Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Ep. 695 - Habitat Update - Is It Time to Sell Your Decoys?

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Ep. 695 - Habitat Update - Is It Time to Sell Your Decoys? · Ducks Unlimited Podcast

• 0:02
  Mike Brasher: Hey everyone, join us on today's episode when we sit down with Doctor. Steve Adair, our Chief Scientist, and Doctor. Scott Stephens, our Senior Director of Prairie and Boreal Conservation Strategy, to give you an update on spring and summer habitat conditions and some of what we're hearing coming out of those important breeding areas and what it might mean and what you could expect coming this fall. Stay with us. Can we do a mic check, please?
• 0:28
  Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Hemphith. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.
• 0:45
  VO: Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails.
• 1:11
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• 1:33
  Mike Brasher: Welcome back, everyone. I am your host on this episode, Doctor. Mike Brasher. It is well, actually, we're recording this audio only episode in late July, sort of mid July, actually. And we're gonna be giving you an update on springsummer habitat conditions.
• 1:51
  You'll probably be listening to this episode first or second week of August, but this is gonna be a good recap of what we have learned over the first few months or weeks of summer and what we heard from some of the pilot biologists and so forth as they got up onto the prairies during spring and much broader areas. So probably the first opportunity that we've had to give y'all an update on what we're hearing, maybe what we're going to expect whenever the reports, the population status report, habitat report comes out here in a few weeks. And I am excited to have in studio with me, doctor Steven Ayr, our chief scientist. It's great to have you here, man.
• 2:29
  Steve Adair: Great to be with you, Mike. And you too, Scott.
• 2:32
  Mike Brasher: Hey. You just let the cat out of the bag that we have our very famous and special guest joining us remotely, doctor Scott Stevens, the our senior director of prairie and boreal conservation strategy. Did I get it?
• 2:49
  Scott Stephens: I think so. Yeah. We need an acronym or something. It's so long.
• 2:52
  Mike Brasher: Senior director. It's a challenge to our listeners. Y'all come up with an acronym for doctor Stevens. That'll be fun.
• 2:58
  Scott Stephens: Duck guy.
• 2:58
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Duck guy.
• 2:59
  Scott Stephens: D g.
• 2:59
  Mike Brasher: We need some that's not an well, we can do better than that. So, Scott, we can't we do have to say thank you to our sponsors here of the podcast, the old bird dog whiskey. You know, we've got that here on our desk, and and that's what happens when we bring our chief scientist in. We can get no. I'm just kidding you.
• 3:16
  Steve Adair: I don't know where the other half
• 3:17
  Mike Brasher: of that
• 3:17
  Steve Adair: went, but it
• 3:20
  Mike Brasher: We do thank Birddog for their support of the podcast, and so we wanted to have a little bit of fun with that, but we have not been drinking. I promise you.
• 3:27
  Scott Stephens: I've been on some others where where there were intermissions and there was drinking
• 3:30
  Mike Brasher: at all. Those were fun, some of our Christmas episodes. You gotta get tuned out here for some of those, Steve. Yep. So, yes, we have been hearing from some of our partners up on the Prairies and from some of the other states and important breeding regions about how things are unfolding, and I I suspect most of you all, our listeners, have heard some of this as well.
• 3:51
  Things are are not ideal, let's just say. We've had some pretty grim reports come out from
• 3:57
  Scott Stephens: In one word,
• 3:58
  Mike Brasher: dry. In one word, dry. We have a couple of sort of well, maybe one data point. We have a number of reports that we're gonna talk about. We've got some maps that we're gonna kinda stare at and describe for y'all, and so this will be, yeah, what we have heard and what we might expect here in a couple of weeks when the Fish and Wildlife Service releases its population.
• 4:22
  What about population status report? Scott, I'm gonna go to you first, and so you've already kinda said it's dry, but
• 4:31
  Steve Adair: Yeah.
• 4:31
  Scott Stephens: I'm I'm aligning with what was that comment we got to that one podcast where
• 4:35
  Mike Brasher: You find
• 4:36
  Scott Stephens: a somebody wrote in and said, I was a dark cloud in any river sunshine?
• 4:40
  Mike Brasher: You're you can find a dark cloud in every silver lining, I believe. Any silver lining.
• 4:45
  Scott Stephens: Something like that. But but that's reality out there now. Like, I drove across Eastern South Dakota here a couple weeks ago, and, you know, there are places where there is semi permanent water, but there was very little, you know, shallow water that had accumulated this year, especially in seasonal wetlands. I was over in the far eastern part of the state over by Waube, and there was a little bit of that, but you could tell it had just fallen because the crops were still green that, you know, that it had flooded up around. And so, you know, that means we didn't have that critical shallow water for to settle birds, to provide that food resource, to to have lots of pairs.
• 5:33
  You know, I I did see a few broods on that semi permanent water, so there is some production out there. But I think, overall, we would expect it not to be a stellar production year. So, you know, what folks can expect to see is fall flights that are filled with mostly adult birds, and, you know, my prediction would be they will not be super cooperative when you're trying to get them in the decoys this fall.
• 5:54
  Mike Brasher: Steve, one of the things that we always look to is, like, how spring is unfolding both from a habitat, like like, wetland condition standpoint, as well as the pace of migration. Is it an early spring? And this year, I think, was very similar to last year in a couple of respects. Kinda describe what you you heard with regard to the timing of migration, maybe being a little bit early, warmer warmer temperatures, and then we we've heard about some rain that fell, again, very similar to what happened last year, but kinda describe that for folks.
• 6:28
  Steve Adair: Yeah, you bet. Yeah, so we're, you know, we watched these snow maps all winter, we're kind of obsessed with how things are unfolding, and, you know, as we were going through winter, it was, you know, the snow amounts were below normal across the primary breeding regions, and we kept watching that, and then as things started to warm up, the birds started moving, and so those early migrants, mallards and pintails, when they moved through the prairies, found very little water, and so when they do that, they keep going. They keep going on to the boreal and and Arctic areas. And the last couple years, we've had some timely rains when the later migrants are are coming through. This year, it seemed like it was even later, and so we we did get a shot of water that we're hoping is gonna benefit some of the later nesting birds, you know, gadwall and blue wings and and, you know, shovelers, some of our favorite bird there.
