Has Hot Cropping Ruined Duck Hunting? Here’s What the Data and Biologists Say About How Flooded Corn Affects Waterfowl Migration

Final week Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana waded right into a heated waterfowl debate when he wrote a letter asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to analyze the observe of flooding standing crops within the Mississippi Flyway. The Republican lawmaker says the “unsportsmanlike” observe of “unlawful baiting” has “performed a big function within the decline of waterfowl migration to Louisiana.”

The longstanding observe of flooding standing crops to create meals and shelter for geese — and prime spots for duck hunters — has more and more drawn the ire of some hunters. These opposed are primarily Southern hunters who say landowners in states like Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee who flood unharvested corn to carry extra geese of their space have disrupted the migration. In different phrases, they suppose non-public landowners are short-stopping mallards and stopping them from making their full migration southward. 

The observe, teams like Flyway Federation declare, is so out of hand that it’s a key cause states like Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi are experiencing sluggish duck seasons and low harvests. 

“In contrast to rice, which requires flooding as a part of its pure progress cycle, there isn’t any agronomical justification for flooding corn,” writes Kennedy in his Jan. 6 letter to USFWS director Brian Nesvik. “Put merely, the intentional flooding of standing crops has enabled an unsportsmanlike observe, weakened long-standing protections for migratory birds, and adversely impacted waterfowl populations in Louisiana.”

It’s unlawful to hunt geese over bait underneath the Migratory Fowl Treaty Act. Those same federal regs, nevertheless, clearly enable looking in flooded standing crops. In his letter, Kennedy repeats the idea amongst some waterfowlers {that a} revision to the Migratory Fowl Treaty Act within the late 90s “eliminated the enforcement mechanism that beforehand restricted the expansion of looking over deliberately flooded standing crops, significantly corn.” 

This declare is fake, in line with coverage consultants. Searching waterfowl in flooded standing crops has been authorized and extensively practiced with out quotation for the higher a part of a century. Capturing geese and geese in “flooding standing crops” has been explicitly authorized since at least 1973.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Reform Act of 1998 as a substitute eliminated the “strict legal responsibility commonplace” that made it tougher to quote hunters who didn’t know they have been looking baited areas and introduced harsher punishments for intentionally putting bait. The revision aimed, partially, to crack down on landowners and outfitters who have been, as an example, dumping corn piles with out their company or shoppers’ information. (You’ll be able to read more about the problems that led to the reform here.) In different phrases, the legislation reaffirmed that putting and scattering bait is illegitimate. 

Kennedy additionally hyperlinks Louisiana’s low mallard harvest on to flooded corn.

“Mallard harvest within the state of Louisiana dropped 95% from 1999-2021, greater than every other state within the Mississippi Flyway. In Missouri, the mallard depend rose from 280,000 in 1999 to 550,000 in 2016,” he writes. “[T]he information signifies that mallards are concentrating and stopping in areas the place the guide flooding of corn has develop into widespread.”

Whereas mallard harvest has definitely declined in Louisiana, Kennedy’s stats are cherry picked. The USFWS report he cites exhibits that:

• The full nationwide drop in mallard harvest throughout all 4 flyways declined 65 p.c from 1999 to 2022.
• The mallard harvest was down 69 p.c throughout the complete Mississippi Flyway from 1999 to 2022.
• Mallard harvests declined in each single state throughout the Mississippi Flyway — together with 46 p.c in Missouri — from 1999 to 2022.
• The mid-winter mallard depend in Missouri really fell from about 281,000 to 169,971 from 1999 to 2023. Its long-term common stays beneath Louisiana’s, although its counts are roughly trending up whereas Louisiana’s are trending down.
• Louisiana has the very best general duck harvest of any state within the Mississippi Flyway, with a long-term common of 1.27 million geese from 1999 to 2022. Arkansas is second, with 1.16 million. Missouri ranks fifth, with 386,057 geese harvested. That’s 30 p.c of Louisiana’s duck harvest.

Kennedy particularly referred to as on the USFWS to “provoke a proper research to judge the affect of flooded corn on migratory waterfowl habits, wintering distributions, and related financial outcomes within the Mississippi Flyway.” 

The Flyway Federation has been coordinating with Kennedy on the problem for six months to a yr. 

“We’ve been sharing data [with Sen. Kennedy] and answering questions as a result of the opposite conservation organizations don’t need to go down this street,” says Flyway Federation’s managing director, Duke Lowrie. “Our intentions are to not change any main [waterfowl] conservation organizations. Our aim is to reform them.”

Flyway Federation hopes the federal authorities will outlaw “the intentional flooding of standing agricultural crops for the only function of looking and attracting migratory waterfowl.” The group compares massive waterfowl outfitters to modern-day market hunters for “commercializing the useful resource” within the identify of non-public revenue.

“We don’t need to wade into whether or not or not local weather change is actual,” says co-chairman J.D. Liles. However banning hunters from taking pictures geese in flooded corn, says Bourg, “is the one factor we will change to make an impact.”

