Auckland Waikato - More Ducks Strategy....

I received an email yesterday containing a draft of a strategy, the aim being to reduce the decline in numbers our local duck population. I offered some feedback, more around the need to get hunters aboard and working with the limited F&G staff resource, rather than sitting back and waiting for F&G to "do it for them".

Dave Klee responded quickly, and provided the following dialogue and images from some of the birds that are currently being tracked.

"BTW thought you might be interested in the attached. Some footage of our nest sites from the tracked birds. 059, hatched all her 10 eggs (see pic) on Saturday  but was down to 7 yesterday She has moved nearly 1km since hatching."

 

 

 

".171 on the other hand had this visitor, followed by another black one about 2 hours later, she returned to the nest very briefly, just once, and then abandoned it."

 

 

So of potentially 20 fledged ducks (say 10 per hen/nest) the net gain thus far and before further losses is 7 ducks. Small sample? Yes, tiny, but a pretty graphic demonstration of what's happening out there on top of habitat loss and all the other factors that determine the net number of available ducks.