• 7:23
  But but we we really won't know until we till we see those numbers. The other thing that
• 7:28
  Mike Brasher: Was was that a dig at doctor Steven Sayers? He now I thought I knew he was a fan of the blue wing birds. I thought it was the blue wing teal. Are we learning a little bit different now?
• 7:37
  Steve Adair: I have seen pictures of him with a full limit of Drake shovelers that he was very proud of. That is just
• 7:43
  Scott Stephens: we we should be careful telling stories here. Like, we we've hunted together for
• 7:48
  Steve Adair: a long time, doctor Dare. I guess that's true. Yeah. I was proud of you. That was that was a beautiful string.
• 7:54
  Winter.
• 7:54
  Mike Brasher: Late winter.
• 7:55
  Steve Adair: Late winter Mississippi.
• 7:56
  Scott Stephens: That was with doctor Mormon Yeah. Actually. And I made a trip and showed up, and the only ducks on their ice lease were shovelers. So it's like, we came to shoot ducks.
• 8:04
  Steve Adair: Yeah. We're going to hunt or go home, and they decided
• 8:07
  Scott Stephens: to That's right.
• 8:08
  Steve Adair: Yeah. Sorry. No. That was was really good. So, you know, the other thing that's really interesting about water conditions is that there's a lot of variables that depend if you get ponded water in wetlands, so, you know, the soil moisture, so if it's really dry, you could have significant snow, but it all goes in the ground instead of ponding, and the other thing that we watch is, so how does that snow melt occur?
• 8:39
  If it's really slow over, you know, weeks at a time, it tends to percolate in the soil more. If it melts fast, then it tends to run more and fill up wetlands. So there's, you know, it's a complex scenario as the spring unfolds, and unfortunately, you know, most everything that we've seen so far this year is that most of the water, you know, the little that we had went in the ground, and we don't have an abundant number of wetlands. So as Scott said, overall, it's dry.
• 9:07
  Mike Brasher: Was going back Dry. Yeah. Was going back okay. And Reading some of the material that we put together last year to describe habitat conditions, because we we do a lot of that for our members, for our volunteers, for our leadership. They want to know all these things, and so we you and I and Scott and others spend a fair bit of our time this this time of year trying to summarize and putting these things in writing, and last year, the thing that I had forgotten, it was dry entering spring, had an early flight of birds, many of those settled in the ended up flying to the Boreal.
• 9:46
  Remember, the beep hop numbers out of the Boreal last year were really, really high, and dramatically increased, the signal of that overflight. What I forgot is that the rains that came last year in May actually arrived a few days prior to the survey Right. Right. In some key geographies there. This year, I think those rains that fell were after the surveys had been flown in some of those same geographies.
• 10:13
  So that's going to have some implications for what the numbers actually show up as in that status report here in a few weeks. That, of course, has implications for setting hunting seasons the following year, but just sort of thinking about that timing, how it is so important, from a number of perspectives, from from a biology perspective, it didn't really matter. Those birds, pintails, mallards, had kinda already flown through, but from a data standpoint, a week here or there relative to the timing of that survey, it can matter.
• 10:50
  Steve Adair: Absolutely. You know, it's shot in time, you know, when we get those survey numbers, and as Mike alluded to, you know, the midcontinent seasons are set based on,
• 11:00
  Scott Stephens: you know,
• 11:01
  Steve Adair: the number of ponds in The US and Canada, and then the mallard breeding population, and so anything that can cause variation or big swings in that can impact, you know, the recommendation for the harvest framework that year, and so that timing is everything. And I think you're right, the last couple years, the two prior years, we had that shot of rain before they did the surveys, which boosted the pond numbers and gave us a more favorable outcome, and this year we're we're concerned that those pond numbers may fall off Yeah. Significantly.
• 11:37
  Scott Stephens: Hey, is this is this the episode where we take bets on what the total duck numbers are gonna
• 11:41
  Mike Brasher: It can be. We'll get to that.
• 11:42
  Steve Adair: We'll get to If you're ready to cash in,
• 11:45
  Mike Brasher: I'm No. We're we're gonna do that a bit later on. We'll do that a little bit later on. Okay. This episode, but later in this episode.
• 11:52
  Steve Adair: Okay.
• 11:52
  Mike Brasher: So I think if we went back two years, we had a situation where the rain or snow fell prior to the survey Yep. And even prior to the migration Yeah. And we saw some that how that affected settling patterns, still it wasn't a huge boot. I mean, just by rain falling during winter and spring, that increase the duck population, right, because production occurs during the summer, but it can influence production that would be reflected in a breeding population the following year. But still, it influences where those birds settle, and I remember two years ago, we saw a larger percentage of those prairie nesters, as we think of, settling in the prairies.
• 12:34
  I don't think certainly, for mallards and pintails, we do not expect a large percentage of those birds to be in the prairies this year. Now, some of the other species, yeah, maybe the rain did benefit them a little bit in their settling patterns. But, Scott, with regard to the staying power of that water for those birds that did settle there, I think you have you offered an edit to a document that the three of us have been working on here this week where I think I had been I had generously characterized the nature of of how wetland conditions had been improved, and maybe this is just the difference between pessimism and optimism between the two of us.
• 13:15
  Scott Stephens: But But you said substantially improved, and I was like, nope. Delete substantially. It may have improved things, but it was not substantial.
• 13:23
  Steve Adair: Some somewhat would have been a better word choice for you.
• 13:26
  Scott Stephens: Negligible would have been the word I
• 13:28
  Steve Adair: had to select.
• 13:29
  Mike Brasher: But then you provided sort of a summary from one of your colleagues that had driven to Saskatchewan that really substantiated what you the edit, let's just say, that you made, and so if you can kinda sort of recap that specific information that you got.
