Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Mike Brasher: Hey everyone, welcome back. I am Dr. Mike Brasher. I'm going to be your host on this episode and I'm again pleased to be joined by Kayci Messerly as my co-host. Kayci, welcome back.
Kayci Messerly: Hi, great to be back.

Mike Brasher: And we are on location, Laurel, Maryland, on what many in the waterfowl hunting community would consider to be sacred ground. We are at the home of the Bird Banding Lab. Super honored to be joined by the Bird Banding Lab program manager, Dr. Tony Celis-Murillo. Tony, great to be with you. Yeah, it's an honor to be here with you too. Great. And then also, Ms. Lauren Walker, biologist and Flyway liaison.

Lauren Walker: Yes, thank you for having us.

Mike Brasher: A lot of our listeners will be some of our state and federal partners that you interact with, Lauren, on a regular basis. When I say Flyway liaison, we'll kind of unpack that a little bit more. But in terms of your daily responsibilities, we'll get into that as well. So, we are, as waterfowl hunters, the majority of which will be our audience, very familiar with bird bands, duck bands. Partly because, you know, we put them on our lanyards and all that kind of stuff. People get so excited about harvesting a duck that has been banded. But there is a ton of science that goes into that one little piece of typically aluminum for that particular bird. And that's one of the things that we want to talk about, like what all do we get from it? What's the history of this and why is it so important? So Tony, my first question here is to you, outside of that obvious infatuation by waterfowl hunters of putting that putting that band on that lanyard. Why should duck hunters care about the birdbending program and the work that you do and all of your staff do? Well, that's a great question, I think.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Well, there's really a really deeper meaning of just a simple band, you know? I think every duck hunter should just care about the bands and the birdbending lab. Mainly because really those bands tell a story behind the shot. I think that's key. So when a duck is banded, that precise moment becomes data for us. We are scientists, biologists looking for that data because that data helps manage the flyways, set harvest limits, protect habitats, and ensure basically the future of waterfall hunting and waterfall populations across North America. So, every report that comes to us completes a, you know, a critical loop in the science of conservation. So, it's, I should say, it's citizen science, mainly, what is happening. And about the birdbending lab, well, that's the engine behind all this happening. We are the ones who issue the federal permits, issue the bans. collect the data, manage the data, get all the reports from hunters about those bands, and put all those things together to make meaningful information for the managers to manage the wildlife in general, habitats, and so state agencies like Fish and Wildlife Service, Wildlife agencies, individual scientists, universities, you name it, they all use this data for making effective management and conservation science. So so yeah, while the band looks cool in a lanyard, I mean, to be honest, it looks really cool. But also it's a reminder that they are part of something way, way bigger. So it's not it's not just that the band, they they are part of this. century old system that allows hunters to keep hunting and managers and biologists to do their conservation effectively.

Mike Brasher: Thank you for that. Tony, you mentioned a number of things there that I want to unpack a little bit. At the top of that list will be to acknowledge our state and university and other federal agency partners that are prominent in this process. They are the ones out in the field capturing these birds and banding the birds and none of this would be possible without them. You guys here back at the lab are the ones that permit those activities, you curate the data, you provide them with the bands, you are the ones that interact with them, you know, and Lauren as a Flyway liaison, that's one of the prominent roles that you play in kind of being that key link between those state agency managers and then what happens back here in the lab. Tony, you also mentioned sort of broadly about the role of Banding data and enabling population management and harvest management, there's a few specific ways that I want to make sure we pull out for our listeners. Banding data allow us to calculate harvest rates, you know, the proportion of birds that are harvested during a given year. They also allow us through some sophisticated models to calculate annual survival rates. for different waterfowl species or any other bird species for which you have sufficient data. They allow us to evaluate the effect of different harvest regulations, whether you're talking about season length, bag limits, it's banding data that allows us to figure those things out because they allow us to calculate the harvest rate, which would result from different types of regulations. and then also how it may affect survival rates and then also when you combine those data with other data sets you can begin to measure the overall effect of different harvest regulations on broader population change or population dynamics and some of those things are what we talked about with our other science partners that we were here visiting with. this week, so banding data is absolutely crucial in all of the work that we do to inform harvest regulations to ensure that we continue to have hunting seasons, period. There are new methods now, or actually they're old methods, but they're seeing expanded application now for using banding data to estimate population sizes for some species of birds. That would be through the Lincoln-Peterson estimation method that a lot of people know about. Banding data is crucial in providing one of the key pieces of information in that estimation method. Without banding data, we can't estimate population sizes through that method. And then there are a number of other ways that banding data comes into play. It helps us have some of the most scientifically informed and defensible harvest regulations anywhere on the planet. And that's why we can have confidence that we can continue to have hunting seasons year after year, that we can defend those with solid data, banding data overall being an absolutely big part of that. It's an honor to sit down with you and Lauren here today to discuss some of this in more detail, and I'm going to pass it over to Kayci for her question now.

