Premium
Predicting Wood Duck Harvest Rates in Eastern North America
Author(s) -
BALKCOM GREGORY D.,
GARRETTSON PAMELA R.,
PADDING PAUL I.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the journal of wildlife management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.94
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1937-2817
pISSN - 0022-541X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1937-2817.2010.tb01286.x
Subject(s) - flyway , waterfowl , hunting season , wildlife , geography , fishery , fish <actinopterygii> , forestry , ecology , biology , demography , habitat , population , sociology
We developed a method for predicting wood duck ( Aix sponsa ) harvest rates in eastern North America using waterfowl banding and recovery data, annual indices of hunter numbers, and harvest survey data from the United States and Canada. We predicted that under the current season length (60 days), if hunter numbers remain unchanged, increasing the wood duck bag limit from 2 to 3 would increase harvest of adult male wood ducks in the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways by 12.3%, causing an increase in harvest rate of 7.1% from 0.087 to 0.093. The Flyway Councils and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service can consider this information to predict the impacts of regulatory changes.