Fish & Wildlife’s annual breeding population and habitat survey, whic is conducted each May by USFWS and the Canadian Wildlife Service, reveals the second-highest pond count and a record 45.6 million ducks, the most since the survey was started in 1955. Blue-winged teal, shovelers, and redheads soared to record levels, and mallard, pintail, canvasback, and gadwall numbers rose substantially from 2010.
Across the U.S. side of the region, the last three years have been the wettest since pond counts began, according to the report. The 3.2 million ponds inventoried in the U.S. this spring were the most on record.
Not surprisingly, all that water attracted a record number of ducks. The 12.5 million breeding ducks that settled in the eastern half of the Dakotas was the most ever and was 172 percent above average.
The Canadian prairies got drenched this year and also attracted significantly more ducks than last year. Alberta saw a 60-percent jump in pond numbers and 66 percent more ducks; Manitoba was 72 percent wetter with 41 percent more ducks; and Saskatchewan’s pond count rose 18 percent and attracted 56 percent more ducks.
Species reaching all-time highs include blue-winged teal at a whopping 8.9 million, northern shovelers at 4.6 million, and redheads at 1.4 million. Mallards improved to 9.2 million; pintails jumped to 4.4 million, the highest level since 1980; gadwalls rose to 3.3 million; canvasbacks climbed to 692,000, and scaup improved slightly to 4.3 million. Only American wigeon and green-winged teal saw declines although green-winged teal are still well above their long-term average.
The following chart reveals the changes in number of ponds from last year, as well as the changes in numbers of the 10 most common duck species in the Central Flyway, as well as the change from long-term averages.
