check it out... status of waterfowl and AHM reports

[chasdjca]

FWS has released both the Status of Waterfowl and Adaptive Harvest Management reports for 2010 today. Status report confirms the preliminary estimates... duck numbers about the same as last year but still well above the long term average. Details at http://flyways.us. There's a nice video that sums up everything from the report as well at http://flyways.us/status-of-waterfowl/video-report

[RedEyed Duck]

If you take a look at the data you will see that statistically speaking, its not very likely that we would have a moderate or restrictive season. Using this link

http://flyways.us/images/pdf/2010_ahm_report.pdf

Page 15 shows the model used and you can see that we have to have very few mallards and very few ponds to get into the moderate or restrictive seasons. However, even if we did here are the guidelines for moderate and restrictive

Moderate = 6 total ducks, 4 mallards, 2 mallard hens
Restrictive = 3 total ducks, 2 mallards, 1 mallard hen

So, moderate isn't that big of a deal either, however the # of days can be cut.

We would have to dip below 7 million mallards to even think about restrictive and we haven't done that since approx. 1992. We are right at or just above 8 million mallards this year. Keep in mind with a bunch of ponds and fewer birds it means liberal and with very few ponds and a bunch of birds it means liberal. Sure wish the grading scales in college worked this way.