EP 581. Breaking Down the American Black Duck

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today we are going to do a deep dive into a species near and dear to my heart, and that’s the American black duck. I don’t see as many as I’d like. I sure don’t see as many as I used to here in the Deep South anymore. I was recently up in Prince Edward Island back this fall, and boy, have they got them. Joining me today is Mr. Ted Barney from. From where Ted?

Ted Barney: I’m joining you from Sackville, New Brunswick, which is the Atlantic region headquarters for the Canadian Wildlife Service.

Ramsey Russell: Yes, sir. Introduce yourself. What is your role with Canadian Wildlife Service?

Ted Barney: I’m a waterfowl biologist for the region. The region encompasses the three Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m responsible for population monitoring, management, and research that we do on waterfowl species in the Atlantic region.

Ramsey Russell: And how important are American black ducks? Or let’s just call them black ducks. How important are black ducks to what you do, to your job description in your part of the world?

“But black ducks really drive our banding program here in the Atlantic region and are a key species that we’re on the landscape running field programs and managing literally year-round. We just finished our winter black duck banding at the end of February, and we’ll start our breeding surveys the last week of April.”

Ted Barney: Really important. Good question. We have them as our second most populated bird in our area. They are a key bird in the fall flight for people that are out in the field chasing waterfowl, and for us in terms of directing a lot of our banding programs. We’ll get into talking about how band returns and band information help us manage those populations. But black ducks really drive our banding program here in the Atlantic region and are a key species that we’re on the landscape running field programs and managing literally year-round. We just finished our winter black duck banding at the end of February, and we’ll start our breeding surveys the last week of April. Every month in between, we’re doing something black duck oriented, so they’re pretty key.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of the other species in the Maritime Canada provinces that are very integral to your work?

Ted Barney: We have quite a broad selection of all the species that you think about in terms of puddle ducks, diving ducks, save for the prairie specialists like canvasbacks and redheads, and then the sea ducks. We have quite a good variety of birds out here. Within what comes to mind as the forefronts for species, we’ve got American black ducks, mallards, green-winged teal, ring-necks, and then sort of the suite of everything else falls off, after that, in terms of the puddle duck side of things, there are some pintails, there’s some wigeon, there’s some gadwall, there’s some shovelers, but not really in great numbers. We have quite a good number of goldeneyes, scaup come through. We’ve got three scoters, long-tails, eiders, and that keeps a real diversity out there. To come this direction to work has been great because all that diversity is there. But also from a hunting standpoint, you can get into just about any one species or style of hunting out here because they’re all here, and it’s a really, really cool place to be.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. Are you a hunter yourself?

Ted Barney: I am, yes. I started in late high school. I had an opportunity to work with Dr. Scott Petrie, who at the time long Point Waterfowl. He had a graduate student doing tundra swan research. I got connected through a professor at the University of Guelph, retired now, but his name’s Dr. Tom Nudds. He is a waterfowl ecologist, and I knew him through contacts at home. He connected me to Scott. I moved down to Long Point, which I know you’ve heard of, one of the great Canadian hunting areas. The oldest duck club in Canada is Long Point Company. I was doing work outside of that with tundra swans. That really got me back into hunting. Working with people that were professionals, professors and those types of things, was really inspiring. I got out on my first real duck hunt at Long Point, of all places, which was great. I haven’t looked back since.

Ramsey Russell: How did hunting, becoming exposed to hunting during your high school years? How did that influence your career path and take you from then to now?

Ted Barney: Yeah, so at the time, it showed me the level of passion that people who manage this resource and these species specifically have for that resource. We often as hunters get into these conversations of, how can you love something so much, yet you want to go hunt it? As hunters, we all know how that respect works, and how much passion and drive we have for that resource. We want to give back, and we want to give back in a big way. That was really inspiring for me to see at that level. Growing up, my dad was involved with the animal science department at the University of Guelph, was involved in research, but really from an animal production side. My parents raise parrots, many different species of parrots, so I always had birds in my life. If you were to boil it down, I am a bird guy. It doesn’t matter that it’s waterfowl, it could be any bird. I really like birds. I got this opportunity at the co-op to work on waterfowl with people that were super passionate about that resource. To be able to do that closer to home, and know that there was a science-based opportunity to work, I was super excited for that. It really kind of fed off itself from there. I went on to more working opportunities that took me across the country, meeting people, new hunting opportunities with those people. You carry those relationships forward. As you know, the world’s not that big in the waterfowl industry. It is great to have people with this kind of passion all over the place doing the same thing that I’m doing.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, you’re right. The world is bigger than our backyard, but it’s still a small world. That’s the truth, especially in the duck hunting world. Do you remember your first duck?

Ted Barney: Yeah. The first duck I ever shot was a mallard. I grew up in a small town called Elora, Ontario, and there’s a river system called the Grand River that runs through there. I grew up jump-shooting ducks and geese. That over the years evolved to getting some decoys. In university, I finally got a dog, and had the opportunity coming out of my undergrad to actually do my master’s with Dr. Scott Petrie at Western. I ended up moving down to Long Point. Worked for him at Long Point Waterfowl for eight years, and really kind of had a great backyard to play with the scene that way, from all the divers coming through, puddle ducks, and field hunting. Had lots of great opportunities down at Long Point, and it’s just grown from there.

“It was a club before Canada was a country, and that’s mind-blowing. I’ve driven past it and seen it beyond the posted signs. It’s beautiful, very, very nice part of the world.”

Ramsey Russell: I’m jealous that you got to hunt there. I think that’s a beautiful part of the world. The divers alone are a huge draw. That Long Point Club pre-exists Canada as a country. It was a club before Canada was a country, and that’s mind-blowing. I’ve driven past it and seen it beyond the posted signs. It’s beautiful, very, very nice part of the world.

Ted Barney: I’ve never had the privilege to be in the club during hunting season, but have had the opportunity to take some students out. We used to run a field course, and the manager at the time would let us come and talk about some of their management programs that they did from more of a hunting perspective. That was really important for the students we had, to see what was going on in the landscape within that club for ducks, but also the other species that benefit from duck hunters and those conserving that kind of habitat. It was a really neat opportunity to get in and see the Long Point Company, learn of its history. As you said, it predates Canada. That passion that’s carried for that long is still there today, and conserving such a great piece of coastal wetlands in the Great Lakes, where in a lot of places, they’re roughly 95% fewer acres than there were pre-colonization, it’s a gem. Absolute gem to still have that there.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of the biggest challenges facing waterfowl conservation in Canada’s Atlantic region today? And how is it related and different than management south of the border?

