North American Waterfowl Management Plan Research Articles

Influence of sanctuary disturbance, weather, and landscape characteristics on waterfowl harvest opportunity in western Tennessee

AbstractThe North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) recognizes waterfowl hunters and non‐consumptive users as important stakeholders to sustain waterfowl populations through economic and political support for habitat conservation initiatives. Opportunities to shoot at and harvest ducks are key determinants of achievement‐oriented hunt satisfaction and quality. Therefore, identifying factors influencing harvest opportunity would help hunters and wildlife managers identify optimal days afield and promote hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) efforts in support of NAWMP. Waterfowl extensively use spatial sanctuaries during hunting seasons, especially diurnally, which could limit their perceived availability to hunters. Thus, a possible management action to support R3 is allowing limited public access on sanctuaries, which could offer diverse recreational opportunities for non‐consumptive users and potentially increase harvest opportunities for hunters in traditional hunting areas if the limited disturbance caused waterfowl to leave sanctuaries. Therefore, we evaluated to what extent experimental sanctuary disturbance, landscape characteristics, and weather influenced local harvest opportunities. We conducted disturbance treatments including travel by a covered truck (i.e., truck with enclosed cab), a pedestrian on foot, and an uncovered vehicle (e.g., motor boat or all‐terrain vehicle [ATV]). To measure harvest opportunity, we used autonomous recording units (ARU) to enumerate daily shotgun volleys at a landscape‐scale across western Tennessee, USA, during 2019–2021 waterfowl hunting seasons. We identified 339,391 distinct shotgun volleys ( = 73 shotgun volleys/day/ARU). Shotgun volleys decreased 50% within 2 weeks of opening day and did not notably increase for the remainder of the hunting season. Contrary to our predictions, sanctuary disturbance decreased harvest opportunity. Specifically, the pedestrian disturbance and covered vehicle disturbance decreased daily shotgun volleys by 32% and 31%, respectively. Additionally, harvest opportunity decreased 20% with every 5‐km increase in distance from a sanctuary. Harvest opportunity increased 2% for every 1°C decrease from mean low temperatures and 9% with every 10‐hPa increase in barometric pressure from the previous day. Conversely, harvest opportunity was unaffected by changes in cloud cover, daily precipitation, waterfowl abundance, or surface water inundation. Our results suggest disturbing sanctuaries decreases harvest opportunity and, in turn, may reduce hunt quality and satisfaction. If increasing harvest opportunity is a primary management objective, we recommend limiting sanctuary disturbance to maximize local harvest opportunities. Furthermore, greater harvest opportunity nearer sanctuaries indicates that additional disturbance‐free areas may increase local harvest opportunities and hunter satisfaction.

Structured Decision-Making to Rank North American Wetlands Conservation Act Proposals Within Joint Venture Regions

Abstract The North American Wetlands Conservation Act provides funding and administration for wetland management and conservation projects. The North American Wetland Conservation Fund, enabled in 1989 with the Act, provides financial resources. Resource allocation decisions are based, in part, on regional experts, particularly migratory bird Joint Ventures (JV; partnerships established under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan to help conserve the continent's waterfowl populations and habitats). The JVs evaluate funding proposals submitted within their respective regions each year and make funding recommendations to decision makers. Proposal evaluation procedures differ among JVs; however, it could be helpful to consider a transparent, repeatable, and data-driven framework for prioritization within regions. We used structured decision-making and linear additive value models for ranking proposals within JV regions. We used two JVs as case studies and constructed two different value models using JV-specific objectives and weights. The framework was developed through a collaborative process with JV staff and stakeholders. Models were written in Microsoft Excel. To test these models, we used six North American Wetlands Conservation Act proposals submitted to the Upper Mississippi/Great Lakes JV in 2016 and seven proposals submitted to the Gulf Coast JV in 2017. We compared proposal ranks assigned by the value model to ranks assigned by each JV's management board. Ranks assigned by the value model differed from ranks assigned by the board for the Upper Mississippi/Great Lakes JV, but not for the Gulf Coast JV. However, ranks from the value model could change markedly with different objective weights and value functions. The weighted linear value model was beneficial for ranking NAWCA proposals because it allows JVs to treat the ranking as a multiple objective problem and tailor the ranking to their specific regional concerns. We believe a structured decision-making approach could be adapted by JV staff to facilitate a systematic and transparent process for proposal ranking by their management boards.

