Starting in 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife management agencies will set duck seasons months earlier than usual.
Currently, the USFWS issues frameworks for the late migratory bird seasons in June after it completes the May pond counts and breeding bird indices. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's wildlife management staff present the late migratory bird seasons to the commission in July, and the commission votes on the proposals in August.
Next year, the USFWS will set the seasons in April. Luke Naylor, the AGFC's waterfowl biologist, said the change reflects the idea that long term data is a more reliable indication of waterfowl populations than current year data.
"They'll be using last year's data, but long-term information," Naylor said. "Over time, the current year's data is inconsequential."
The change isn't as dramatic as it seems. Canada has long set seasons for two-year periods in October.
It also acknowledges the fact that hunting does not significantly affect waterfowl populations. They rise and fall according to abundance of habitat and habitat conditions.
"Harvest regulations do not drive waterfowl populations," Naylor said.
That's one reason why the adaptive harvest management matrix that the USFWS uses to prescribe seasons and limits changes so often. If earlier matrices were still in use, we would have had restrictive, 30-day seasons 39 percent of the time over the past 21 years, Naylor said. We would have had moderate 45-day seasons nearly 10 percent of the time. Instead, we have had 21 consecutive liberal frameworks with 60-day seasons and daily bag limits of six ducks.
"We're trying to influence duck harvest rates with regulations, but it doesn't affect duck populations," Naylor said.
That brings to mind the ongoing drama over spinning wing decoys at Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area and Dave Donaldson Black River WMA. If hunting doesn't significantly affect duck populations, then by extension duck hunting tools don't affect them either.
The effectiveness of the devices is irrelevant. The commission banned decoys that simulate wing motion at the two WMAs because many hunters complained that the devices negatively affect the hunting experience. Many hunters believe they had to use them in order to compete with other hunters that use them in the tight quarters of heavily pressured public areas.
If they're disallowed, the commission believes that nobody will mind, as suggested by recent studies in Michigan and Minnesota.
The commission wisely avoided ethical arguments to justify the ban. That sort of rhetoric only inflames and divides hunters. Instead, the commission argument that it has the right to create a satisfactory hunting environment for the most users on its areas.
Amid all these discussions, the commission heard an interesting proposal about boating access at Bayou Meto WMA from Roger Milligan, George Cochran and Chris Lacey. Milligan was the longtime regional wildlife supervisor in southeast Arkansas, which includes Bayou Meto WMA. Cochran is a retired professional angler who hunts Bayou Meto every day the season is open, and Lacey is an attorney and Bayou Meto devotee.
They asked the commission to consider a regulation that prohibits boats from leaving established boat lanes. You'd have to tie it up at the edge of the woods and walk to your hole.
That, Milligan said, would eliminate most of the unsafe boat driving on the area, as well as a lot of hole jumping and other unsportsmanlike conduct that occurs at the area.
It would also benefit the ducks that use the area, Milligan said. He explained that driving boats through the woods disturbs ducks and potentially drives them off the area, which defeats the WMA's function of providing a rest area for ducks.
Hole-jumping occurs every day when unscrupulous hunters hear a lot of shooting in nearby holes. When that party leaves, the other party marks that hole with a GPS and spends the rest of the morning running routes to that hole so that they can beat everyone else there the next morning, Milligan said.
The commission declined to entertain that suggestion because they said it would unfairly burden the elderly, the very young and disabled hunters that can't walk far.
A compromise solution would be for the commission to create at least one new walk-in only hunting area on a different portion of Bayou Meto. That would eliminate boat traffic and reduce congestion at the Government Cypress walk-in only area.
Sports on 08/30/2015