• 13:47
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. So colleague of mine that I was with there a couple weeks ago in South Dakota, Terry Costanik, director of development for South Dakota, he has a goose camp in Saskatchewan. And so he was going up just to kinda check on his camp, visit with landowners, and, you know, it's near Swift Current. So so Western Saskatchewan, it's pretty dry country in a normal year, but they have been dry. You know, he he said as he as he drove up I'm I'm looking at the text now.
• 14:19
  You know, he said based on his visit, the only duck production he can see happening is in the Eastern Dakotas. By the time he got into Saskatchewan, the wetland conditions drastically changed similar to last year's poor conditions. There were isolated pockets where some rain had provided wetlands moisture, but very few duck roots. And he said after five years of drought, the landscape is pretty much soaking up all the water from rain events occurring over the last two months. He has some bigger wetlands that are spring fed that, you know, maintain water, provide roost water for geese, but, you know, save that, it's pretty dark dry up there.
• 14:57
  Mike Brasher: So Steve, we've heard from Scott there a description about how how dry it's been over the last five years. This isn't just a one year drought that we're talking about. It's actually gone back farther than just five years. I mean, we're probably on year number eight or something where there's been a substantial amount of the prairie landscape that's been in some form of pretty substantial drought each of those years, and you talked about it earlier, like, why that is important, and and I probably even underestimated the depth of the drought, of the soil drought, soil moisture drought, and just how much it's gonna take to really get to a situation where we can have a lasting effect from some of the rain that does fall. Scott shared some maps with us, the summary of precipitation levels over the past five years, sort of describe some of those and this overall importance of the length of the drought and what we're seeing.
• 15:56
  Steve Adair: Yeah. I mean, I think that's the, you know, that's the difficult thing when you get into these situations, that it takes a significant, you know, event over a period of time to get you out of it, right? You know, we a winter with a lot of snow piling up out of there, and then we need, you know, the right kind of melt to fill those wetlands, and then you need some some, you know, spring and summer rains to keep them recharged so you can carry that water over into next year, and so it's to take a bit, a little sobering to think what it's going to take to get out of this. But, you know, if you look back on history, you know, these droughts occur and they last for, you know, five to ten years, and then we get out of them, we get a wet period. So there's a wet period in our future, you know, the optimist there, but we just don't know when that's going to be.
• 16:48
  Scott Stephens: The odds get better every year we go through a
• 16:50
  Steve Adair: drought, They do. Yeah. We had a guy who used to say, it always gets wet following a drought. I'm like, yep. That's a true statement.
• 16:58
  Scott Stephens: Mike, the the the ingredient that I think we've been missing as we talked about the past five years and that we've not had that I can remember, you know. Like, you could go back and I'm sure we had it like in the 2010 because it was very wet that spring, but we have not had a wet fall which really boosts that soil moisture. Yeah. You know, if we have the soil supersaturated when we go in to freeze up, then we set the stage for whatever snow accumulates is gonna is likely to run, you know, depending on how quickly it melts as Steve described. But that's what we've not had.
• 17:37
  So, you know, guys who come to Canada and hunt, they should be hoping that it is so wet and muddy that you cannot get in the fields. And, Steve, I remember I remember we were in Western Saskatchewan for a trip, and we got heavy wet snow, and the gravel roads were, like, nearly impassable.
• 17:55
  Steve Adair: Yeah. We had to use a sled to get our stuff in the field.
• 17:58
  Scott Stephens: That's right. That's right. So, you know, that's the kind of conditions that will set the stage for coming out of this drought. And and, yeah, we we will. We will eventually come out of it.
• 18:08
  Things will get wet. You know? All this all this talk about ducks are going away, and we ought to cut the limit and all those things. Like, that's that's craziness because it's gonna get wet again.
• 18:19
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Scott, you're you're selling your decoys. You're selling your gun. You're selling it all this year. Right?
• 18:25
  Scott Stephens: I'm not.
• 18:25
  Mike Brasher: I'm not. Those rumors are not true.
• 18:29
  Scott Stephens: They are not true. Ducks ducks will be back, but it is likely to be a year when you are going to be frustrated more than you're gonna be exuberant
• 18:38
  Mike Brasher: Slim pickers.
• 18:39
  Scott Stephens: If you're looking over decoys.
• 18:40
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. I'm a little worried about the the production this year, I think, more than I was last year. I I went into last last summer a little more optimistic, I I think, and I don't really I don't remember exactly why if we got if we had more rain over the over a longer period of time during summer that that helped out with some production for those birds that did settle in the prairies, but and I've told other people, I shot a fair number of young birds even late in December and January, and that's a good sign when you've got young birds making it down here, especially given the delayed migration that we saw last year. So there was a fair bit of, I think, production last year.
• 19:26
  Steve Adair: And and the Boreal was in pretty good condition last year, I think, which was helpful. This year, it sounds drier, and Yeah. You know, Scott and I were hunting with a colleague from Canada. We were hunting turkeys in Montana in April, and there were fires all over the Boreal, you know, that early in the year, so it was dry up there, which is a little more concerning because you overfly the prairies, you're hoping to find water somewhere, and then when the Boreal's dry too, you cut your options. Sorry to interrupt you.
• 19:54
  Mike Brasher: No. No. That's exactly where I was gonna go. I was gonna introduce that. I wanna take a break right now, and then we'll we'll come back, We'll talk about the burial.
• 20:03
  Scott actually, both of you have a hunting trip upcoming. I wanna kinda give a little bit of I wanna hear about that, and then we'll go we'll have to hear about that once it's all said and done, And then then we'll get into our prognostications of what the b pop is gonna be. We'll do that. So stay with us, folks. We got a little bit more information for you.
• 20:32
  VO: Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey. After these messages.