Ted Barney: Actually, I think a lot of them are quite similar. We’ve had our experience of coastal development, whether that’s been draining coastal wetlands for development of people’s houses or commercial industry. That affects both sides of the border significantly, especially with respect to black duck habitat, staging areas similar to what’s in the U.S., as well as wintering areas affected by wetland draining and loss. We also have climate change affecting us in a way that we can’t really say how that looks today, but we know the area is warming. Some of our just-below-Arctic latitudes are warming faster than other areas. How that’s going to play into breeding opportunities for black ducks and other species moving forward, we’re at the cusp of trying to understand that and see where it leads. Then, opportunity for forage, coastal wetlands are a great place, but there’s also agriculture that supports a good amount of birds coming through, staging, and overwintering. Opportunity for that moving forward is a key thing and a conservation priority. Understanding how all these changes come together at once is really a big thing. We don’t necessarily have smoking gun scenarios anymore where it’s just one thing that affects ducks. Drought on the prairies is a great smoking gun example. That’s not the only thing working on the prairies anymore. The same situation applies here for black ducks in the Atlantic and Mississippi Flyways. There are lots of human impacts culminating together. Those that we can control for, I think we’re in a good place and really addressing those. But how those move forward with climate change thrown on top, I think we are in a bit of a wait mode to see where we go. But with that, I’ll say that black duck populations are currently stable. They’ve decreased, but they’re in a stable scenario right now. You said you see fewer of them, and that’s something that’s come from that continental decline that occurred through the 1970s and 1080s. But coming out of the mid-1990s, we’ve got a relatively stable population. It’s not necessarily what it was, but I think for those that have the opportunity to see black ducks now, we’re in a stable situation, and that’s really encouraging.

“Good stuff. As we move into talking about the American black duck, how would you describe their range? How would you geographically describe the range?”

Ramsey Russell: Good stuff. As we move into talking about the American black duck, how would you describe their range? How would you geographically describe the range? I know and have seen the outliers. I’ve seen black ducks in Alberta. I hear them shot in deep southwest Texas. I mean, it’s like old Bugs Bunny popping out of a hole and saying he took a wrong turn in Albuquerque. Sometimes they end up in places they’re not really supposed to be. But how would you describe their core total geographic range from breeding to wintering grounds?

“When you think of black ducks, it’s roughly a pair per square kilometer, which is relatively low density. But the area they encompass is huge, and the opportunity for them to breed within that is great.”

Ted Barney: For sure. The core breeding range is the boreal forest section of Canada that runs from basically the Ontario-Manitoba border east to Labrador. That is the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labrador. Then we have some breeding in the kind of boreal-ish areas. It’s sort of temperate mixed wood habitat here in the Maritimes. There are some populations that still nest through the Atlantic Flyway states, but there are reduced amounts compared to what used to be there. But the core is that boreal stretch from the Manitoba-Ontario border east toward Labrador. Within that, it’s not as productive a habitat as the prairie pothole region. So we don’t have the densities of black ducks nesting that other prairie ducks might have. When you think of black ducks, it’s roughly a pair per square kilometer, which is relatively low density. But the area they encompass is huge, and the opportunity for them to breed within that is great. So even though it’s low density, they are able to find that chance to breed. And again, stable populations coming from our assessments to date.

Ramsey Russell: Will any of them breed in parts of the wooded areas of Maine, New Hampshire, New England, like that? Because I just know I’ve seen some band recoveries where they were shot in, say, New Brunswick but came from Maine.

Ted Barney: Some of that might be depending on the age of the bird when it was banded. It could have been a molting adult that came down from the breeding grounds. But again, totally, there are breeding groups of them all through the New England states. In Maine, there’s some remnant populations down into the Carolinas. They’re more of a resident-type population that produces themselves. In between, birds are not overwintering in the boreal when it’s all frozen up. So those migrant birds get down, and that’s what populates everybody’s fall opportunity from Maine all the way into Florida and everywhere in between. You talk about them being far west, I spent two summers banding prairie ducks in Manitoba with the Canadian Wildlife Service as a summer student. Every year I was there, we caught a handful of drake black ducks. Talked about it with locals, and they’d say, “Oh, you caught a black mallard.” They are so few and far between, and it looks kind of like a mallard to those who don’t fully appreciate it. It was a black mallard to those folks locally. You get those vagrants on the outside, but the core is that northeastern continental U.S.

Ramsey Russell: The word “black mallard”, I’ve heard it as far south as Sonora, Mexico, where they call the Mexican ducks black mallards. I’ve heard somebody call the Florida mottled duck a black mallard before. That’s a very colloquial term. Since I’ve got you on here and you’re talking about the boreal forest, we recently had a conversation with Mike Brazier. Like here in the Deep South, the wood ducks are cavity nesters, but it doesn’t have to be right around the water. They may be a mile from the water. I know out in the grasslands, the prairie pothole region, mallards, pintails, whatever, will make a nest in a grass area that could be as far as a mile from the nearest water, where they’re going to take those little fuzzballs when they hatch. When ducks are breeding in the boreal forest, those black ducks, are they nearly on a muskrat clump? Are they off away? Will they go up under an evergreen tree a half mile away and lead a little fuzzball back? I have never seen anything on that.

Ted Barney: Kind of all of the above. The wetland density through the boreal is quite high. If you think of the thunderstorm map or the breeding survey conditions map, you often see the eastern part of the survey area is quite green. There’s lots of water. Within that, the female has to select a place that’s safe to have her clutch and then select a wetland, once they’ve hatched, that can support, from an energetic standpoint, food for all those ducklings that she’s had. Sometimes a duck will find a nesting area not necessarily right next to a wetland because that’s safe for her. Then she’s transversing over land to a wetland or a complex tied to a bunch of different bogs or marshes or a river system. She’ll take her ducklings through that water system to search for food and look for cover. It really is selected based on the hen and what she’s done in the past. Oftentimes, successful hens that have hatched a nest go back to a similar area the next year and carry forward from there. I know we’ll get to talking about the backpack project that we’re working on here. A lot of that information, we’re going to have much more detailed knowledge moving forward once all that data has been collected and analyzed, to really get at the selection-type question. What is a black duck looking for to lay eggs versus raise its brood versus molting, or things like that? I don’t want to say “stay tuned,” but there will be more to come as that data comes in.

