Conservation

The "free-flighted release" of captive-reared mallards has been a contentious issue for some time. Free-flighted release means the release of mallards into the wild in a flight-conditioned state to be hunted later over decoys. This practice differs from a "tower shoot," in which birds are released from a tower to be shot at by lined-up gunners. Most common in the Atlantic Flyway, free-flighted releases have introduced millions of mallards into the wild during the past few decades.
But a special report from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) poses... Read More »



a direct challenge to this practice. Entitled Review of Captive-Reared Mallard Regulations on Shooting Preserves (hereinafter "CRM Report"), the report was initially opened for public comment in 2003 and still has not led to any formal action.
Among the CRM Report's recommendations is a call to ban the free-flighted release of captive-reared mallards. Only tower shoots would be permitted, as the USF&WS deems tower shoots to be more controllable than free-flighted releases. Consequently, some of the Atlantic Flyway's most successful hunting clubs could find themselves divided from the USF&WS by the proverbial line in the sand. To understand how both sides got here, some historical background may be helpful.

Looking Back
Gamekeeping is a centuries-old practice, and the more-well-to-do colonists brought it to America from Europe. However, the application of this practice to North American waterfowl is relatively new. American sportsmen have released captive-reared ducks to augment wild populations only since the 1930s. By that time a combination of drought and over-harvest had devastated the continent's waterfowl. The organization that later would be called Ducks Unlimited at one time intended to release captive-reared mallards to restore the Mississippi Flyway population. Clearly, that organization eventually took a different path.
Following the elimination of commercial hunting in 1918, duck populations recovered quickly, especially during the 1940s. However, by 1960 it became obvious that wild populations could not support the demand for hunting, especially along the Eastern Seaboard where human populations are high. So beginning in the 1960s many state wildlife agencies in the Atlantic Flyway were running their own captive-reared mallard-release programs. Maryland, for example, even sold a special duck stamp to pay for its program.
Some of these state-run programs were poorly executed and notoriously unsuccessful. They also were a source of competition and jealousy between states. Consequently, political pressure led to their discontinuance, but the last of the state-sponsored programs did not disappear until the 1990s.
During the 1980s a number of private hunting preserves and sportsmen's groups around the country began their own captive-reared mallard-release programs. Motivations varied among them. Some saw captive-reared releases as a way to restore wild populations; others merely wanted birds to hunt. Still others were motivated by a combination of both.
Today two organizations remain especially noteworthy for their promotion of captive-mallard releases: the Grand National Waterfowl Association (410-228-0160), in Dorchester County, Maryland, and the North Carolina Waterfowl Association, (704-552-0906, www.ncwaterfowl.org), in Charlotte, North Carolina.
If success is measured by the survival of released birds, the private programs have been far more successful than some of the old state programs. Indeed, it is precisely the alleged survival rate of these releases that worries the USF&WS.

USF&WS Concerns
The CRM Report details three "potential areas of conflict" between captive-reared mallards and wild mallards.
Disease Transmission: USF&WS concerns about disease transmission center on duck virus enteritis, a form of the herpes virus more commonly known as "duck plague." Since it was first found among commercial duck growers in 1967, duck plague has been confirmed in captive and feral waterfowl in 20 states and four Canadian provinces. The report cites three separate lethal incidents of duck plague in New York and South Dakota that killed a total of about 44,000 wild ducks.
Genetic Introgression: A second concern is the effect of hybridization between captive and wild mallards. Paul Padding, Atlantic Flyway Representative for the USF&WS, believes captive-reared mallards already have caused a negative effect on mallard genetics in that flyway that has been manifested in downgraded plumage.
"I ran the wing-collection surveys for 15 years," Padding said, "and there is an obvious difference in the wing plumage between Atlantic Flyway birds and those from other flyways. The Atlantic birds simply look scruffier."
Additionally, captive-reared mallards may adversely affect the gene pools of black ducks and mottled ducks. According to the CRM Report, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission already has banned the free-flighted release of captive-reared mallards in order to safeguard the future of the mottled duck as a distinct species.
Management Interference: Finally, captive-reared mallards may interfere with monitoring efforts that provide the basis for migratory-bird management decisions. With tens of thousands of captive-reared mallards released every year in the Atlantic Flyway alone, it becomes difficult to estimate the number of truly wild birds on a marsh during a fly-over survey. Such surveys are important for recognizing trends in wild duck populations and responding with appropriate regulations.
Moreover, banding of captive-reared mallards at shooting preserves diminishes the effectiveness of federal banding efforts in two ways. First, the sheer abundance of similar-looking bands decreases the novelty of shooting a banded bird. Consequently, hunters become less enthusiastic about bands in general and therefore are less likely to bother reporting a federal band. Second, among those who do report bands, many mistakenly report non-federal bands. Federal staff members exhaust many fruitless hours handling phone calls for these non-federal bands. Some preserve bands are so similar in appearance and numbering to federal bands as to cause genuine confusion. Preserves are required by law to use seamless bands (federal bands have a seam), but some ignore the law.
For the above reasons, it comes as no shock that many federal and state officials who manage migratory waterfowl want to see tighter control of captive-reared mallard releases. The CRM Report includes the results of a poll of state wildlife agencies from all four flyways. Of the 49 responses, 36 were in favor of more-restrictive regulations controlling such releases. (Of the 314 licensed shooting preserves conducting such releases, 202 [64 percent] are located in the Atlantic Flyway. Another 69 [22 percent] are in the Mississippi Flyway. Western regions see comparatively few releases.)