• 20:48
  Mike Brasher: Welcome back, everyone. I am doctor Mike Brazier, and I'm here with doctor Steve Adair in studio and Scott Stephens joining remote. We're doing a summer spring update on habitat conditions and trying to prepare you for what may be coming here in a few weeks with the release of The US Fish And Wildlife Service's waterfowl population status report. Boreal Forest, Steve, you talked about that a little bit before the break. Last year, I think if we go back two years, not last year, but the year before, was one of massive fires in the Boreal Forest.
• 21:22
  Really, I think that was the year when they had to evacuate. Yellowknife had major damage there, and last year conditions improved a little bit. They always have fires up there to some degree, but then this year rolls around, things got drier again, and we know some of that based on pilot biologist reports, right? But we probably also heard it from a few other folks.
• 21:46
  Steve Adair: Yeah, we did. You know, there was we had friends and colleagues that were talking about the magnitude of the fires. I know a really popular fishing area, Flin Flon, kind of the end of the road on the Manitoba, Saskatchewan border, they had to evacuate that area and lost a lot of their cabins and things like that, and it started early. The thing about the Boreal though, it's so big, it's hard to get your arms around the whole thing. You get little snippets from different parts of it, so we'll just have to see when the numbers come in.
• 22:17
  And there may have been some bright spots there that you know, aren't widely talked about until you see those numbers just because there's not many people up there, and, you know, it's a it's a big landscape to to cover. So we're hoping the birds found some water somewhere.
• 22:30
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Massive landscape. Scott, you've had some experience up there. Have you heard anything from your contacts? I read the pilot biologist reports, and and by what I mean by that is the US Fish and Wildlife Service pilot, the one that fly the surveys, do the observations, put together a little summary of their observations, very generic descriptions of habitat conditions, and and maybe some indication of of settling patterns of birds.
• 23:01
  Those can be found on the US Fish and Wildlife Service website. We'll try to link those in the show notes so y'all can go check those out and read for yourself. Hats off to our Fish and Wildlife Service, Canadian Wildlife Service, state colleagues, everyone that chips in annually to to make this survey happen and provide any and all of that sort of early insight coming out of that survey. But, Scott, in addition to those reports, have you heard anything else from your contacts?
• 23:28
  Scott Stephens: And we're talking relative to the Boreal.
• 23:30
  Mike Brasher: Yeah.
• 23:31
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I I would just reinforce what Steve talked about. And and the fires that we had early on were, you know, I I think last year and a couple years ago, the the evacuations were Western Boreal, like Yellowknife Northwest Territories, those kind of places. This year, they were more in the East. So Manitoba had a ton of fires, lots of evacuations of, you know, remote communities there, some in Saskatchewan.
• 23:59
  I know there were even fires in Northern Minnesota, which, you know, that Boreal kinda treks down into into Minnesota. So there were there were fires in, you know, places in Minnesota. So now I guess what I would also say is, you know, the wetlands that we have in the Boreal tend to be less dynamic than we see in the Prairies. You know, they're not typically going completely dry. You know, they're there's they're the fluctuations are less.
• 24:28
  So, you know, generally, we would say that provides steadier, more consistent waterfowl breeding habitat, but it's usually just less productive because the soils are less productive as you move north.
• 24:40
  Mike Brasher: What about Alaska? Do you have a read on on Alaska? Do you remember what those reports said? I think I think pretty good. Is that
• 24:48
  Scott Stephens: I I don't remember. I I know there are fires there too. You know, the the friend of ours that we're hunting caribou with, you know, his son is on a on a BLM fire crew this year, and they have been busy across Alaska. Alaska was very warm this winter. You know, I was there in February, and it was, you know, it was not above freezing, but it was close, and it was like, oh, this this doesn't feel like winter.
• 25:13
  So
• 25:13
  Mike Brasher: Steve, have you heard anything out of Alaska?
• 25:15
  Steve Adair: Yeah. I I I think the water condition is pretty good, but Scott said it's warmer. They got warm early. I think they were, you know, setting some temperature records and and having some fires, but but I understand that there there was pretty good water. So
• 25:28
  Scott Stephens: One thing of note is I I did see from a weather standpoint, for the first time ever, there was a heat advisory issued for Interior Alaska,
• 25:37
  VO: like
• 25:37
  Scott Stephens: Fairbanks in in that area. You know? And they were you know, this won't sound warm to some of us, but it was, like, 85 or 90 degrees there, but that's warm for that part
• 25:47
  Mike Brasher: of Yeah. The So we've focused a lot on what we refer to as the Mid Continent and then sort of the Western areas when we're talking about Alaska, Alberta, BC. There there is some pretty good news though out of Eastern Canada when you read the reports, when you look at some of the precipitation maps. So what have you what's your take on that?
• 26:08
  Steve Adair: Yeah. I mean, I think everything that we've heard and seen out of Eastern Canada, the Atlantic Flyway breeding areas are good, and the water conditions are good there, so they expect solid we expect solid production out of there. Kind of similar to what Scott was talking about the Boreal, those wetlands do tend to be more stable and not as productive as the Prairie Wetlands. So, you know, there won't be a big boom of waterfowl from there, but it should be, you know, solid production and and good numbers of birds. So that's that's good news for
• 26:44
  Mike Brasher: the And where those birds settle, not as much variation in those settling patterns the way we see between the prairies and the Boreal Forest, and and, you know, it'll be it's all Alaska has become a very interesting point of the survey, at least for me right now over the past few years, because we've seen some dramatic swings in the number of birds that are settling there, and some of that could be related to timing of migration, timing of freeze out, those types of things. And so that'll be one of the places that I'm that I'll look at whenever the report comes out. But, yeah, they're in Eastern Canada, typically not as much as much variation. There's Scott, you have any insight or anything to add there on on, I guess, Eastern Canada, Great Lakes, any of those areas? You don't spend a whole lot of time there.
• 27:36
  Scott Stephens: No. No. I I think it's accurate to say, yeah, conditions may be pretty good. That's good. But if you want the best predictor of, you know, what the fall flight's gonna be like, it's like about like last year is a is a good bet in that part of the world because it just doesn't fluctuate that much.