A USFWS spokesperson informed Outside Life the company doesn’t touch upon correspondence. The company did seem to troll Kennedy’s letter, nevertheless, when it posted an inverted “food pyramid for waterfowl” Monday. USFWS ranked grains like corn properly beneath native forage, indicating that corn doesn’t play the most important function in a duck’s weight loss program. The pyramid was topped with a pair of mallards.

The subject of scorching cropping arose throughout a listening to on looking and fishing entry on the U.S. Home of Representatives on Tuesday, when Arkansas consultant Bruce Westerman (R) questioned Delta Waterfowl CEO Jason Tharpe.

“There’s been some latest criticism about [private] land homeowners doing administration practices on their land. The general public sees this as they’re hoarding all of the geese onto their property,” Westerman requested. “Are you able to converse to the advantages of personal administration and the way that’s perhaps a misguided assumption?”

“We completely perceive and really feel for … people having these sorts of experiences,” Tharpe replied. “It might be argued at this level that we’re really depending on non-public land homeowners to offer meals and vitality [for ducks]. There’s a whole lot of dialog now about how environment friendly farmers are at getting the yield out of the sector and what’s really out there to these waterfowl. Whereas you take a look at non-public golf equipment which might be managed, you’re going to see pristine habitat with a number of meals availability.”

Westerman concluded by suggesting public lands even be afforded the identical sort of habitat enhancement. Whereas Nesvik testified on the listening to as properly, he was not requested to touch upon the problem.

What the Duck Biologists Say

The talk over scorching cropping is, at its core, a tug of battle over mallards. Mallards are the first duck that feeds on grain, and mallards have been the main target of Kennedy’s letter to the USFWS. And certainly, the winter migration of mallards is shifting northward. Analysis bears this out, together with one extensive band recovery analysis that confirmed mallard and pintails have been shifting north by 100 to a number of hundred kilometers (about 62 miles to 120-plus miles) in December and January.

“Mallards usually are not migrating as far south as they used to,” says Bradley Cohen, the affiliate professor of wildlife ecology and administration behind the Cohen Wildlife Lab in western Tennessee. “The data plays that out fairly clearly now. The blame is so multi-factorial.”

These components that have an effect on migration embrace sustained extreme winter climate, high quality habitat and water, out there meals, and looking strain, amongst others. All of those work together to have an effect on migration. (Whereas Cohen’s space of research is within the Mississippi Flyway, it’s price noting that mallard migrations are additionally shifting northward globally, including in places like Europe.)

“In a world the place we took corn off the panorama … in all probability nothing can be totally different [in terms of migration] if we don’t have extra extreme climate. It simply doesn’t take a lot vitality for a mallard to outlive a gentle winter,” says Cohen. “The best way mallards are type of wired, there’s no cause for them to go [south] even with the corn off the panorama. [Banning it] shouldn’t be a silver bullet.”

One cause is because of inconsistent scorching cropping within the Mississippi Flyway. Whereas flooded standing corn may appear prefer it’s in all places as a result of it’s throughout social media, that’s not really the case.

“The quantity of flooded corn on the panorama is patchy,” Cohen says. “Some areas have much more vitality than mallards would wish, and a few areas don’t have sufficient vitality. Some locations have actually high-quality habitat and a few locations don’t.”

Ethan Dittmer is a duck hunter and PhD pupil at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who earned his grasp’s diploma finding out mallards in southeast Arkansas and is at the moment monitoring mallards in southeast Kansas. He reiterates that greenheads are hardy geese that require extreme cold-weather occasions to push them south.

“I don’t see there being appreciable proof that corn is short-stopping geese,” says Dittmer. “The overwhelming majority of educational analysis exhibits, for mallards, it’s climate.”

“Nearly all of mallards solely go so far as they should,” says Paul Hyperlink, a waterfowl biologist and the analysis program supervisor at Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana. “There’s a subpopulation of mallards that exhibits up down right here early and stays late. These are nonetheless coming. Many of the birds which might be essential to the Louisiana duck hunter harvest are photoperiod migrators [such as teal]. They select to come back right here, they aren’t ready and being pressured down right here [by weather]. Actually nothing is pressured to be right here proper now.”

Flooded Corn Is Necessary for Geese

The best way geese use standing flooded crops isn’t as properly studied, although a number of researchers have already collected information factors that might be analyzed to reply a few of these questions. Cohen has studied how mallards relate to unharvested and flooded standing crops in Western Tennessee. 

In a single research, researchers discovered that ducks hit unpressured flooded corn harder than hunted corn on private and non-private land. The research discovered that “sanctuary fields have been devoid of corn by the tip of January, whereas 55 p.c of public and 50 p.c of privately hunted fields nonetheless had corn remaining on March 15, by which period most geese had possible initiated [northern] migration.” 

In one other, Cohen and his staff checked out how a lot meals was out there to geese in unharvested crop and moist soil administration areas. 