Integrating burrowing crayfish and waterfowl conservation management on moist-soil wetlands

SummaryThe North American Waterfowl Management Plan highlights the importance of enhancing waterfowl habitat for productivity and resilience. Many forms of land management are conducted in wetlands to support the diverse communities of waterfowl and other species. Primary burrowing crayfish are also abundant and important in these environments, but little research is available assessing the effects of waterfowl land management on primary burrowers. We examined the response of the digger crayfish,Creaserinus fodiens, to the common vegetation management practices of mowing and disking at waterfowl conservation areas in south-eastern Missouri. Our results demonstrated that at a fine scale, crayfish density was affected by only canopy cover. We also highlighted distributional effects of landscape-level environmental variables and suggested that habitat generalists were tolerant of vegetation management, responding more to vegetation composition and broader landscape effects. We discuss wetlands conservation practices and suggest that burrowing crayfish management would integrate well with some current management strategies for waterfowl.

Multi-scale waterfowl habitat conservation planning in Wisconsin, USA

ContextThe North American Waterfowl Management Plan and the Upper Mississippi River/Great Lakes Joint Venture waterfowl habitat conservation strategy provide continental and regional guidance, respectively, for waterfowl habitat conservation planning. They were not designed to guide watershed- scale waterfowl habitat delivery.ObjectiveOur goal was to develop a waterfowl habitat decision support framework for the state of Wisconsin using biological and social criteria to guide state and local-scale practitioners with an explicit link to larger scale objectives.MethodsWe engaged a core group of wetland and waterfowl experts to decide upon decision support layers relevant to biological and social objectives, evaluate variables, establish weights, and review model outputs for reasonableness and accuracy. We used spatial analyst tools, kernel density estimators, and weighted sums to create spatially explicit models to identify landscapes and watersheds important for waterfowl. We identified habitat resources that exist currently (Conservation Capital) and considered potential resources (Conservation Opportunities) which could enhance wetland restoration efforts.ResultsWe developed a transparent framework to identify and prioritize landscapes for conserving waterfowl habitat at the Hydrologic Unit Code 12 watershed scale in Wisconsin, by maintaining continental and regional priorities, and including local landscape characteristics, biological criteria, and researcher, manager, and biologist expertise.ConclusionsLocal detail is critical for implementing waterfowl habitat delivery and making efficient use of limited funds for conservation but can be more abstract in larger regional or continental conservation planning. Our models are science-based, transparent, defensible, and can be modified as social, political, biological, and environmental forces change.

Why Are There So Many Waterfowl and So Few Northern Bobwhites? Rethinking Federal Coordination

ABSTRACTIn this paper we ask whether we should we re‐examine the future of upland gamebird management and greater federal oversight and partnerships in the twenty‐first century. Management for waterfowl in North America has been successful because of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and the subsequent 1986 North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP). Although the MBTA included most migratory and non‐migratory species, upland gamebirds, including the northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; bobwhite), were excluded and retained under state control. Although many waterfowl populations have been increasing, bobwhite populations have declined precipitously during much of the period. Excluding non‐migratory gamebirds from the MBTA meant that the multistate coordinating efforts that made the MBTA successful for increasing the management of waterfowl have not been applied. The National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (NBCI) has made a strong effort to unite states within the bobwhite range but does not have the federal anchoring and financial support that were given to states by the MBTA and NAWMP and currently integrate adaptive harvest, habitat management, and financial partnerships to acquire and manage wetlands that support waterfowl production. The NBCI Coordinated Implementation Program (CIP) is designed to serve the function of developing and monitoring habitat for bobwhites but is entirely voluntary and dependent entirely on state and non‐governmental organization (NGO) funds, lacking federal grants and Federal Duck Stamp funds. To catch up with the successes of waterfowl, we discuss the implications of increasing coordination, partnerships, and funding mechanisms between the federal government, state governments, and NGOs to provide common landscape‐level population monitoring and modeling, adaptive harvest regulations, habitat management goals, and a national upland gamebird stamp. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

Hydrological Management for Submersed Aquatic Vegetation in South Carolina Coastal Impoundments

