing prominence of waterfowl in the midst of all the environmental issues or perhaps it is because the Service overshadows all waterfowl activities that no one is challenging the status quo

So what is the answer?

The answer lies in an explicit commitment to establish leadership in the Service that understands and is committed to the increase of fall flights. The answer lies in reassembling enough people and dollars in the Service to manage and research national waterfowl populations for future hunting seasons. The answer lies in assuring that National Wildlife Refuges that were purchased for waterfowl purposes (as stated in authorizing legislation) are not corrupted into “native ecosystems” or “biodiversity” or other such non-waterfowl purposes. The answer lies in helping one or more universities to establish a “classical waterfowl biologist training and research” center.

Ultimately, the issue is political and the answer lies in convincing the politicians and organizations responsible for dismantling this jigsaw puzzle to put it back together.