waterfowl hunting

Duck activity patterns have anecdotally been associated with weather for thousands of years. However, these relationships have rarely been tested scientifically. We hypothesized that characteristics of wintering ducks harvested by hunters would be associated with daily weather conditions (precipitation, temperature, and wind speed), and specifically, that smaller-bodied ducks and those with poor body condition would be harvested less frequently in adverse weather conditions relative to 30-year daily normals. We evaluated these hypotheses using beta regression modeling and general...

Knowledge of the relationship between waterfowl hunters and harvest levels may better inform harvest management decisions. We examined frequency of different sizes of daily harvests among duck hunters, and hunters' contributions to duck harvest in the Central Flyway from 1975-1984, 1988-1993, and 2002-2011 using the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Parts Collection Survey. We stratified hunters sampled by the Parts Collection Survey into 10 equal hunter groups based on seasonal harvest. Hunter groups were ranked from 1 to 10, with hunter group 1 representing hunters with the lowest...