ABSTRACTWe conducted a field experiment to test effects of complete drawdown to dried substrates versus partial (shallow water, 0–10 cm) drawdown on widgeongrass (Ruppia maritima) and other native submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV) biomass (dry) in managed brackish tidal impoundments (hereafter, impoundments) in the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto Rivers Basin, South Carolina, USA. We sampled SAV in 20 impoundments (complete drawdown, n = 8; partial drawdown, n = 12) during August 2016, November 2016, January 2017, and April 2017. We detected a drawdown effect on SAV biomass for August 2016 samples before Hurricane Matthew in October 2016, which subsequently confounded drawdown treatment effects. Mean SAV biomass in August 2016 was nearly 4 times greater in partially drawndown ( = 35.98 g/m2 ± 6.05 [SE]) than completely drawndown impoundments ( = 9.52 g/m2 ± 7.41). We suggest partial drawdowns to promote SAV biomass in coastal South Carolina and other south Atlantic brackish wetlands. We also encourage managers to conduct complete drawdowns periodically to reduce flocculent soils and organic matter and promote rooting by SAV. Our results may aid the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan to estimate potential energetic carrying capacity of brackish impoundments in South Carolina and elsewhere as applicable for wintering ducks and American coots (Fulica americana), and to illustrate the effect of a hurricane that decreases SAV biomass in impounded wetlands. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Balancing Waterfowl Hunting Opportunity and Quality to Recruit, Retain, and Reactivate

ABSTRACTWaterfowl hunter numbers and waterfowl populations were closely correlated until the past 2 decades when hunter numbers declined despite near‐record breeding population estimates for ducks in North America. As a result, efforts to recruit, retain, and reactivate (R3) waterfowl hunters have been promoted by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan community because hunters are a key source of funding for wetland‐wildlife habitat conservation and management. Increasing access and opportunity for hunting appears to be the primary R3 strategy in North America. We suggest that hunt quality is an equal, if not more important, facet of waterfowl hunter R3 that is substantially overlooked and undervalued by current R3 initiatives. We contend that providing abundant access and opportunity to hunt waterfowl alone, especially if it jeopardizes hunting quality, is inadequate. We urge the R3 community to integrate principles and methods used within the human dimensions field to focus on the relationships between quality, motivation, and satisfaction across various audiences and market segments. Such an approach will help R3 initiatives establish an empirical evidence base to develop strategies specifically focused on identifying key hunt quality or opportunity factors. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

Food Resources for Wintering and Spring Staging American Black Ducks

Abstract Habitat restoration and enhancement objectives for wintering waterfowl are typically derived by a bioenergetics modeling approach. This approach has been developed as a planning tool to identify the amount of foraging habitat required to meet North American Waterfowl Management Plan population objectives. Our objective was to provide the energetic supply component of the bioenergetics model at an important wintering area for American black ducks Anas rubripes in the Atlantic Flyway, the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We estimated food availability among four main wetland cover types used by overwintering American black ducks: brackish water, freshwater, mudflat, and salt marsh. Mudflat (221 ± 50 kg/ha) and salt marsh (728 ± 175 kg/ha) had the highest amounts of available invertebrate food density, and freshwater (42 ± 9 kg/ha) had the highest amounts of available seed biomass. Our results suggest that seed density found in freshwater wetlands on the Eastern Shore of Virginia is considerably lower than densities found in inland freshwater cover types used by dabbling ducks. We also found that levels of invertebrate density found in Virginia mudflat and salt marsh are considerably lower than levels on Long Island, New York, and in southern New Jersey. Lower levels of food density compared with both more inland and northern wintering areas suggest that American black ducks wintering in Virginia are more likely to be limited by forage availability than American black ducks and other dabbling ducks wintering both inland and in the northern portion of the wintering range.

Private lands conservation: A vision for the future

ABSTRACTAgricultural production, including croplands, pasture, and timber, dominates private‐land use and land cover across much of the contiguous lower 48 states. These private lands are essential to achieving the goals of national conservation initiatives such as the Northern Bobwhite Conservation Initiative (bobwhite [Colinus virginianus]), Sage Grouse Initiative, and North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Effective conservation delivery in managed landscapes requires 1) an understanding of landowner priorities and ownership objectives, 2) knowledge of the economic and environmental costs and benefits of conservation, and 3) natural resource professionals who understand the business of agriculture and forestry as well as principles of habitat management and wildlife conservation. We make the case for a new vision of multifunctional working landscapes that include designed components of natural and seminatural noncrop perennial plant communities (wetlands, grasslands, riparian areas, field margins, pine [Pinus spp.] grasslands, savannas, etc.) embedded in a matrix of row‐crop, pasture, rangeland, and forested working lands that produce sustainable food, fiber, and fuel. Producing sustainable, multifunctional landscapes will require effective conservation delivery that is intentional, objective‐driven, targeted, science‐based, and landscape scale. We contend that it will also require a new kind of natural resource professional. We consider the specific and novel skill sets that will be required among natural resource professionals to deliver conservation to private owners–producers of working lands. © 2019 The Wildlife Society.

