Aaron Yetter pulled some interesting information on reward-banded ducks this in his blog off the aerial surveys. Yes, the duck migration is winding down as you might expect with the colder weather setting up.
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Here is Yetter’s latest blog:
December 13th, 2019 – Aerial Waterfowl Inventory Blog We flew the waterfowl survey on Wednesday, December 11th. Considerable amounts of ice were forming on the refuges of both rivers, especially on the northern portions of the flight. If the weather predictions are correct, I bet there will be a lot of ice from Sunday, December 15th through Christmas Eve, which will be the end of Illinois’ central zone duck season. Duck numbers on the Illinois River continued to decline, and this week we estimated 112,455 total ducks, which was 48% below average and a 31% drop from last week. Mallards totaled 73,940, down 27% from last week and down 56% from average. The central Mississippi River held steady at 339,385 total ducks but was still 27% below average. Mallards were down slightly (5%) from last week to 272,340 birds and 5% below the 10-yr average. I am starting to see considerable numbers of common mergansers along both rivers, which is not a good thing if you are a duck hunter. Common mergansers are the last of ducks to migrate in the Mississippi Flyway and generally mean the end of duck season for most of us. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, so please don’t blame the messenger.
A good friend of mine harvested a reward-banded ($65) mallard on December 9th so I decided to write about waterfowl banding and reward bands this week. My friend encountered the mallard near Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area, between Bath and Chandlerville, along the Illinois River. Coincidentally, this is the birthplace of our modern waterfowl-banding program. Fredrick Lincoln started his large-scale banding program at the Sanganois Duck Club (now Sanganois SFWA) in the 1920s. Since then there have been many different inscriptions on leg bands for waterfowl. Frank Bellrose told me that in the early days the year was placed on the band in addition to the band number (see photo). Biologists were supposed to use all the bands in that particular year. However, banders didn’t follow the rules, and Year bands ceased and were replaced at some point by bands inscribed with AVISE BIRD BAND, Washington, DC USA and of course an 8 or 9 digit number. In the late 1980s, the US Fish and Wildlife Service initiated a reward band study to determine the reporting rate by hunters. Many hunters believed (incorrectly) they were required to return the band to report it. The reward band study determined that only about 1/3 of hunters were reporting their harvested bands! And more so, it took bands valued from $50 to $100 to get a reporting rate near 1.0 (see figure). Needless to say, when the Feds change the band inscription or the method of reporting a band, reward bands are deployed to revise the reporting rate. Beginning in the 1990s, a phone number was used on the bands (1-800-327-BAND) to increase the efficiency of reporting a harvested duck. Since then, they have phased out the phone-number bands for cost saving measures and have gone with internet-based bands. Currently, we report bands online from bands inscribed with www.reportband.gov Last summer one of my colleagues from the Forbes Biological Station spent the month of August in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada on a banding crew. They deployed a bunch of reward bands on adult male mallards so that we can evaluate the current reporting rate. So next time you harvest a banded bird, please report your band. It provides vital information for waterfowl managers to determine harvest rates, survival, and harvest distribution of our migratory fowl. And remember, the band serves as a memory of a great day afield. In 1994, the chance of harvesting a banded duck was 0.38%, or 1 in 260. The chance of harvesting a reward band is astronomically greater! For a detailed history of waterfowl banding in North America see Steve Havera’s book, Waterfowl of Illinois: Status and Management published in 1999. For more information about the waterfowl survey, check out our webpage at www.bellrose.org. Stay tuned for more updates next week…….