Ramsey Russell: Good deal. You mentioned previously some of the significant declines of the North American black duck populations. They are apparently stable right now. But what were some of the primary causes? What conservation efforts stabilized their numbers? And why do they seem, I’m assuming, more stable in Maritime Canada?

Ted Barney: A lot of the decline came from degradation or elimination of overwintering habitat, coastal wetland areas and opportunities that way really had an impact, just from the loss of ability for ducks to get through the wintertime. It’s a stressful time of year. They need that energy, and if that’s not there, it can’t support the population that once was there. Compounding with that, we’ve seen changes in breeding density across various subregions of our survey area. Part of that is a result of human encroachment and changing how the landscape looks for black ducks in their breeding areas. They don’t adapt well to human interaction and change, whether that’s expansion of towns and communities, or other types of industry affecting their breeding grounds. They tend to be a species that breeds away from humanity. In areas where that’s happened, we’ve seen a reduction in black ducks. We’ve lost opportunity in their breeding range to support them, so obviously you’re not producing as many black ducks then either. With reduced winter survival, that leads to fewer birds on the landscape. Now that we’re at a stable population, black ducks have maintained their core areas that are still suitable for breeding. A lot of work has gone into conserving staging and wintering habitats. Ducks Unlimited has worked toward a black duck decision-making tool using all sorts of different datasets, which they put into a GIS program. It maps areas that should be prioritized for conservation, restoration, or protection. It’s a synthesis of all the data we know about what black ducks need, and on a landscape level, where groups can go and prioritize wetlands for conservation for black ducks. And obviously for other wetland-dependent species as well. It’s not just black ducks. There’s a whole suite of species being supported by this, but it’s really a one-stop shop of information all synthesized into a map you can look at and understand where those priority areas are. I think a lot of work has been done in those priority areas to date and moving forward. That’s really done a lot to help stabilize black duck populations and other waterfowl populations.

Ramsey Russell: You previously described real nice the geographic range of the breeding grounds. We talked about the breeding grounds. Where are the staging grounds and where is the core wintering area now of black ducks?

Ted Barney: Between breeding and wintering, we’ve got a good idea where they’re breeding and wintering. In the mid-latitude states north into Canada, at least for the Atlantic Flyway, they are pretty coastal. Through the Mississippi Flyway, they’re on big lakes, big water bodies. The lower Great Lakes is a staging and a wintering area. Think of the St. Lawrence Seaway and River, another great area for staging and overwintering. We’ve got colleagues catching ducks in February on the north Gulf of the St. Lawrence, and that’s where they’ve come to spend their winter. In Atlantic Canada, the Maritimes have great coastal habitat in many areas. You were on PEI, you were hunting them. You know how close the ocean is in proximity to ag fields and food. We have thousands and thousands of black ducks spending the winter on PEI. Similar to the mallard situation, in some circumstances, they only go as far south as they need to find open water and food. PEI is a great island surrounded by open water, with a lot of salt marsh habitat for the micronutrients and proteins they need. Agriculture provides carbohydrates, corn fields, grain fields, silage piles, and different things like that they can access for the energy needed to get through winter. They only fly as far south as they need to. From the transmitter work, we’ve got birds heading down into the Carolinas and being marked there, but also coming back across into Tennessee. That’s the core line of how far south birds are wintering. Basically, the St. Lawrence River area south is staging, spring and fall, and there are a lot of big bodies of water, infamous and famous in waterfowling lore and legend, that support black ducks going north and south every year, and to some extent, in winter as well.

“Sounds like there’s a lot of subpopulations of black duck, similarly to mallards. It’s a misconception that all mallards migrate to the Deep South. They don’t.”

Ramsey Russell: Sounds like there’s a lot of subpopulations of black duck, similarly to mallards. It’s a misconception that all mallards migrate to the Deep South. They don’t. Some of them have historically stayed as far north as Montana and Nebraska and just found these little wintering ranges. Some will fly as far south as Tennessee, but they’re not coming further south. When you start talking about overwintering ducks in PEI, has it always been that way? Have there always been populations that stayed over in New Brunswick and PEI through late January or through the spring?

“I think, when you were on PEI talking to people there, that’s probably something in the last 15 or 20 years that they really noticed a difference in, the number of ducks overwintering. Tied to where they are in terms of the migratory pathway for black ducks coming out of northern Quebec and Labrador and, to an extent, Newfoundland, PEI is a great place to stop if you don’t have to go any further south.”

Ted Barney: Yeah, there has been. The number that are there and the density, I think, is changing in recent time. Like many areas, we have less severe winters, water staying open, and access to food is there. Changes in the agricultural landscape through the Maritimes are big. There’s more cereal grain, more corn on the landscape that can support these birds through the wintertime. But we do have traditional areas that support birds and have for a long time and still do. So, if you’re thinking of a map, the southwest corner of the province of Nova Scotia, just across the Gulf of Maine from the state of Maine, lots of little coastal islands, lots of little pockets that birds can get in, that water doesn’t freeze. There’s opportunity there for them to overwinter and forage on more traditional foods, whether that’s periwinkle, snails, and other invertebrates. Also through the Bay of Fundy, we’ve got Grand Manan Island. The Bay of Fundy has some of the highest tides in the world, if not the highest. When you’ve got great expanses of seagrass exposed, that’s hiding invertebrates. Birds can get enough energy through the wintertime to be able to overwinter there. That’s been a longstanding traditional wintering area. We’re just seeing, as many other ducks have, advancements and adjustments to agriculture. If they’ve got open water and they can feed in fields, birds are choosing to do that. I think, when you were on PEI talking to people there, that’s probably something in the last 15 or 20 years that they really noticed a difference in, the number of ducks overwintering. Tied to where they are in terms of the migratory pathway for black ducks coming out of northern Quebec and Labrador and, to an extent, Newfoundland, PEI is a great place to stop if you don’t have to go any further south.