Assessment of excreta collection methods to estimate true metabolizable energy of waterfowl foods in wild ducks

ABSTRACTTrue metabolizable energy (TME) of waterfowl foods is commonly estimated for use in energetic carrying capacity models in association with conservation planning efforts under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Researchers define and estimate TME as the net energy from excreta collected from an individual after feeding a precise quantity of a food item compared with excreta collected during a fasted control. We evaluated an alternative excreta collection method for use in TME assays for comparison with traditional excreta collection methodology for waterfowl. We fed widgeongrass (Ruppia maritima) to wild‐caught mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) during autumn 2016 at Forbes Biological Station, Havana, Illinois, USA, and quantitatively collected excreta using a harness‐style excreta collection method and a traditional basin‐style collection method. We were unable to find support for a difference in total excreta energy, mass loss, and TME estimates between collection methods, but high variation in TME among samples prohibited our ability to consider the collection methods similar. Time required for processing harness samples was 60–175 minutes less per sample than for basin samples. The basin method has been the standard for TME trials on waterfowl, but we found the harness method to be much more efficient and potentially allow for better animal husbandry practices. We suggest the harness method be tested further with increased sample sizes or alternate foods prior to widespread application, but researchers conducting TME assays of waterfowl foods should consider using this method in the future. © 2019 The Wildlife Society.

Multispecies benefits of wetland conservation for marsh birds, frogs, and species at risk

Wetlands conserved using water level manipulation, cattle exclusion, naturalization of uplands, and other techniques under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (“conservation project wetlands”) are important for ducks, geese, and swans (“waterfowl”). However, the assumption that conservation actions for waterfowl also benefit other wildlife is rarely quantified. We modeled detection and occupancy of species at sites within 42 conservation project wetlands compared to sites within 52 similar nearby unmanaged wetlands throughout southern Ontario, Canada, and small portions of the adjacent U.S., using citizen science data collected by Bird Studies Canada's Great Lakes Marsh Monitoring Program, including 2 waterfowl and 13 non-waterfowl marsh-breeding bird species (n = 413 sites) and 7 marsh-breeding frog species (n = 191 sites). Occupancy was significantly greater at conservation project sites compared to unmanaged sites in 7 of 15 (47%) bird species and 3 of 7 (43%) frog species, with occupancy being higher by a difference of 0.12–0.38 across species. Notably, occupancy of priority conservation concern or at-risk Black Tern (Chlidonias niger), Common Gallinule (Gallinula galeata), Least Bittern (Ixobrychus exilis), Sora (Porzana carolina), and Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata) was significantly higher at conservation project sites compared to unmanaged sites. The results demonstrate the utility of citizen science to inform wetland conservation, and suggest that actions under the North American Waterfowl Management Plan are effective for conserving non-waterfowl species.

Implementing the 2012 North American Waterfowl Management Plan revision: Populations, habitat, and people

ABSTRACTThe North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) has established a model for wildlife conservation planning over the last 3 decades. Management at a continental scale, leveraged funding, regional partnerships, and a strong science basis have been notable features. Periodic updates to the NAWMP occurred since implementation in 1986; however, a fundamental revision was accomplished in 2012 after extensive stakeholder engagement. An explicit fundamental goal for waterfowl conservation supporters was added in 2012, complementing existing goals for sustainable populations and sufficient habitat found in previous updates. We present a synopsis of progress toward implementation of the 2012 NAWMP and challenge the waterfowl management community to continue with meaningful steps toward achieving NAWMP goals. Adding goals and objectives for supporters increases potential relevance of NAWMP; however, it also presents a level of complexity that was not entirely anticipated. Additionally, the 2012 NAWMP recognized that traditional support from waterfowl hunters alone will not be sufficient to support waterfowl conservation in the future. Simultaneous consideration of multiple objectives, although implicit before, now is a specific focus for habitat and harvest management affecting hunters and other users of the waterfowl resource. The waterfowl management community is faced with revisiting objectives and management actions related to harvest regulations, landscape priorities, habitat conservation, and public engagement to garner broader support. These persistent management challenges are tangible and relevant candidates for greater integration. Ultimately, the structures and processes supporting waterfowl management also will need to be reconsidered. © 2017 The Wildlife Society.