• 27:53
  Mike Brasher: Here pretty soon, we'll start hearing from well, by the time you listen to this, they will already be out the results from the California, what, duck survey, they do a population survey. Oregon does one. Washington does one. Wisconsin, Michigan. I don't does Minnesota still do one?
• 28:12
  Steve Adair: I think Minnesota does.
• 28:13
  Mike Brasher: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So some of those states, so we'll be getting some information out, and we'll have a read on things there. North Dakota is the only state, as of the time we're recording this, that has released their annual duck survey results.
• 28:27
  That provides a snapshot of what we were talking about earlier, you know, in terms of the dryness. Their wetland numbers were down. Their duck numbers were down. So we and that didn't really surprise any of us there.
• 28:40
  Steve Adair: Mallards pretty significantly. So Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:42
  Mike Brasher: That's true.
• 28:43
  Scott Stephens: Well, I I mean, just for context, you know, even even last year, the Mallard numbers that we had with you know, we described the conditions. They're they're probably not as tough as we see this year. You know, we were down 44% from the peak of Mallards that we had in 2016. So, you know, like, that's the reality. We have now about half of the ducks that we had less than a decade ago.
• 29:10
  Mike Brasher: Half the mallards?
• 29:11
  Scott Stephens: Half the mallards. Yeah.
• 29:12
  Steve Adair: The mallards.
• 29:12
  Scott Stephens: Total ducks, it's like 32% down.
• 29:15
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Some people would argue with me even making that distinction between mallards and ducks. Right? It's like that's when you say ducks, you're talking mallards.
• 29:24
  Steve Adair: Where it's part of the world you live in.
• 29:26
  Scott Stephens: Was there another duck?
• 29:27
  Steve Adair: Mike, I didn't know there was
• 29:28
  Mike Brasher: a duck. So Scott, it sounds like you're wanting to go on to the prognostication segment of this show. Sounds like you've been giving this some thought. You and I and Chris Jennings have done that in the past. Matter of fact, I think and other people can't see it right now, but I think this might be the same shirt that I wore, flowery shirt that I wore last year when we did the prognostications.
• 29:50
  Scott Stephens: So You got a lucky prognosticating shirt. Is that the
• 29:53
  Mike Brasher: I think I was closer than you were last year.
• 29:57
  Scott Stephens: You you were. I was pessimistic, and I was too pessimistic.
• 30:00
  Mike Brasher: Think I was I think I was anticipating just sort of numbers coming in flat, maybe a slight surprise, but I didn't I didn't expect it. I think, what was it, like, 5% up last year? Yeah. And some people would say, ah, you know, that's just survey sampling error. It's probably what Scott would say.
• 30:17
  Steve Adair: Yeah.
• 30:17
  Mike Brasher: But anyway
• 30:18
  Scott Stephens: That's that's similar to last year is what that is. Yeah. So the number the number for total ducks is was last year, 33,988,000
• 30:30
  Steve Adair: That's it.
• 30:30
  Scott Stephens: If I have my numbers right.
• 30:31
  Mike Brasher: That's it.
• 30:32
  Scott Stephens: That's it? Okay.
• 30:33
  Mike Brasher: Yep. The year before, it was thirty two point three two. Year prior to that was 34.657.
• 30:39
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. So I am going to go with we are going to be back down in that 32,000,000 range, give or take.
• 30:48
  Mike Brasher: So that's what's your give or take? Rachel, are we documenting this somewhere? You know? Like It's being recorded. It's being recorded?
• 30:55
  Okay.
• 30:55
  Scott Stephens: Alright. Recorded. So we we'll say 32,000,000 plus or plus or minus half a million.
• 31:03
  Mike Brasher: Okay. Well, you and I are not gonna be far off, I don't think. Steve, do you wanna do you wanna take a shot at this, or does this kinda go against your scientific
• 31:11
  Steve Adair: Yeah. So how does this work? Is it, like, the closest without going over? Or
• 31:14
  Mike Brasher: No. We can do the price is price thing. The price is right, man.
• 31:17
  Scott Stephens: This isn't the price
• 31:18
  Steve Adair: is This isn't the price is right. Okay. No. Okay. Well, I'm thinking about my strategy here.
• 31:22
  Yes. Okay.
• 31:22
  Mike Brasher: That's the age that's the age factor coming in. I guarantee you, none of these young folks would even think about the closest without going over Price is Right. Actually, Price is Right is still going on,
• 31:33
  Steve Adair: It is. It is. Okay. I saw I like that little yodeling guy.
• 31:36
  Scott Stephens: Rachel, can we get that yodeling guy music as we do this?
• 31:39
  Steve Adair: Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. I better not sing for you. Thirty thirty one five.
• 31:45
  Scott Stephens: 31 he's even more pessimistic than I am.
• 31:49
  Mike Brasher: You know, the honest truth is that I was gonna do thirty one five as well.
• 31:54
  Steve Adair: Oh, are you? Well, thank you for letting me go first. Now you're yeah.
• 31:57
  Mike Brasher: Man, but do I wanna change that? I
• 31:59
  Scott Stephens: I I
• 32:00
  Mike Brasher: think I will. I think I'm gonna gonna go thirty
• 32:01
  Steve Adair: one five.
• 32:02
  Scott Stephens: Load up the weight on thirty one five. Yes.
• 32:04
  Steve Adair: So you you're above all of us, Scott. That's unusual. Yeah. We're gonna note this moment. Yeah.
• 32:10
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. But that's down 2,000,000 birds from where we were last year.
• 32:14
  Mike Brasher: It is thirty one five, that would be the lowest number since 02/2002, then you would have to go back, and that was yeah. 02/2002, it was 31.18, but then you would have to go back to to get a lower number, you'd have to go back to $19.93. I'm gonna look at this number in 02/2002. This is really interesting. In 02/2001, the estimated BPOP was 36,000,000, and then it dropped to 31.1 the following year, and then it jumped back up to 36.2.