“It’s astronomical how a lot vitality is on the market for mallards,” says Cohen. “Pintails will kinda eat corn, mallards after all, and most different geese are in all probability in it for the construction greater than the meals. With all of the corn that’s on the market, [mallards] usually are not vitality restricted.”

If flooding corn was theoretically outlawed, Cohen hypothesizes that mallards would in all probability transfer extra continuously and fly farther distances domestically. They must discover their panorama extra. There can be fewer discrete flight strains. That doesn’t essentially imply, nevertheless, that they might migrate south farther or sooner. 

“I’d additionally anticipate their physique situation may be extra depleted. They may be slower to get again north. It could or could not change their habits within the winter floor, however having good physique situation from gaining access to corn could have an effect on their timing or habits once they get to the breeding grounds. And that’s actually what issues,” says Cohen. “As a result of the sooner they get to the breeding grounds, the extra possible they’re to reach nesting. And if corn is the factor that’s mainly boosting their physique situation to get them there early, it’s serving its function.

The half-dozen biologists and waterfowl managers I spoke to for this text typically agree that moist-soil habitat (suppose smartweed, millets, invertebrates, and extra) creates one of the best providing for geese. It’s additionally good for different native critters. However in addition they say flooded crops have an essential function to play throughout migrations.

“Corn normally, whether or not it’s flooded or not, is a excessive vitality food-resource. Nevertheless it’s not a whole useful resource,” says Dittmer. “The straightforward equal can be like a human consuming bread. It’s going to provide you vitality however you may’t survive on it for days and weeks on finish. For mallards, it’s actually helpful for these chilly occasions as a result of it’s a carb. It gives fast, excessive vitality.”

That’s why, says Dittmer, corn does have a spot on the panorama as a useful gizmo for waterfowl managers. Some geese in Cohen’s analysis nonetheless select moist soil even when there’s a number of corn out there.

“I do suppose the chance and reward panorama is fairly stark proper now for a duck,” says Cohen. The concept of taking flooded corn off the panorama is “like punishing the geese to go to Louisiana. As a substitute of the carrot, we’re utilizing the stick … Louisiana habitat high quality is lowering and that’s why the mallards aren’t there. There’s simply no incentive for them to go down there.”

Louisiana Has Misplaced Meals and Habitat

The acreage used to supply rice in Louisiana has fallen by almost 40 p.c from its peak within the Seventies, in line with one LDWF waterfowl report from 2020. In the meantime, waste grain has plummeted. Within the Eighties roughly 400 kilos of rice per acre have been left within the area after harvest; that’s plummeted to about 75 kilos per acre lately.

“Loads of meals for geese was in ‘soiled’ rice farming. We plant rice months earlier now than we did  thirty, forty years in the past,” says Hyperlink, the waterfowl biologist on the state’s Rockefeller refuge. “The rice varieties mature a lot sooner so that they get harvested earlier. And the sooner they get harvested, the much less availability there’s for wintering waterfowl upon their arrival.”

Fields are drier in winter, too, because of no-till planting, with Hyperlink estimating 80 p.c fewer flooded acres within the rice-growing area of Louisiana in comparison with even 20 years in the past. Hyperlink, together with a number of different waterfowl biologists, additionally cited the rising prevalence of crawdad farming and substitute of rice with sugar cane. To guard crawfish, producers aggressively deter waterfowl which might be making an attempt to feed in stubble fields which might be flooded for crawfish — significantly in relation to snow geese and specklebellies. 

“There’s a ton of disturbance and hazing, and a whole lot of deadly management. Farmers are allowed to kill them and a whole lot of these guys are driving round taking pictures into flocks day and evening,” says Hyperlink, noting that further deterrence methods embrace pyrotechnics, flags on poles, and laser lights. “The standard and amount of the marsh has degraded severely in that very same time interval. We’ve got tons of invasive aquatics, tons of saltwater intrusion, subsidence. Every part goes in opposition to waterfowl habitat down right here.” 

However, he says, it’s not too late to attempt to reverse course.

“If we resolve we’ve had sufficient watching habitats deteriorate, it’s so simple as bringing the habitat again,” says Hyperlink. “Clearly we’ve got to do a greater job on the prairies [too], the place most of our geese hatch.”

Learn Subsequent: Where Are All the Ducks

Biologists like Hyperlink and Cohen agree: A very powerful factor for geese, together with mallards, is the quantity of water on the prairies and preventing further destruction of them. We should always focus, researchers say, on restoring habitat as a substitute of decreasing out there forage within the flyways.

Whereas that perspective may be finest for the geese, it’s little consolation to these Southern duck hunters who’re sitting underneath empty skies. As a result of with the continued development of gentle winters, including extra greenheads to the flyway doesn’t imply they’ll find yourself in Southern marshes throughout duck season.

A correction was made on Jan. 14, 2025: A earlier model of this text misstated Duke Lowrie’s final identify.