Site preferences and participation of waterbird recreationists: Using choice modelling to inform habitat management

Recreationists utilizing wetland birds for hunting or birdwatching contribute significantly to local economies and conservation efforts. The waterfowl management community, through the 2012 North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), has explicitly recognized the need to increase recruitment and retention of wetland bird recreationists to help halt the national decline in social support for conservation. Achieving this goal requires that waterfowl and wetland managers consider how recreation site characteristics and management impact participation and support for wetland conservation. The outdoor recreation management and natural resource economics fields have extensive experience with similar problems and frequently use recreational site choice models to link attributes of recreational areas to use by recreationists. The waterfowl management community has several publicly available, long-term data sets that can be used in site choice models. We introduce U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl harvest survey data, U.S. Geological Survey band encounter data, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird data and use those data to summarize travel characteristics of wetland bird enthusiasts. We used harvest survey and eBird data in choice models to predict and compare the impacts of three seemingly similar proposed habitat acquisitions on use by recreationists in the state of Georgia; the proposal that had the greatest increase in predicted trips would result in twice as many additional hunting trips and >10 times more additional birdwatching trips than the proposal that generated the fewest additional trips. This case study demonstrates the potential of these and similar data and analytical methods for incorporating recreation participation and site preferences into habitat planning and delivery under the NAWMP. We encourage the outdoor recreation management and economics communities and the waterfowl management community to build partnerships and cooperative projects to improve our understanding of the relationships between wetland bird users and habitat conservation. Management implications•Results from our site choice models can provide a natural and intuitive metric that can be used to evaluate the relative merits of alternative management actions in achieving social objectives. An improvement over current proposals evaluated on a qualitative description of public access might be achieved through using the choice modeling approach to obtain quantitative estimates of the expected increase in public use resulting from a proposal.•Future research efforts that utilize finer resolution recreation site choice information would allow for a better understanding of recreationists’ decision processes and could provide managers with valuable insights into the benefits of quality improvements at state parks, managed areas, and other management units of interest.•Researchers should also work with state agencies to identify sources of finer resolution site characteristic data, such as the distribution and availability of public land, recreational regulations, and presence of infrastructure.•Researchers should explore interdisciplinary collaborations with ecological modelers to model expected sightings or expected harvest as a function of spatially-explicit environmental and landscape characteristics. Such a model could then be linked to a recreation site choice model, allowing the tracing of wetland restoration/enhancement benefits through a change in the biological system, and ultimately the change in trip locations, total trips, and/or economic benefits.•We encourage the natural resource management and economics professionals to build partnerships and cooperative projects with the NAWMP community to improve our understanding of the preferences, participation, and motivation of wetland bird users and their relationships to habitat conservation and management.

Incorporating human dimensions objectives into waterfowl habitat planning and delivery

ABSTRACTThe 2012 revision of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) explicitly recognized the need to increase recruitment and retention of waterfowl hunters, birdwatchers, and other conservationists to maintain support for wetland conservation. The incorporation of human dimensions objectives within the NAWMP has compelled waterfowl and wetland managers to consider whether and to what extent landscape characteristics such as public land access; the type, amount, and location of wetlands; and site infrastructure will increase support for wetland conservation among user groups. Further, it has forced the waterfowl community to consider the possible trade‐offs between managing land to achieve biological versus social objectives. We used publicly available, long‐term data sets to illustrate a method of incorporating human dimensions into waterfowl habitat planning and management. We used United States Fish and Wildlife Service waterfowl harvest survey data, United States Geological Survey band encounter data, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology eBird data to summarize travel characteristics of wetland bird enthusiasts (i.e., waterfowl hunters and birdwatchers) in the Atlantic Flyway. Greater than 90% of all trips by wetland bird enthusiasts occurred within their state of residence. We used data from New York, USA, to demonstrate how to construct discrete choice recreation demand models to identify factors that influence site selection and participation. We demonstrate how model outputs, such as the expected change in the number and geographic distribution of recreational trips (i.e., hunting or birdwatching), can be used as an objective metric to evaluate the benefits of alternative habitat acquisition and restoration projects relative to the human dimensions objective of the NAWMP. These data and methods show promise for incorporating human dimensions objectives into habitat delivery and understanding potential trade‐offs relative to biological objectives. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Potential Effects of Drought on Carrying Capacity for Wintering Waterfowl in the Central Valley of California