Responses to USF&WS Concerns
Nevertheless, there is another side to this debate, and it is voiced not merely by good ol' boys raising ducks in clapboard henhouses. In my research on this topic, the "Dr." prefix appeared almost as ubiquitous among supporters of captive-reared mallard programs as among opponents. Not surprisingly, then, one can find some articulate responses to USF&WS concerns.
Disease Transmission: Almost all of the 44,000 ducks killed by duck plague since its discovery were killed in a single incident in South Dakota in 1973. After that massive outbreak, which killed 42,500 ducks, thousands of infected survivors dispersed to more than two dozen states in all four flyways. Despite this widespread dispersion of infected birds, no further outbreak of duck plague occurred in North America until a small incident in New York in 1994 involving 1,200 birds. An additional small outbreak, also in New York, brings the estimated total to 44,000. These are the only known outbreaks of duck plague in this country, despite the release of more than 1.1 million captive-reared mallards in Dorchester County, Maryland, alone from 1981 to 1993. Even the South Dakota die-off, though seemingly large, amounted to only 0.1 percent of the continental waterfowl population's annual mortality.
Genetic introgression: Proponents of captive-reared mallard releases do not deny that some interbreeding with wild mallards and black ducks occurs. But they have their own scientific data to show that such breeding is not terribly common. They cite telemetry studies that contradict the USF&WS assertion that captive-reared mallards survive long and range far in the wild. Their telemetry studies show captive-reared mallards rarely move more than a few miles during the six months after release, during which time their mortality approaches 80 percent. Moreover, their pairing studies indicate that captive-reared mallards-the rare ones that do survive until spring-usually mate preferentially with other captive-reared mallards.
Recall now the claim by a USF&WS official that captive-reared mallards have caused a visible difference in Atlantic Flyway mallard plumage. This suggestion would seem to be contradicted by the CRM Report itself, which states: "Because there is no reliable technique to distinguish captive-reared mallards from wild mallards based on wings... at least some captive-reared mallards from shooting preserves are reported in the total harvest estimate... Although wings of captive-reared mallards can sometimes be distinguished from those of wild mallards, these judgments are subjective and inconsistent."
Granted, there may be differences between Atlantic Flyway mallards and those from elsewhere, but do these differences result directly from interbreeding with captive-reared mallards? Many captive-reared mallards released in the Atlantic Flyway are actually only two generations removed from wild Mississippi Flyway mallards. They are the "grand-ducklings" of captive hens and wild drakes that commingled at a hatchery in Wisconsin. If these birds were breeding with wild Atlantic mallards on a large scale, would they not exert an influence toward greater similarity with non-Atlantic mallards?
Management Interference: The CRM Report records estimates for both releases and harvests of captive-reared mallards. For example, the report states that in 2001 there were 83,223 free-flighted mallards released in the Atlantic Flyway, of which 33,431 were harvested on shooting preserves. (Presumably that leaves 49,792 escapees.) In reporting such exact figures, doesn't the USF&WS call into question its allegation that captive-reared birds create profound mathematical interference in wild-bird counts? Granted, the mathematics of wildlife biology is never that easy, and there is no doubt some interference is caused by released birds. But how big is the problem, really, when the Atlantic Flyway fall flight numbers more than 800,000 wild mallards?

Conclusions
After poring over dozens of pages of material from both sides of this debate and trying hard to evaluate everything with a fair and balanced perspective, I've drawn a few conclusions that may be erroneous but, I hope, not completely ignorant.
First, the USF&WS seems to be voicing concerns with an urgency that is somewhat disproportionate to the actual threat-if any-represented by captive-reared mallard releases. The CRM Report concludes: "The threat of disease transmission remains the primary concern among nearly all State wildlife agencies." And yet the report's own meager evidence for such a threat presents anything but an open-and-shut case.
Second, preserve operators and others who release captive-reared mallards ought to be more sensitive to the havoc their banding methods may create with established federal conventions. They should be willing to change their methods and materials, if necessary, to make the work of waterfowl biologists less frustrating.
Personally, I have no strident moral objections to the release of captive-reared game species for recreational hunting. If I were shown evidence that such releases were a serious and imminent threat to wild-bird populations, I would vehemently call for their banishment. But such evidence appears to be lacking, despite decades of releases. As long as breeding, rearing and releases are conducted with scrupulous attention to genetic quality, disease prevention and humane treatment, and as long as the hunters eat what they kill, this practice should arouse few qualms. The life and death of a preserve duck are doubtless better than the days and demise of a Tyson chicken.
If anything, I have stronger objections to the sort of tower shoots that the CRM Report would require. At least a free-flighted release grants the bird more of an opportunity for escape. In fact, some breeders of captive-reared mallards have perfected the ancient art of gamekeeping to such a degree that their birds are wary like wild birds-difficult to decoy and to call within range of the gun.
And I have one more concern: I hope that hunters who are sated by ample shooting at captive-reared birds will not grow complacent or lose their desire to foster a bright future for wild waterfowl. This, and not the morality of gamekeeping, has always been my concern about shooting preserves of all types: Do they make us feel relieved of the burden of conservation?

Author's Note: For more information on free-flighted releases, contact the USF&WS, 703-358-1714; www.fws.gov/migratory birds. The entire CRM Report can be read on the Website.

Chad Mason's collection of bird hunting essays, Voices on the Wind, with a foreword by Michael McIntosh, is available from 800-685-7962; www.shootingsports man.com.