Claim: One-bird bluebill limit a threat to hunters

Fewer Minnesota duck hunters hunkered in blinds the past two seasons than anytime in nearly 20 years. -- 35,000 fewer than just eight years ago, according to state estimates. Not since the drought years of 1988 and 1989 have so few hunters fired at ducks.

Now some state wildlife officials, conservation groups and waterfowl researchers fear a new federal harvest strategy to limit hunters to just one bluebill -- scaup --this fall will prompt more duck hunters to hang up their waders out of frustration.

Effects of such a reduction could be far-reaching. Bluebills are difficult to distinguish from ring-necked ducks, one of the most harvested ducks in Minnesota. (More ringnecks are shot in Minnesota than in any other state.)

In recent years, the ringneck daily bag limit has been six, and a one-duck bluebill limit would leave hunters almost no room for error. If they shoot a bluebill and subsequently shoot another, misidentifying it as a ringneck, they would be in violation.

"How will you deal with that, especially in northern Minnesota where bluebills and ringnecks are mixed?" asked John Devney, senior vice president of Delta Waterfowl in Bismarck, N.D., which opposes the Fish and Wildlife Service's plan. Devney grew up in Minnesota hunting diver ducks such as ringnecks and bluebills.

"Are we going to put hunters at such a disadvantage they'll say, 'The hell with it, I'm going deer hunting instead'?" Devney asked.

Conservation groups and state wildlife agencies are trying to recruit waterfowl hunters, not discourage them by setting them up for failure, he said.

States concerned, too

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources -- as well as state agencies in North and South Dakota and Louisiana -- also opposes the new strategy. Minnesota wants to retain the two-duck bluebill limit.

"A one-bird [bluebill] bag limit is a big concern," said Steve Cordts, DNR waterfowl specialist. "Distinguishing bluebills from ringnecks is a huge problem."

Cordts said he was duck hunting a couple years ago when scores of ringnecks landed in his decoys. "I finally picked out a drake ringneck flying right at me, about 10 yards out, and shot. It turned out to be a drake bluebill. It was perfectly legal, but I get paid to ID ducks. I hunt them a lot and I'm extremely good at identifying them. If I can't tell the difference ..."

Cordts and Devney say they fear duck hunters who hunt bluebills, ringnecks and other divers such as canvasbacks and redheads might give up in frustration.

"To me, that's the worst thing that could happen," Cordts said.

Controversial new model

The spring breeding population of scaup reached a record high of almost 8 million birds in 1972. But by 2006, the population reached an all-time low of 3.2 million. Last year, the population increased to 3.4 million, and this spring the estimate was 3.7 million, still below the long-term average.

Researchers have been trying to determine the reason for the decline, and they suspect changes to habitat and food availability might be affecting reproduction.

Hunting is not believed to be a cause. Nationwide, hunters shot about 280,000 scaup in 2006 (and 656,000 ringnecks). And the Fish and Wildlife Service agrees hunting has not been linked to the decline.

"But the service is committed to ensuring that harvest levels remain commensurate with the ability of the declining population to sustain harvest," the agency said in a statement.

Devney and others argue the scaup population has increased the past two years and seems to have stabilized in the 3 million to 4 million range.

The heart of the dispute is the new scaup harvest strategy and model the Fish and Wildlife Service adopted last month. That model, several years in the making, now will be used to set scaup season length and bag limits.

Under it, the one-duck bag and a 60-day season this fall are distinct possibilities, said Cordts. But the Fish and Wildlife Service also could allow a 45-day season with a two-bird bag. If the bluebill population falls below 2.75 million, a closed season is likely.

The accuracy of the model has come under fire by wildlife managers and waterfowl researchers alike. They say there are flaws.

Mark Koneff, chief of the service's Branch of Population and Habitat Assessment, defended the model and said it has been refined and improved.

"We feel we've included all the necessary elements to predict scaup population dynamics in a way that's useful for harvest management decision-making."

Decision coming soon

The issue has sparked one of the hottest waterfowl debates in years among researchers, conservationists and wildlife professionals. And it's coming to a head. A series of flyway meetings with state and federal officials beginning this week will culminate with a decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service by early August.

That's when the federal agency will set season length and bag limits. Cordts expects another 60-day duck hunting season in Minnesota.

But he and others say its almost a foregone conclusion the scaup bag limit will be reduced.

For diver duck hunters, it could be a double-whammy. The breeding population of canvasback ducks this spring dropped from 865,000 to 489,000, which could prompt the Fish and Wildlife Service to close the season. (Last season in Minnesota hunters were allowed two canvasbacks in their daily bag.)

But that decline, too, is controversial. Only 92,000 canvasbacks were harvested nationwide in 2006. How could the population change so dramatically in one year?

"It couldn't," said Al Afton, waterfowl researcher at Louisiana State University and a former Minnesota DNR employee. "It has to be a sampling problem."

Said Koneff: "It could be a pure sampling variation. It's quite possible over the past two years we had an overestimate last year and an underestimate this year."

He said the variation won't go unnoticed by members of the Service Regulations Committee, which recommends regulations to the Fish and Wildlife Service director.