• 32:52
  Steve Adair: Yeah. I remember Some
• 32:53
  Mike Brasher: pretty big swings from one year to the next, and then back down to 32 and then 31.7. So yeah.
• 33:01
  Steve Adair: The prairies were super dry, so I think I think we saw they overflew to the boreal, but, you know, it wasn't a true decline, it was a, you know
• 33:09
  Mike Brasher: Something associated with the sampling, and that does happen.
• 33:11
  Steve Adair: That's an important
• 33:12
  Mike Brasher: point to
• 33:13
  Steve Adair: make. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that year, Scott, you were I think you were still in the Dakotas, but, you know Yeah. We would see big flocks of birds on the water that was left.
• 33:22
  It was really a bizarre occurrence, you know, so they were still yeah.
• 33:26
  Scott Stephens: I remember one of those years, we had Ducks University or Prairie Experience, one of the two. They they kinda all run together now, but we were telling them about territoriality and all these things the ducks should be doing.
• 33:36
  Steve Adair: Yeah. And then we
• 33:37
  Scott Stephens: went out to a pond, and there's, like, all of these birds sitting around. They're not territorial.
• 33:41
  Steve Adair: They're not territorial. Oh, they're just like, what happened to all my water? Yeah.
• 33:45
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. It's like, that's not good. When we're seeing that, that's not a good sign. Yeah.
• 33:49
  Mike Brasher: I'm gonna adjust my number after seeing some of it. Yeah. Can I do that? Can I you can adjust yours too? I'm taking in more data.
• 33:56
  I'm gonna actually go down to 31.
• 33:58
  Steve Adair: Oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah.
• 34:00
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Because I think
• 34:01
  Mike Brasher: So here's the good bet.
• 34:02
  Scott Stephens: And here's the reason. It's gonna be down.
• 34:04
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. So here's the reason, and it's this idea that when birds settle in the the boreal Forest, we tend to see maybe a larger drop from one year to the It's not because the birds aren't there. It may be because we don't have as good a coverage. The the strat the density of the transects aren't as high, so there's gonna be some higher variation Yeah. From transect to transect, there are some areas that we don't survey up there, and we know birds settle there, and especially kinda given the fires and variation and drought across the Boreal, I'm gonna kinda roll the dice and say that maybe these birds are gonna settle in an area where we're not counting them very well.
• 34:43
  So I'll say 31. On the record, 31, so that would be the lowest the lowest in thirty years. Wow. No. Yeah.
• 34:51
  What?
• 34:51
  Scott Stephens: Thirty years? Yeah. I thought it was so that's lower than the February.
• 34:55
  Mike Brasher: Point one eight. So if it gets down to 31.
• 34:58
  Scott Stephens: Okay. Yeah. So now now the question that I have is we we haven't talked about pawn numbers, but if well and that's that's total ducks. So, you know, I I'm wondering about the matrix for for the harvest package. Yeah.
• 35:14
  And I know that's adjusted, so
• 35:16
  Mike Brasher: don't know exactly what
• 35:18
  Scott Stephens: we and do we have the new one, or we don't
• 35:20
  Mike Brasher: No.
• 35:20
  Scott Stephens: We don't have No.
• 35:21
  Mike Brasher: That would not be out until, you know, until actually, early September is when we're expecting the report to be released this year. Yeah. There's a or so delay.
• 35:32
  Steve Adair: But you If we looked at
• 35:33
  Scott Stephens: the one from last year Yeah. And just you see it.
• 35:36
  Mike Brasher: Let me see.
• 35:37
  Scott Stephens: Well, So so now I guess we need to prognosticate on what Mallards are gonna be. Because they were at 6.6. Yes. So does that mean
• 35:45
  Mike Brasher: that It's a little more it's a little more complicated than that because when you're looking at that Midcontinent matrix, you're you're looking at
• 35:54
  Scott Stephens: Yep.
• 35:55
  Mike Brasher: You're you're not looking at just the traditional survey area Mallard estimate. You're looking at the Midcontinent stock of mallards, which includes birds at it? The Great Lakes Of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and I don't know. I I don't think Alaska birds are included in that.
• 36:18
  Scott Stephens: No. But but the numbers from the traditional survey area were will overwhelm those others.
• 36:23
  Mike Brasher: I I mean, yeah, but you can
• 36:26
  Scott Stephens: Okay.
• 36:26
  Mike Brasher: But humor a can swing quarter million or half million based on those. Yeah.
• 36:31
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. But humor me. I I think I think the big player is the pawn count, right, which I think we're we're less good at prognosticating that. But but for the sake of argument, if if we were like, we were at 6,600,000 Mallards last year in the survey, let's let's say for the sake of argument that goes to 5.5.
• 36:55
  Mike Brasher: You're gonna make me find the matrix, aren't you?
• 36:57
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I am gonna make you find the matrix. He's probably got total number. And and that may be an optimistic number. Like, it may be 5,000,000.
• 37:04
  Right? Yeah. And pawns, the number I have written down, Mike, is 5,100,000.0
• 37:10
  Mike Brasher: K.
• 37:11
  Scott Stephens: $20.24. Let's say that drops to 4.
• 37:15
  Mike Brasher: Well, if that is the case
• 37:17
  Steve Adair: What's that?
• 37:17
  Scott Stephens: $20,500,000 huge 4,000,000.
• 37:20
  Mike Brasher: Caveat, huge asterisk. There's lots of this is not even the right matrix. The matrix will be updated. Yeah. That's getting close to a restrictive season.
• 37:31
  It would actually land in that moderate range. But, again, that's we're not there. We're just prognosticating. We're just kinda having fun
• 37:40
  Scott Stephens: and Simulation.
• 37:41
  Mike Brasher: And this is but this does give you an idea based on the nature of our conversation how how dry we think think things are, what we're saying might happen with regard to b pop numbers. We get close to restrictive would be one of those rare occasions where we actually land in a moderate. Yeah. Yeah. So and I don't think I don't think we're saying anything that the educated hunter, attentive hunter isn't already thinking, and all of our managers are thinking is that we might be we might be pretty close to one of these other season structures.