Ramsey Russell: I know there’s no single answer, but climate change could be a contributing factor to why these birds are overwintering further north, as well as habitat changes, increased agriculture, so they can forage. But do you see, or have you seen, or are you all considering or doing any research at all that climate change may impact black duck populations, migration, or their habitat use and range in the future?

Ted Barney: I’m going to say not specific to that extent of how you phrased that question. However, we have several hundred marked birds with satellite transmitters that are providing us data quite frequently to really look at selection and maybe be able to take that information moving forward. Once it’s synthesized down to how are black ducks selecting things now, how does that relate to changes in climate, and how does that relate back to studies done maybe 20 or 30 years ago, I think we can get into those discussions and maybe see how those effects are happening. In terms of our management and surveying, we aren’t necessarily on the landscape during that time of year looking. But people that are passionate about waterfowl or birdwatching, citizen scientists, are contributing to citizen science data. Think of Christmas bird counts that have run now for 125 or more years. There’s a lot of long-term data that we can look at for a very specific time of year when people are counting birds. We can look at those changes and try to infer changes based on things like climate change or change in agricultural practices, how much open water is out there. People look at sea ice cover and make relations that way. Another great platform is the eBird platform that people put their sightings into. It’s a great way for us to see data and maybe a bigger landscape at times of the year when we’re not conducting our active survey period. So to answer your question in a long-about way, yes, and we will get there. We just don’t have that answer today.

Ramsey Russell: You talk about citizen science, and that brings up the next topic about banding. What role does banding and telemetry research play in black duck management? And what are some key insights you all have gained so far from recent banding data?

Ted Barney: Banding is really key. We have an integrated population model that we use to set season dates and harvest, both in Canada and the US. A big part of that model is preseason banding. We have a quota of 2,000 new bands a year that need to be deployed on preseason ducks. For the sake of the discussion, most of those bands are deployed in Canada. Of that, we deploy roughly a thousand in our Atlantic region that the Canadian Wildlife Service operates in. The other thousand typically come out of our Quebec region. Those are just core opportunity areas where we’ve got breeding black ducks as well as early migrant black ducks that we can get caught preseason, so before October 1st, and get those bands deployed. That quota is set and allows us to have good confidence in what harvest rates are across all age and sex cohorts. We’re primarily looking at harvest rates of adult male black ducks. With that, we use harvest rate in this model to again set season length and bag limits, and that’s run every year. Combined with our spring population estimates from fixed-wing and helicopter breeding surveys, banding is super important. In terms of recent work, most of our recent work is not necessarily tied to the leg band program. We have a pretty good understanding of 30, 40, 50 years of banding, where birds are banded in certain parts of the country and recovered in places that we would expect. Our Maritime-banded black ducks are primarily harvested in Maritime Canada, through to New York, part of the Atlantic Flyway. But some come from the Carolinas, that’s the farthest south I can think of off the top of my head that recent ones have come from.

Ramsey Russell: Have any come out of the Mississippi Flyway that you recall?

Ted Barney: Not off the top of my head. Or I shouldn’t say that, we have areas that cross over. Southern Ontario is a crossover between Mississippi and Atlantic Flyway. We’ve had birds come returned from there. We get returns from Quebec, which we can argue is on the border of those two flyways. So yes, we’ve got bands coming out of the Mississippi Flyway. But the predominant share of them are all Atlantic Flyway. Whereas colleagues of mine that are banding in Ontario, most of those birds are being shot in the Mississippi Flyway. That’s the area that black ducks typically migrate through. Linus Point Marsh, on the Toledo stretch, Lake Erie, they do a bunch of postseason banding of black ducks, and a lot of those birds are harvested afterward in the Mississippi Flyway and not coming out our direction too much.

Ramsey Russell: Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, that probably be coming out of Ontario.

Ted Barney: Yep. Ontario or Pennsylvania, Ohio banding that’s going on there. But yeah, I would agree with that for sure. We have some that are trading back and forth. But that Mississippi Flyway population that’s in the lower Great Lakes is one that’s had impacts with respect to landscape changes in breeding areas, as well as coastal marsh impacts from people doing things. The Great Lakes is one of the most densely populated areas in all of North America, and a lot of wetland impacts come from that. So that part of the black duck population has definitely declined over the years.

Ramsey Russell: Somebody told me one time, speaking of that, Ohio has lost 90% of its historic wetlands. So yeah, it’s a lot of impact when you start getting around that part of the world, definitely.

Ted Barney: I’m obviously more familiar with the Canadian numbers, but areas around western Lake Erie, like St. Clair, in the Detroit-Windsor area, they’re upwards of 98% of coastal wetlands and terrestrial wetlands lost since the 1800s. It’s significant, for sure, both in what that produces for birds nesting there as well as what it can support during migration. So yeah, big impacts. But that just shows how important the current conservation that’s on the landscape is to those populations, and how significant future conservation efforts are going to be as well.

Ramsey Russell: I know you can’t speak in depth about some of the telemetry research you all are doing, the backpack projects, but have there so far been any surprising trends emerging from those studies?

Ted Barney: One thing I can think of, really, that I notice, given that I’m marking birds in the wintertime in Atlantic Canada, a lot of our birds are maybe not what you’d consider in a traditional situation where we’re catching them. They’re often associated with urban landscapes, in cities, where there’s open water and access to food. But it isn’t that those birds are then staying in those urban landscapes to breed. We have birds coming out of areas in Cape Breton, around Sydney, Nova Scotia, that are migrating up into northern Newfoundland and up into Labrador to breed and then coming into these, relatively speaking, urban areas to overwinter. Some of our colleagues on the Flyway going into the States are catching coastal black ducks, away from urban centers, and those birds are still making these migrations into boreal Canada to reproduce. But the choices they’re making through the wintertime seem to be a little different. I’m really excited to see how that sort of information comes out when we again, have several hundred of them deployed. What decisions are coming, and based on the decision, what’s the survival that comes from that? What is the chance that a bird that wintered at a different location than another had a successful clutch? A lot of this information we’ll be able to determine from these transmitters. I hate to say “stay tuned,” but the stay tuned part, I think, is going to be very, very interesting once we’ve got all that data in one place.

Ramsey Russell: We’ve talked a little bit about, to make the distinction between Atlantic and Mississippi Flyway black duck populations. How do they differ? How do they differ? How do black duck populations differ between the Atlantic Flyway and the Mississippi Flyway, for example?