AbstractWe used the bioenergetics model TRUEMET to evaluate potential effects of California's recent drought on food supplies for waterfowl wintering in the Central Valley under a range of habitat and waterfowl population scenarios. In nondrought years in the current Central Valley landscape, food supplies are projected to be adequate for waterfowl from fall through early spring (except late March) even if waterfowl populations reach North American Waterfowl Management Plan goals. However, in all drought scenarios that we evaluated, food supplies were projected to be exhausted for ducks by mid- to late winter and by late winter or early spring for geese. For ducks, these results were strongly related to projected declines in winter-flooded rice fields that provide 45% of all the food energy available to ducks in the Central Valley in nondrought water years. Delayed flooding of some managed wetlands may help alleviate food shortages by providing wetland food resources better timed with waterfowl migration and abundance patterns in the Central Valley, as well as reducing the amount of water needed to manage these habitats. However, future research is needed to evaluate the impacts of delayed flooding on waterfowl hunting, and whether California's existing water delivery system would make delayed flooding feasible. Securing adequate water supplies for waterfowl and other wetland-dependent birds is among the greatest challenges facing resource managers in coming years, especially in the increasingly arid western United States.

Landscape design: Integrating ecological, social, and economic considerations into conservation planning

ABSTRACTLandscape design is a conservation planning process, described in the landscape ecology literature, proposed to rectify the knowledge and implementation gap in planning that have limited the effectiveness of many conservation planning efforts. Use of landscape design bridges this gap through increased emphasis on the interdisciplinary nature of conservation planning and engagement of a stakeholder advisory team to create a conservation plan that resonates with biological, cultural, social, and economic realities of the area concerned. We define landscape design as a conservation planning process that integrates societal goals and values with established biological conservation goals, using science grounded in landscape ecology to describe future scenarios where specific and measurable biological goals can be attained. First, we describe a landscape design process and provide examples from the literature and partnerships such as Connect the Connecticut and the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative. We follow by discussing a case study of a landscape design effort to conserve playa wetlands to support waterfowl goals for migrating waterfowl established in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. We further highlight characteristics of a successfully completed landscape design. We conclude that landscape design is a powerful process that goes beyond identifying high‐priority conservation assets and intended to be an action‐oriented process. Landscape design provides a framework for ensuring that conservation planning does not occur in a vacuum by ensuring social, cultural, and economic needs of people are recognized before valuable conservation dollars are expended. It provides a mechanism for understanding the effects of future landscape drivers on natural resources and engages stakeholders in proactive discussions regarding conservation. The final result is a commitment by a partnership to a set of actions that will achieve the stated conservation goal. © 2016 The Wildlife Society.

Learning and adaptation in waterfowl conservation: By chance or by design?

ABSTRACTThe most recent revision of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan seeks to increase the adaptive capacity of the management enterprise to cope with accelerating changes in climate, land‐use patterns, agency priorities, and the waterfowl and wetlands constituency. Institutional and cultural changes of the magnitude envisioned are necessarily slow, messy processes, involving many actors who at a minimum must agree on the need for change. Waterfowl conservation now finds itself in the transition zone between business as usual and some new mode of operation. There are at least 2 different perspectives of this transition: one focuses on process, accountability, and planning for change; another focuses on solutions generated from an organic process of creativity, information sharing, and risk‐taking. Both of these views have something to contribute, but some in the wildlife management enterprise may tend to focus more on the first view. We suggest that ideas from panarchy theory, especially those related to the behaviors of complex adaptive systems, can help waterfowl managers better understand and foster the institutional changes they seek. © 2016 The Wildlife Society.

Ecology and Conservation of North American Sea DucksEcology and Conservation of North American Sea Ducksedited by Jean-Pierre L. Savard, Dirk V. Derksen, Dan Esler, and John M. Eadie.Studies in Avian BiologyNumber 46. 2015. Cooper Ornithological Society, and CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida. xxii + 584 pp., 4 color plates, 98 text figures. $119.96 (hardcover). ISBN 13:978-1-4822-4897-5.