• 38:16
  Steve Adair: Yeah. The probability is increasing.
• 38:18
  Mike Brasher: That's right.
• 38:18
  Steve Adair: Yeah.
• 38:19
  Mike Brasher: We're not we're not letting any kind of cat out of the bag on on that from standpoint.
• 38:22
  Scott Stephens: That's not top secret information,
• 38:24
  Mike Brasher: you're thinking? Top secret. Yeah. Not top secret, but but we will know for sure here in about a month and a half what those numbers are and how they came in and what that might mean going forward. So we'll we'll
• 38:36
  Scott Stephens: Can I ask another hypothetical?
• 38:37
  Mike Brasher: Yep. Are you going to pintails? Pintails. Oh my gosh.
• 38:41
  Steve Adair: Oh gosh. Do we have another hour?
• 38:43
  Mike Brasher: I don't know. I think I
• 38:44
  Scott Stephens: have No. No. No. This is simple. This is simple.
• 38:46
  I guess my question is, pintails, we were at 1,975,000 pintails last year. And we know when conditions set up like this, they the what what do we call it? The median Latitude. Of their of their settling tends to move north. Right?
• 39:07
  So just like we described, we it the transects are less dense as they move north. We don't count them as well as when they settle in the prairies. All those things happen. So maybe I won't make up a number. Maybe I will say, you know, what what is the number, Mike?
• 39:25
  We were we are set to go to a new pintail regulation with three pintails, which I
• 39:29
  Steve Adair: think makes
• 39:30
  Scott Stephens: a lot of sense, and the folks who have done those models have done a good job and are the smartest people I know, and and I think this is a good move from a science and waterfowl management standpoint. But what is the threshold? If pintail numbers drop below what, then that changes, and we may not be we may not have the regs we thought we were gonna have.
• 39:51
  Mike Brasher: Well, that last part, I'll I'll I'll edit a little bit for you. I mean Sure. Nothing that have no data that's gonna come out here in the next few weeks or months is gonna change the regulations that we are gonna have for the 2526 season. Right?
• 40:04
  Steve Adair: Right. But
• 40:05
  Mike Brasher: for the following year The following year.
• 40:07
  Steve Adair: What Yeah.
• 40:08
  Scott Stephens: That's where I'm headed.
• 40:09
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. What might it be? But good good You know, we have less this is a cop out, but we have we don't have any experience with with how this thing is gonna move from one year to the next. So penthouse last year, 1.975. If they stayed at the same mean latitude, and again, this matrix here is probably gonna change a little bit too.
• 40:31
  I guess I don't know that for certain how this one is gonna operate, but I think it probably will because this thing is optimized every year. It does adapt to new knowledge, so it would have to fall to 1.6 to get to two pintails, and then 1.5 would drop it to one pintail for the following year if they stayed at the same mean latitude. Now, here's the thing that people will find confusing is that as you increase that mean settling latitude, you would actually have to drop farther to get into a restrictive season. The reason is the farther north they are, the less well those areas are surveyed, and they know from a lot of data is that when these birds settle farther north, there is a larger percentage of them that are unsurveyed. Right.
• 41:24
  So that's so if you're thinking about a correction factor for birds that aren't surveyed, the farther north they settle, the larger that correction factor would would be. That's the simplest way to think about it. Yep.
• 41:34
  Scott Stephens: So so what is the number in the current matrix, all the caveats you offered for it to drop to two?
• 41:41
  Mike Brasher: Well, if they stayed at the same mean settling latitude, it would have to drop to 1.6 to get to a two bird limit, and then 1.5 to get to a one bird limit.
• 41:54
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Well, here here's what I would say is my prognostication. The mean latitude will shift further north, I predict. But I remember it.
• 42:02
  Mike Brasher: They overflew they overflew last year too.
• 42:05
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. I know. But but it's worse this year. Okay. And I don't think it's like I would not be surprised if pintail numbers came in at 1.6 or 1.5.
• 42:15
  Like, that would not blow me away at all.
• 42:18
  Steve Adair: Okay. Yeah. Okay.
• 42:19
  Scott Stephens: But like you said, lots of caveats. We're just telling stories now. But
• 42:24
  Mike Brasher: I'm gonna stay away from the pintail prognostication just because I'm
• 42:28
  Scott Stephens: You scared?
• 42:29
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. A little bit.
• 42:31
  Steve Adair: So so let let's let's talk about pintails just for fun for a little bit. So, you know, we we talk about other ducks when they overfly the prairies and they go to the Boreal that they're typically not as productive, right, because the soils aren't as rich, and you got a shorter time frame to nest, but Production of invertebrates. Yeah. But I think then some of the data out of Alaska suggests that those pintails are as productive as prairie birds, and we do know pintails are not you know, they're not persistent re nesters, so that Mhmm. That narrower window, you know, up north doesn't impact them like it does mallards that might re nest five or six times, but but that's kind of an interesting dynamic in this with pintails, you know, that maybe further north doesn't affect reproduction as big as it does with other ducks, but I don't know.
• 43:21
  Am I just making that up or
• 43:23
  Scott Stephens: No. But but I think I think what you said, like, Alaska is a big state. Right? Yeah. And only a portion of that is really boreal habitat.
• 43:32
  So
• 43:33
  Steve Adair: Yeah.
• 43:33
  Scott Stephens: There are a lot of pintails that breed, you know, like I know because we've been working with our Western Asian colleagues, we're being getting more focused on Alaska and trying to be more engaged there. You know, there are a lot of pintails that nest on the North Slope. Yeah. A lot of pintails. Yeah.
• 43:49
  And that that is not boreal. That's like tundra habitat.
