It’s bound to be a good hunting season for waterfowl; the CDFW says breeding ducks have increased by 30%. The department cites the numbers in their annual breeding population survey adding that mallards dominate as the majority of the ducks surveyed. CDFW’s Biologist Melanie Weaver contributes the jump to the good water year, saying, “Habitat conditions improved somewhat as there was more surface water encountered across the survey area than in previous years.”
The results indicated that the total number of ducks, including all species, increased by roughly 100,000 more in just one year. Despite that sharp jump, the CDFW says these numbers fall slightly below the long-term average, including in mallard populations. The department says the declines are attributed mainly to the loss of nesting habitat for ducks and drought conditions exacerbating these declines.
The survey is completed by fixed-wing aircraft, a method used since 1948. The population estimates are for those areas where most waterfowl nesting occurs in California, including wetland and agricultural areas in northeastern California, throughout the Central Valley, the Suisun Mars,h and some coastal valleys.
Most of California’s wintering duck population originating from breeding areas surveyed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in Alaska and Canada should produce results later next month.
The full Breeding Population Survey Report is available on the CDFW website.