Ted Barney: Yes. So to preface, we look, so when I talked about stable populations, we’re talking about the black duck population as a whole is stable. Within that, there are greater numbers in the Atlantic Flyway portion of their population than there is compared to the Mississippi. And Mississippi, again, is tied to some of those impacts at the breeding level in the western portion of their breeding range. We’ve seen declines in those breeding numbers, as well as impacts that have come in staging and overwintering areas. So all that leads to there being fewer black ducks in the Mississippi Flyway compared to the Atlantic Flyway. But all told and combined, they’re stable in the areas that they’re at. We talked about the mallard situation, a little bit of hybridization, as well as just competitive. Mallards are more adaptable to human situations. So in areas where humans have encroached in traditional breeding habitat for black ducks, black ducks may have left, but mallards have followed in and taken those opportunities where they can find them. So some of that also contributes to just less opportunity for black ducks to be breeding in more of that western end of their range, which is the Mississippi Flyway.

Ramsey Russell: Let’s talk a little bit more about this topic. But I’m gonna start off by going back in time just a little bit because it’s my understanding that historically, 150–200 years ago, there were very few, if any mallards in the Atlantic Flyway. And even more recently, I talked to some of the older hunters out on PEI this year that can remember, as recently as 50 or 60 years ago, seeing their first mallard and getting real excited. You were talking about some of the cultural habitat loss and everything else. There must have been some kind of habitat disturbance, let’s say 150, 100, 50 years ago, that really started inviting the mallards into this range that wasn’t historically theirs. It was historically occupied by black ducks. What was going on back then, reckon?

Ted Barney: Yeah. So, I mean, I think that if we go way, way, way back and think of the last Ice Age and continental ice shelves and things like that, I mean, that’s what really separated prairie western mallards from the east. And black ducks evolved in this situation where they had the ice shelf to be able to migrate and reproduce. They evolved in that situation, and the ice sheet receded, and we started with opportunities for these western mallard birds to be moving a little bit east, and black ducks expanding their range. Over time, birds never have a line in the sand, but we can say there was a bit of a line in the sand between east and west, between those two populations. These changes that we’re talking about at overwintering habitats and things like that, right, 200 years ago, there would have been significant habitat loss that would affect everything. But maybe the ability for black ducks to adapt to that new situation. We just don’t seem to find that they do that as well as mallards. So mallards were working their way into new opportunities from the west. There may not have been black ducks there to really impede that movement. We do see that they move across at a level where there is good density of humans on the landscape, and black ducks move out of those areas. Over time, we see this natural emigration of them coming west. And yeah, 50 years ago, people probably didn’t see a lot of mallards on the landscape in Atlantic Canada, and they see them now, and they’ve moved out. But we aren’t necessarily seeing them really expanding totally beyond that human interface. Not an urban environment, but where humans are on the landscape. Maybe ponds have been restored. It’s not necessarily a black duck that’s going to go and put a territory in there, it’s likely a mallard. So there is definitely some level at which their ability to adapt to humans has enabled mallards to come east. But again, that core area is really a stronghold for black ducks. We see that in a lower rate of hybridization coming from those areas and just not seeing mallards in surveys. In some of these core areas in the boreal forest, they’re just not in that landscape yet. We see the expansion east, but we just aren’t seeing the takeover, I guess, is what I’m trying to get at.

Ramsey Russell: You’ve said several times that black ducks don’t really associate with civilization. And I wonder that’s not a function of civilization. Crops up, clears boreal forest. I mean, maybe the clearing of boreal forest and the inception of more open landscape invited a mallard to start coming up there a little bit more.

Ted Barney: Yeah. No, that’s fair. Some of the timing with human interactions too, right? They don’t like to breed in areas impacted by humans. Obviously, winter and staging. We’ve got black ducks in very, very urban areas all across the flyways, but their breeding grounds have been impacted by that intrusion of humanity and development. They’ve just moved on from that. Mallards are a little bit more adaptable, and they’ve kind of moved in. And like you said, changes on the landscape, they come east, they see that opportunity, and they’ve taken that up. But we still don’t have a full wash of mallard coming east. There are real core areas that are key for black ducks, and so far, we don’t have mallards getting into those places.

Ramsey Russell: Mallards really are, at least in the waterfowl world, they could be a poster boy for generalist. I mean, they will, they can live and do live just about anywhere. Very plastic. But I want to talk a little bit, before we get into hybridization, talking about some of the behavioral and ecological differences between mallards and black ducks. A little background from a dummy like me is there’s 13 or 14 mallard-like subspecies or mallard-like species worldwide, including five right here in North America. But then you’ve got the Pacific black duck, the New Zealand grey duck, the African black duck, the yellow-billed duck in Africa. What’s so interesting to me is that after that dozen, baker’s dozen worth of mallard-like species, all of them are dark and subdued and hen-mallard-looking, except for the greenhead. He comes out of nowhere and steals the show with his good looks. Mallards are generalists. But here’s what I’ve seen just traveling around and getting to experience black ducks, because I do love them marsh birds. I mean, you may be near Atlantic City, which is an unbelievable amount of humanity and civilization, but once you get about a mile offshore into that marsh, it’s as wild as it was back in the, I guess, 1500s. Black ducks seem to love those coastal marsh areas. And it’s so weird because as you’re driving around or waiting, you see gazillions of black ducks, lots and lots of black ducks, but they won’t come in because the tide’s too high or the tide’s too low. But as the tide moves, it hits a sweet spot, boom, it’s game on. But I’ve seen them and hunted them in beaver ponds from Maryland. I’ve shot them in flooded timber. I’ve seen them out, most recently, and this is mind-blowing, we know about dry field hunting mallards, but I’ve shot them in New Brunswick over dry fields. I’ve shot them over water in New Brunswick. Out in PEI, your buddy Woody, your volunteer Woody and I, were shooting them in dry grain fields over double-handful clumps of eelgrass that served as decoys. I mean, they are themselves not just one niche-type species. They’ll bend around a lot like mallards. So what are some of the behavioral and ecological differences that you see between black ducks and mallards, beyond appearance?