The editors of this volume have accomplished a remarkable assemblage of authors and topics on the sea duck tribe (Mergini) that has not been covered before in a single major treatise. While waterfowl (Anseriformes) are, arguably, the family of wild birds that have been most thoroughly studied by scientists, the sea ducks have been relatively poorly covered because of the remote habitats in which most of them are found at all times of the year. Only a few, such as the Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula), Barrow’s Goldeneye (B. islandica), Bufflehead (B. albeola), and Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) are accessible fairly easily to researchers. The other 11 extant species nest primarily in boreal, Arctic, or sub-Arctic habitats, and typically winter in even more remote oceanic locations. Nevertheless, waterfowl are one of the best inventoried of all North American birds, and sea ducks have been the subject of several additional surveys designed to monitor specific populations (Chapter 1). Most sea duck populations are uncommon, and many have been declining in number to the point that North American populations of two of the eiders, Spectacled (Somateria fischeri) and Steller’s (Polysticta stelleri), are listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. In Canada, eastern populations of Harlequin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus) and Barrow’s goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) are Species of Concern. The most significant upshot of this growing concern has been the formation of the Sea Duck Joint Venture of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in 1998 (Sea Duck Joint Venture Management Board 2008, Sea Duck Joint Venture 2013). This has provided a superb forum for the sea duck specialists of the world to meet, plan, coordinate, and implement new science and to take other steps to stimulate progress in sea duck conservation. The 27 authors of this volume represent essentially all the individuals and government agencies and academic institutions that have driven the tremendous progress made since 1998. The fifteen chapters cover every major topic that one would expect. This is a departure from the more typical approach to taxonomic groups which usually cover each topic on a species-by-species basis. This was a thoughtful tactic as it encourages the broader community of scientists to integrate sea duck information into their analyses while, at the same time, provides important new perspectives for those more narrowly focused on waterfowl. Some new information is provided and the literature reviewed is thorough with all the common sources cited. In addition, a great deal of less common material is integrated by specialists in the general topics. These qualities contribute importantly to the editors’ central objective ‘‘to highlight

A FULL ANNUAL CYCLE MODELING FRAMEWORK FOR AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS

AbstractAmerican black ducks (Anas rubripes) are a harvested, international migratory waterfowl species in eastern North America. Despite an extended period of restrictive harvest regulations, the black duck population is still below the population goal identified in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP). It has been hypothesized that density‐dependent factors restrict population growth in the black duck population and that habitat management (increases, improvements, etc.) may be a key component of growing black duck populations and reaching the prescribed NAWMP population goal. Using banding data from 1951 to 2011 and breeding population survey data from 1990 to 2014, we developed a full annual cycle population model for the American black duck. This model uses the seven management units as set by the Black Duck Joint Venture, allows movement into and out of each unit during each season, and models survival and fecundity for each region separately. We compare model population trajectories with observed population data and abundance estimates from the breeding season counts to show the accuracy of this full annual cycle model. With this model, we then show how to simulate the effects of habitat management on the continental black duck population.

Building the foundation for international conservation planning for breeding ducks across the U.S. and Canadian border.

We used publically available data on duck breeding distribution and recently compiled geospatial data on upland habitat and environmental conditions to develop a spatially explicit model of breeding duck populations across the entire Prairie Pothole Region (PPR). Our spatial population models were able to identify key areas for duck conservation across the PPR and predict between 62.1 – 79.1% (68.4% avg.) of the variation in duck counts by year from 2002 – 2010. The median difference in observed vs. predicted duck counts at a transect segment level was 4.6 ducks. Our models are the first seamless spatially explicit models of waterfowl abundance across the entire PPR and represent an initial step toward joint conservation planning between Prairie Pothole and Prairie Habitat Joint Ventures. Our work demonstrates that when spatial and temporal variation for highly mobile birds is incorporated into conservation planning it will likely increase the habitat area required to support defined population goals. A major goal of the current North American Waterfowl Management Plan and subsequent action plan is the linking of harvest and habitat management. We contend incorporation of spatial aspects will increase the likelihood of coherent joint harvest and habitat management decisions. Our results show at a minimum, it is possible to produce spatially explicit waterfowl abundance models that when summed across survey strata will produce similar strata level population estimates as the design-based Waterfowl Breeding Pair and Habitat Survey (r2 = 0.977). This is important because these design-based population estimates are currently used to set duck harvest regulations and to set duck population and habitat goals for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. We hope this effort generates discussion on the important linkages between spatial and temporal variation in population size, and distribution relative to habitat quantity and quality when linking habitat and population goals across this important region.