• 43:52
  Steve Adair: And those big river deltas too,
• 43:54
  Scott Stephens: like And and big river deltas, YK Delta, you know Yeah. Yukon Flats. Yeah. You know, places like that. So I think all of the things that you laid out, Steve, for boreal habitat is generally true, and there are some that settle in boreal habitat in Alaska.
• 44:12
  There are definitely pintails that settle in boreal habitat across, you know, the Western Canadian Boreal. But especially in Alaska, you know, there's a bunch of other places that are not boreal habitat Yeah.
• 44:23
  Steve Adair: Great point.
• 44:23
  Scott Stephens: That they settle. Now the interesting thing as we've been looking more at Alaska, the population trends for pintails and really all the ducks in Alaska is not great either. It's like they have they had peaked, you know, kind of in the early two thousands, and now those populations have continued to decline. And, you know, we've we've been speculating about what may be driving that. We know Alaska has warmed much more than any other place in North America, and that may have been beneficial for birds for a while, and it may not be as beneficial now.
• 44:58
  That warming may impact, you know, blooms of aquatic insects and other chemical features in the wetlands that may have been a positive thing for a while, but now we've crossed that threshold and it is no longer. So Yeah. That's know, there are concerning trends for populations of ducks in places like Alaska.
• 45:15
  Mike Brasher: Ecology is complicated, isn't it? It is. Multifaceted.
• 45:19
  Scott Stephens: It is.
• 45:19
  Mike Brasher: A lot of interactions happen at big scales, small scales. Yep.
• 45:23
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. The answer is usually, it depends.
• 45:25
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. For sure. For sure. Well, this has been an awesome discussion. Doctor Adair, you're pretty good at this.
• 45:32
  Steve Adair: It's fun to be here. We gotta
• 45:33
  Scott Stephens: get you in here more often. Let's not go crazy here. Don't get
• 45:37
  Steve Adair: for letting
• 45:37
  Scott Stephens: me in.
• 45:38
  Steve Adair: Much. Usually, he's got a sign hanging on the door, you know, busy, don't disturb, I can't come in.
• 45:43
  Mike Brasher: It has been great to have you in studio, and and, of course, doctor Stevens, there's always a wealth of knowledge and and a fair bit fair bit of entertainment as well.
• 45:54
  Scott Stephens: So Mostly entertainment.
• 45:55
  Mike Brasher: That's right. We are not gonna have time to preview the hunt that y'all have coming up. I'm just gonna let folks know that you know. Have a meeting. I have a meeting here in one minute.
• 46:04
  Scott Stephens: Okay. But wait. We at least have to say we're gonna be in one of the coolest places. We're gonna be in the middle of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• 46:11
  Mike Brasher: Okay.
• 46:12
  Scott Stephens: The largest national wildlife refuge in the refuge system.
• 46:15
  Steve Adair: Yep.
• 46:16
  Scott Stephens: What what is the millions of acres, Steve?
• 46:18
  Mike Brasher: You're gonna be A lot. Chasing caribou Yeah. Fish, We're multi day, like, week and a half.
• 46:25
  Scott Stephens: Ten day float down a river. Yeah.
• 46:27
  Mike Brasher: Which river? Ivashack. Ivashack.
• 46:30
  Scott Stephens: Yeah. Yikes. Ivashack.
• 46:31
  Mike Brasher: Ivashack. Ivashack. That's with our good friend, doctor Mark Lindbergh,
• 46:36
  Scott Stephens: and Yeah.
• 46:36
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. Hopefully, y'all gonna bring back some caribou and
• 46:39
  Scott Stephens: and Some dolly dolly varden.
• 46:41
  Mike Brasher: Dolly varden.
• 46:42
  Steve Adair: Catch a few big grayling, and that ought be quite
• 46:45
  Scott Stephens: an event. So the refuge, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 19,600,000 acres in size.
• 46:51
  Steve Adair: Wow. Wow. That's a big And
• 46:52
  Scott Stephens: it's also the northernmost national wildlife refuge. So
• 46:57
  Mike Brasher: Cool. I got cool things to come. I'm to send a text to the person I'm supposed to be meeting with here and tell them I'm I'm late. Let's see here. Alright.
• 47:05
  K. We're good?
• 47:06
  Steve Adair: Alright. We're good. Yeah.
• 47:07
  Mike Brasher: Well, we will we look forward to getting the two of you back together. Hopefully, all three of us can be here in person. We could even do some photos or something like that or do trip. I know that would be super cool. We'll look for a time to do that, and and we'll we'll be able to reflect on on who was closest to the correct answer and figure out
• 47:27
  Steve Adair: what what we tell the fault.
• 47:28
  Mike Brasher: I don't know.
• 47:28
  Steve Adair: You win you win a bottle of whiskey
• 47:30
  Mike Brasher: right here. We got it for you. Win a of Bird Dog blackberry flavored whiskey.
• 47:37
  Scott Stephens: Okay. You're very excited.
• 47:39
  Mike Brasher: I don't think you'd have to convince Steve or I necessarily. I don't I don't know if we yeah. I think we'd do that either way. Now you, on the other hand, Stevens, if you lose yeah. I don't know.
• 47:50
  We'll figure all that out.
• 47:51
  Scott Stephens: I might be looking for some some more YETI stuff or something.
• 47:56
  Steve Adair: There you go.
• 47:56
  Scott Stephens: Okay. Not not because I'm sure Bird Dog is awesome, but I'm just not a whiskey guy.
• 48:00
  Steve Adair: Yeah. That's right. That's right.
• 48:01
  Mike Brasher: We should clarify. Okay. Doctor Steve Adair, doctor Scott Stevens, thank you all so much for being here. It's been great. Thanks to Rachel, thanks to you for doing all the great production work that you are doing here, and thanks to our listeners for spending your time with us, for always being interested in waterfowl, what's happening with their populations, their habitat.
• 48:21
  And we thank you for supporting Ducks Unlimited and waterfowl conservation and science overall. Y'all have a great day, folks.
• 48:29
  VO: Thank you for listening to the DU podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 48:51
  Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay tuned to the Ducks.