Ted Barney: Yeah. So, I mean, I think you really described a great one, coastally. They’re a saltwater species out here and definitely see them. That’s a pretty strong difference. We get them in all the habitats you mentioned, but they’re really tied coastally. In tidal areas, it’s all about the tide. They evolved in that kind of situation. Some of these coastal marshes are almost prairie-like, where it’s a really low-grade slope, it’s flat, they can see forever, and they’re quite good at keeping themselves in areas that people can’t get to, and also pretty spooky. But, I mean, they’ve adapted well to a breeding system that’s low in nutrient content and low productivity, and they’ve done that really well. That’s relatively different compared to where we think about our core mallard areas. Core mallard areas are the prairies, super high productivity. They can produce a lot of themselves. Mallards are in the boreal too, they’re in the lower Great Lakes, but a lot of those areas are really high-productive marshes, lots of energy, lots of nutrients, lots of invertebrates. Whereas black ducks aren’t in that situation. So that in itself, if you were to draw those lines that only exist for us, we’ve got lines in the boreal, those low-energy, low-productive wetlands, we find black ducks in those, and that’s what they’ve evolved and adapted to. And that’s a real big difference between the two. You talk about mallards being plastic and being everywhere, I think  they really, really are.I think, from some of the work we’ve been doing recently and seeing where black ducks are, seasonally they have that flexibility too. We’ve got transmitters on birds that are in the wildest of wild areas in Labrador, but they’re in urban situations through the wintertime. That ability to be somewhat flexible during that time of the year, I think, is a great survival strategy for black ducks, one they share with mallards. But again, breeding being so tied away to their own area is a thing. Whether you call them snobs or selective, however you want to do it, they do like to be with themselves at that time of year. And that’s a big difference. We don’t see that suite of species on a pond the same way that you do in the prairies, where you might have four or five species breeding on a more regular occurring wetland. Black ducks are in small little wetlands in the boreal. Maybe there’s a green-winged teal around, maybe there’s a hooded merganser, but oftentimes it’s just them. They like to do that and find those areas, and it seems to serve them pretty well.

Ramsey Russell: You bring up an interesting point about them having evolved in a nutrient-poor environment and maybe some of the isolated ponds scattered about the boreal forest. Maybe that’s why I’ve seen some big flocks of them getting up and moving around out on the big coast, the big coastal marshes, but when they come in, they’re not coming in flocks of a hundred like mallards. They’re coming in in little family cohorts, singles, doubles, pairs. The times I’ve seen them up in the Great Lakes mixed in with mallards or down in the Deep South, it’s just one or two mixed in with a big flock of mallards. I guess somehow they feel comfortable enough among mallards to kind of mix in with them. One of the bad things,  I was hunting with a friend up in Ohio, and Forrest and I both knew they shot black ducks. They shoot them all the time. We were sitting there with my buddy Rance and my decoy carving buddy, Luke Castille. We’re all sitting around, just shooting a few mallards here and there, and a big flock came in that must have been about a dozen birds. We all started picking greenheads. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Bam, I shot a greenhead, Bama shot a greenhead. When I swung on the third one as it was leaving, it was a black duck. And it was too far gone. He was gone. I said, “Oh, I wish somebody said black duck,” and they said, “Well, you said you wanted to shoot one. We figured you saw it.” I’m like, “Man, my blind just blanks out. I see greenhead, and everything that’s not a greenhead just fades to the rearview mirror.” But anyway, it’s very interesting to me. I was also reminded, to an extreme, in this mallard-like world, the African black duck lives just about in pairs. Unless it’s got some offspring with it, you’ll find them in pairs, very solitary, living in these real nutrient-poor. They call them rivers, I call them ditches or streams in Africa. Very clear, running water, very low nutrients. And man, they’re territorial as can be. If you’re walking around looking for them and you see a yellow-billed duck, there ain’t gonna be a black duck nearby. For about a mile or two stretch, they won’t let anything else creep in on their territory. They’ve even got little bumps, little knobs, I hate to call them spurs, but blunt objects on their wings for beating the dog out of somebody else that’s on their territory. So they are like that. I can see this. Black ducks are kind of like mallards, but they ain’t. They occupy a totally different niche. I read recently, just online, I couldn’t believe it, thought the myth had been dispelled, but it still persists, I read recently on social media, one of the major outdoor outlets posted a story that black ducks faced imminent danger of extinction due to mallards encroaching on their historic grounds. Do you see that? Hunting up there with Woody, I shot a beautiful mallard-black duck hybrid, but most of the black ducks we shot and saw were pure, real ripe, just as black duck as God made them to be. How prevalent is hybridization between black ducks and mallards? And what are the long-term implications for black duck genetics?

Ted Barney: Yeah, so, I mean, it’s on the landscape. There’s no doubt that hybridization is out there and occurring. At the level of what that’s going to do to hybridize out the black duck, I mean, there’s been lots of work over many years that have addressed that. DNA technology has advanced. We’ve had some recent work come out in 2018, 2019, thereabouts, looking at that, estimating roughly 75% of the black ducks are 100% pure black ducks, with hybrids representing the rest of that population. But with that being said, hybrids typically are not breeding back into the parent strain. So, we might have a situation and overlap where mallards and black ducks are existing. There might be a mallard-black duck pair that produces hybrids, but those hybrids aren’t then breeding back into pure black duck pairs. So, we don’t have hybrids breeding back to pure. Some of that is range overlap that isn’t occurring. I keep mentioning these core areas of black duck production. Those core areas are also producing black ducks and not hybrids, and it’s really keeping that population true to itself, if you want to think of it that way, on the landscape. So, from a management perspective, we know hybrids are out there. We use wing characteristics to identify those hybrids. That’s because, at a harvest level, when people are sending their wings in for parts surveys, the wing is the only thing we have to see. So, we need to assess that hybridization based on the wing, and we do that while we’re banding. When we’re banding, we’re categorizing birds as either pure black ducks, hybrids, or more black duck-like hybrids or more mallard-like hybrids. Within that, it goes into the banding data. We don’t use hybrids for our population modeling. It’s all pure black ducks that we’re using that way. So, for our harvest estimates, I would say that we have a pretty good understanding that it’s on the landscape and that it doesn’t seem to be, at this point anyway, impacting the ability for black ducks to remain a viable population on the landscape. When we’re handling them, either banding or through harvest survey and parts, we’ve got a really good opportunity to assess those and have a pretty good understanding of what that bird is, whether it’s a pure black duck, a pure mallard, or a hybrid in between.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of the telltale signs that you all look for in the wings during the parts survey, but also while banding and when handling live birds? What are some of the, and it’s a two-part question, a three-part question, I should say, looking at the wings, looking at the whole duck, and do you ever pick up a bird that looks like a mallard at a glance, but then all of a sudden he’s showing black duck traits? Or is it always the black duck expressing mallard traits?