Kayci Messerly: Thank you for all of the work that you guys do. I did some songbird banding back before I was working for DU and getting to band the chicks and then seeing them come back next year as adults. There's just something incredible about that experience. And it's the same way, data points, whether it's because you've harvested your duck and now you've got information on their history or you've got recaptures from some songbird banding or even duck banding. It's just an incredible experience to get to follow the history of the duck. there. But what exactly does the Bird Banding Lab do for someone who's getting an outside perspective, someone who's not doing the research? How would you explain that to them?

Tony Celis-Murillo: Well, the Bourbonnais Lab, or people call it the BBL, is a federal program. You know, it's a science program. It's housed here at Patuxent, housed at Eastern Ecological Science Center, USGS, United States Geological Survey. We've been here since 1920. And one that makes us the oldest scientific program in the country and honestly a cornerstone of migratory bird management across North America. And our core job is issue federal permits, issue bans. help everyone, vendors and scientists to collect data about banding and hunters to be able to report their band. And when I say reports, it really means all kinds of reports from dogs, geese, from hunters to Some birds, you mentioned some birds, some birds from the public, somebody finds a bird with a band and they don't know what to do, but they read the band and say, well, let's report it. And they comes to us. So all that data comes to us. So our core work is to manage all the data and make sure it's, um, Managed properly, high quality, curated, very clean data, so scientists can put everything together into following their vision of coming up with management strategies that are effective for conservation. The team, our BBL, the team is somewhat small. We are about 12 people. And I guess Lauren here can easily tell us about how is a day, a regular day of the bird banding lab.

Lauren Walker: Yeah, so like Tony said, we have about 12 staff and some of us are divided into primarily looking at the banding data and cleaning it. Some of us are primarily looking at reports coming in from the public or maybe working on permits or permit modifications, but most of us do a little bit of everything. So, for instance, today before I was here with you guys doing this interview, I was cleaning some reports from the past month that have come in through our reporting website. Just basically cross-checking against the banding data and the recovery data, making sure that Things like the species matches and where the bird showed up makes sense. The time of year it showed up in that place makes sense. So that's the kind of thing that we do day to day to make sure that the data we're receiving is accurate for the scientists and so that the data that we give back to the reporters about where the bird came from, you know, it all makes sense and that they're getting the correct data too.

Mike Brasher: So, when you're saying you're cleaning the data, you've talked about some of that, but this is really interesting. I hope it's really interesting for our hunters because they're the ones, they're many of the ones that you've interacted with. Well, they are the ones you interact with. And so, I oftentimes see stories on Facebook where it's a unique bird or I got a call or they got back in touch with me because they wanted more information because this didn't really make sense. So, what are some of the examples of when that happens, there's several different outcomes, right? There could be several reasons why, either where it was harvested or the timing of the harvest or where something didn't make sense. What are some possible explanations for that?

Lauren Walker: Well, so there's kind of two different possibilities here. One is that the report doesn't match the data we have from the bander, like it's completely different species, something's really wonky, and that is either, probably the band was either misread by the person that reported it. or the bander made a mistake and they, you know, there was a typo in their data sheet that they turned into us. And you know, those kinds of things happen. Um, more commonly, um, we are just comparing the data into what we have in our database, right? So biologically it might seem like, Oh, this bird is, gosh, this is a 20 year old goose. Like it's not impossible. It happens all the time. But it's like slightly unusual. And so we reach out to reporters for a request for a photo or just like ask them to double check the band number. Just like let's just make sure that this is the bird that we think it is before we let it into the database to become kind of part of this bigger data set.

Mike Brasher: So it's been a while since I've harvested and reported a banded bird. So I'm going to kind of expose some lack of recent experience here. In terms of whenever I go to report a band, do I have a spot in there to indicate the species? Yes. Okay. Yep. All right. So that, and that's one of the potential mismatches that you would see that would come through. Somebody reports it as a hen mallard, but your dataset says that it's a model duck or something.

Lauren Walker: Correct. Yep. And sometimes that's just like a dropdown error. Sometimes people, sometimes you don't know what it is. You know, um, sometimes people report black ducks that are actually mallards and vice versa. So those types of errors happen.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yeah. And regarding reports, we also had to think that the opportunity to report is for everyone. Right. So it could be someone who doesn't have anything to do with hunting, but they saw a duck dead or whatever. Right. They find the bird. So they report and it could be. I don't know anything but this number and I'm standing here, this is my location and so on. So when you submit a report it asks you a lot of questions because every piece of information is ultimately useful. Behind the scenes, and most of our work is kind of behind the scenes, is where we have all the expertise and all the BBL folks with a lot of experience. They know where it should be, the times, the years, all of that, the species, they can identify the age, sex, all that stuff. So, with that experience, they curate that data. And when I say curate, it means, does this record make sense? Is that possible because of the age? Is that possible on the season? Is it really possible that Doc is in the Yucatan Peninsula at this time? Or things like that. You know, it's basically helping behind the scenes, putting together all the pieces of information. Just keep in mind that we have 80 million records in our database. So we have a lot of data to sustain what we think is right in terms of patterns of the data. So we just keep up with that.