Ted Barney: Yes. So, first part, in terms of the wing, black ducks have no white on the top of their speculum.

Ramsey Russell: Zero.

Ted Barney: Zero, yeah. But there can be a little bit of trailing white, and there is some evidence from museum specimens of a buffy color. That sounds very relative and a bit based on the individual that’s conducting the banding, thankfully, across the range we’ve got biologists that are the same person banding and assessing parts year in, year out. So, that sort of objectiveness of, “Is this buffy? Is this white?” kind of removes itself over experience. But if you were to harvest a bird and look at the wing, if you had a black duck-looking duck, you open the wing, and there are two white bands on that wing, that’s indicative of a mallard hybrid. The other thing I look for, and many people do, is on the underside of the wing, where the primary feathers are. Think of that as the wrist, the joint of the bird. At the joint of that wrist, there should be some black feathers in that white underwing of a black duck. We used to count the number to try to infer. There’s so much variation with that, we’ve kind of removed that condition. But a really nice black duck wing should have a grouping of black feathers there, somewhere between 5 and 15. We get some black ducks where almost all the underside of the wing has that leading edge of black feathers. So much variation that, again, we don’t use that anymore, but when I’m looking at a wing, that’s something I check for. We have black ducks out here that show no trailing white on the speculum either. So, you open it up and it’s really almost a green color in the speculum rather than that sort of purpley hue. When we open those up, my mind instantly goes to a tiny, remote little Labrador pond that has only had black ducks on it forever. That’s where that bird’s coming out of.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Ted Barney: And to answer your third part, in terms of, do we ever pick a mallard up and see black duck characteristics in it? For sure we do. You see birds that are just darker overall through the body. It almost looks like they’re carrying their duckling molt into adulthood, where there are just darker blotches coming through the belly, especially in drakes. We see just less white, or no white, on the top end of the speculum in those hybrid wings. The hybrid wings, when you’re looking at mallards, are often darker in color than sort of that lovely gray color. It’s a lot darker, more of a slate color when there’s black duck hybrid in there. For any of these things, the more you see, the better and more comfortable you are at it. But I would say from a management standpoint, when people are banding and looking at harvest, we have a really great understanding of almost all of the wings. No matter what happens, you end up with a wing that just doesn’t fit any of the boxes. We could spend time chatting, you hold up a wing, and we talk for three hours about what we think that wing is. Some of those things happen. That’s the joy of biology and nature, not everything fits into a box, and we do get those. What comes in, whether we’re banding them or in the parts survey, 99% of wings, we know what that bird is. I couldn’t tell you if it’s a back-cross going in, if it’s a more mallard-like hybrid, what generation number that is. But pure F1 hybrids, we really know what those look like. We know what parent populations look like. And the back-crosses, we have thresholds that we categorize those in. For 99% of the wings, we’ve got great understanding of what they are. There’s always one or two out there that people can have long conversations over, but it’s something that, for managing them, I’m comfortable saying hybridization is not something impacting our ability to understand a mallard in harvest or a black duck in harvest, from a population-level perspective.

Ramsey Russell: So, it doesn’t complicate hunting regulations or survey data collection?

Ted Barney: It doesn’t. Depending on the survey platform, on our helicopter-based survey, we get really good looks at birds. If we see hybrids, they’re going to show up more in the black duck side of things than in the mallard, but we call those hybrids out. With respect to harvest, our regulations are set in a way, at least in Canada, where a hybrid doesn’t count as a black duck. Hybrids would count toward your mallard bag limit. That was more relevant when we had moderate regulatory packages with limitations in black duck harvest. Canada is currently in a liberal regulatory package, most of Canada anyway, 107 days and 6 birds a day. So hybrids aren’t playing into any of that as a conservation side for managing black ducks here.

Ramsey Russell: I asked you about picking up a mallard duck that would express black duck traits. Now I’m gonna loop back on the black duck. Is it possible for an American black duck, a rue ripi, no hybrid, is it possible that he exhibit any green or something in his head or a little slight curl on the back end and yet have black duck wing bars?

Ted Barney: Yes. So, yes. And again, from the level that we’re assessing, especially in the parts survey where we get the whole bird, a duck that has maybe a little bit of green in the head or a slight curl or a little bit of green in the rump, that wing might express 100% black duck. At the management level we’re dealing with, it is a black duck. With that being said, there are some museum specimens on the landscape, I want to say Smithsonian examples, but don’t quote me on that, that actually show certain pockets of black ducks that have a little bit of green in the head and a little bit of green on the rump. I’m not aware of any that have the mallard-like curl coming out of the tail.

Ramsey Russell: It’ll usually just lift up a little bit. Just a little. It’s like it wants to curl, but it’s just, it’s like a cowlick coming up a little bit.

Ted Barney: I’ve shot lots that have that. But in terms of a museum specimen that dates back far enough that we understand no mallards would have been in that area, there are black ducks that have a little bit of a green tinge. It shouldn’t be that kind of bicolor right through the eye line where the top’s green and the rest is black duck. That’s very indicative of a hybrid. But just a little, almost like hen mallards, if you turn their head just slightly, a little green wash.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. I’ve seen the same thing down the middle of the Sonora Desert, where there’s no mallards. And knowing that these Mexican ducks are indigenous, they’re not migrating north. And of course, they’ve got double white wing bars to start, but you will see just that cowlick of a tail kind of come up. And if you twist their head just right, not a big gleaming band like a wedging band like you see in mallard-black duck hybrids, but just a little glint of green. But it’s pure Mexican duck. And I guess, even though Phil Laversky told me one time that he believed that the African yellow bill was the precursor to all the mallard-like species worldwide, nonetheless, on all the mallard-like species, you do see a little bit. To me, I can see some mallard trait if I look for it.

Ted Barney: Yeah. Oh, for sure. And, I mean, just as much as there’s genetic variation in you and I talking as two humans, we’re expressing ourselves and how we look very different. And that happens to each individual duck too, right? Genetically, it’s a black duck, but it could have some variation that’s shown that’s a little bit different. You think of any of the species that have blondes that come out. People mostly talk about mallards, but there are artificially selected-for wood ducks that people breed that are essentially white. You can find those traits and focus on them. But for the most part, we have black ducks that look like black ducks and mallards that look like mallards, and the odd one kicks in that would make two people scratch their chins and have a conversation over. And I think that’s a great thing too about what waterfowl is like. You’ve got so many opportunities to have neat conversations, and that conversation comes up just because you’re such a guy into waterfowl to even think to have that conversation in the first place.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. You’ve touched on this previously. But how do hunters and conservation organizations contribute to black duck conservation efforts?

Ted Barney: Yeah. So, I mean, fundamentally, buying duck stamps contributes to habitat conservation. Supporting conservation organizations, whether it’s Ducks Unlimited or Delta Waterfowl or others that are maybe more local to somebody’s area, supports conservation on the landscape. And that’s great. People reporting their bands, we have great response rates, but that information is key for us in determining harvest rates and how that plays into our modeling for populations. People that get asked, I believe HIP is required in most states, that’s right, but participating in HIP in the U.S. is still currently a volunteer opportunity in Canada. But everybody that contributes to the parts survey gives us that understanding of harvest across age and sex cohorts. And that’s critically important too for us with respect to population modeling for black ducks. And just participation in citizen science. We’ve talked about Christmas Bird Counts and eBird. There’s opportunities for people to be out there. You referenced Jeff on PBI. He’s a volunteer bander. He’s a passionate individual that wants to give back. And those opportunities are there for the hunting community or the wetland conservationists or whoever is out there listening. Participating in those goes a long way. We all work together, and big things happen. And I think that especially with waterfowlers, we have found lots of avenues to give back, and it’s great to see new ones that come out every year for another way that we can give back to this resource. And that’s really key for everybody listening, to be able to participate where you can. For a lot of things, it’s gotten far easier. We can figure out a band in about four seconds on a smartphone, and all that data comes to us to the same level, but it’s easier for the user to do it. So carrying on with those things, supporting where you can for organizations that support waterfowl and wetlands, and keep that going. That really does a lot on the landscape level for us because we as government groups can’t always be everywhere. So having those other groups to do the work and take on with what we’re doing is great too.

Ramsey Russell: Change the subject, I know that the current bag limit in P.E.I. is six daily black ducks. Is it the same in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick?

Ted Barney: It is, yes. So across all of Atlantic Canada, including Newfoundland, Labrador, we have a 107-day season with a six-bird bag limit for black ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Okay. South of the border it’s two black ducks. Yeah, and those seem to be acceptable. I mean, you’ve said over and over again that black duck populations are stable. So it’s really not so much a function of the future of black ducks population health is really not a function of harvest. It’s a function of habitat quality.

Ted Barney: Definitely. But with that, I think just understanding of a proportion of harvest too, right? Like for most species in North America, Canada harvests right around 10% of the continental take. We have some exceptions, and because we’re talking about black ducks, it’s great that black ducks are one of those exceptions. Through the Black Duck Joint Venture and the Black Duck Adaptive Harvest Management Group, we do our best to have parity in harvest. So essentially, 50% of the harvest comes from Canada and 50% from the U.S. But to answer your question, at this point, with the current regulations and our ability to monitor populations, no, harvest is not limiting black duck populations at this time. Having a stable population for at least the last decade really reflects, I think, how much effort goes into managing this population, our understanding of that population, and how hunters contribute back to ensure that population maintains itself in a way that people can enjoy them every fall in the marsh.

Ramsey Russell: Well, likewise, Ted, what are the most important priorities for black duck conservation that you see in the next 10 to 20 years?

Ted Barney: Yeah. So, I mean, I think really climate change is going to be something that, you can’t just put your finger on one thing that comes from climate change. But we have these opportunities to have an understanding of where black ducks are now through a lot of our research projects. We keep talking about this backpack project, but it’s really collecting just a giant breadth of data that’s going to help us understand the situation today and moving forward with climate change. We know that areas are getting warmer the further north you go. We already are seeing species of other birds moving their ranges further north because that habitat’s all of a sudden there. We don’t necessarily have an understanding of what that’s going to do to the boreal forest and breeding black ducks. It might provide more habitat further north, above the Arctic Circle, let’s say, in 20 or 50 years, but we don’t know that. The other thing that comes tied to that is just expansion of human activities into core breeding areas. We know from previous experience that that’s not necessarily great for black ducks. Should that continue to happen or expand as climate changes and provides opportunities for new access to lands that hadn’t been there before, or new technologies to be on the landscape, there is concern as to what that’s going to do to those core breeding black duck areas. But time is there for us to learn from that. I really think effects of climate change are something we’re going to see. And then just continuing on with conservation for wetland areas, we’ve seen loss in staging and wintering areas, keep that going. Again, that DU decision support tool is such a great tool on the landscape for habitat joint ventures, small community programs, wherever the level is, to find areas that are really key to black ducks and put those conservation dollars in a good spot. I think using that kind of information to direct conservation is something we should carry forward with doing. And I think stable populations have really shown the response that came from the hunting community as well as the biologists and management community to this species in the last 10 or 20 years. Carrying that forward, I think, will be great. We should continue to see good harvestable numbers of black ducks on the landscape.

Ramsey Russell: What’s one key takeaway message about black ducks you’d like to leave listeners?

Ted Barney: Enjoy them. They are a cool bird. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. It’s one of these that, they can be in a niche area, they take niche hunting techniques, and when you look across the range of all the different ways that people go to get under those birds, get out there and enjoy them. When the opportunity presents itself for you to give back, whether you shoot a banded one, you participate in the harvest survey, you participate in the citizen science program, do that, because all that information comes to us and we use that information for management. We enjoy seeing them as much as you guys do. So get out there and enjoy.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you so much, Ted. I really, really appreciate the insight you’ve given us today on black ducks. Thank you so much.

Ted Barney: No, my pleasure. Thank you for having me on. And I look forward to opportunities as all the wave of information comes around. So we’ll look forward to that in the future.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, you all been listening. My buddy Ted Barney with Canadian Wildlife Services, part of the Aquatic Habitat Data Management Unit. Wow. What do you all think about that? And what a takeaway message for us to enjoy the American black duck. See you next time.