Kayci Messerly: Yeah, and so you guys do a lot of the data collection, data cleaning, right? So are you guys also the people that generate the certificates and the appreciation when hunters report these bands?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, that's us. So whether hunters are reporting through our reporting website, the reportband.gov, or through emails, or we still occasionally even receive letters in the mail from folks, We get that record and as I just explained, we kind of just review it, make sure it makes sense if it needs, you know. tweaking or curating in some way, we take care of that. And then we generate that certificate of appreciation. We know it's really important. We know the certificates are important to hunters. They tell the story of your hunt. And they kind of close that loop for the science side of it, too, for the researchers. That means that when you've gotten your certificate of appreciation, that data point has entered our database. And we've included that in this larger data set that's affecting science and impacting management. So it's not, you know, it's not just a piece of paper, even though I, you know, people also like to have the piece of paper to hang it on their wall. You know, we frequently get reports or contacted by folks that, you know, find an old band in a junk drawer or something. It might be their grandfathers or some great uncle that, you know, they're just discovering it years later and they can report it to us and whether or not their grandfather reported it previously, we can kind of connect that band to the story and say, well, if your grandfather had this band, you know, he collected it from a duck that was banded in, you know, the 50s or the 60s or 70s and he likely harvested it. And if he did report it, we can really, we can connect them back to that original data point and say he was hunting this place at this time. Sometimes we can even send them, you know, a scan of the written letter that that person sent us. And so that data, along with the certificate, you know, kind of all comes together to really tell a nice story, kind of connecting, making a tangible link between generations of hunters.

Kayci Messerly: Yeah, we actually had another conservation science assistant who was going out to estate sales and she bought this box where she found a loose band. And so naturally, as a responsible scientist, she went to report that. And it was one of these older bands that she was not as familiar with, I wasn't as familiar with. And so we got to the point of where we figured out how to report it because it was one digit shorter than what we were used to. And she actually found out that the person who originally banded that bird was someone that she had previously banded with and was now retired. And so that band was… Do you remember how old that band?

Mike Brasher: Oh, gosh. I don't. I mean, it was… banded, what, decades, several decades ago? Now, we don't know how old the bird was when it was found, right? Because this was just in the drawer.

Kayci Messerly: Just a loose band. But it does, it brings back a history and memories for so many people. And so you get to be a part of history, even if you weren't necessarily, like you said, the one who harvested that animal or even found that bird initially. You find that band later on and you get an incredible story and it's a testament to the history that you guys have collected.

Mike Brasher: I think there are a number of hunters that would be listening to this and they would say, you know, I wish you would go back to the days of printing the old certificates and have them arrive by way of mail so it's more of a surprise. Because you mentioned hunters hang these on their wall. I was talking to one of our Ducks Unlimited former board member, major supporter of ours, I was like, man, hunters love these things. They hang them on the wall. We have a wall in our duck club where it's just all of these little certificates that we've… Now they print them out, but previously they would arrive and they would put them up there. And so the ones that date to the 70s or 80s or even before, have more of an antique look to them. And you'd probably get a number of folks who say, why don't y'all go back to that?

Lauren Walker: But we also get folks that report a burden and two days later are emailing us wondering where their certificate is.

Tony Celis-Murillo: But I just say, yeah, we talk about it. It is a legacy, right? That certificate is so valuable. We also, as scientists, we also, it's a trophy for us too, because when you connect these two points from where it's banded and then encounter it again, that's the key part of the science that we're trying to do. So it is a trophy for us too.

Mike Brasher: And I'm sure you've seen the videos of a young hunter, 8, 9, 11 years old, shoot a bird, go pick it up. and they're just beside themselves. Sometimes they cry, I get kind of emotional just sort of thinking about it. Sometimes they cry, they're screaming, celebrating with their father, their mother. That's a special moment. And it's a special moment that intersects science. Like, that's pretty cool, right? Yes.

Tony Celis-Murillo: And we really appreciate that. I mean, we also see it in… I guess one of the awesome things of working here is because we hear from them, we talk with them, they email us when they report, sometimes they call us and that's when we find out the beautiful stories that are happening behind the scenes.

Mike Brasher: So, we've kind of, I think we've touched on this a little bit. It went well when Kayci said there was a different kind of band that Katie would have found. If you go back far enough, people that have been hunting for a number of years will have memory and experience with different inscriptions. on bands. And that in itself, to a lot of people, is a really cool thing if you encounter and have a history of having harvested ducks that had those different vintages of bands. Dating all the way back to when they just said Avize Bird Band, right? Washington, D.C., U.S.A. I thought that was the weirdest thing, because I'm like, you can just… Well, number one, what does Avize mean?

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yeah, I can tell you about that.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Actually, advice is, it comes from a visa, which is in Spanish. Because when we started, you know, in the 1920s, when everything was established, one of the main questions we had was, where are the birds going? And little by little we figured out, yeah, seems like we hear reports that they're going to Central America. I mean, that's all the way they fly, right? Or Mexico or somewhere else. So we thought, well, if the birds are going there, these migratory dogs or geese or whatever. Well, we hope that someone over there finds it and they call us. But how will they know if we put something in English? So they come out with Avise. Avise means report in Spanish. I have no idea. Report. And that's how it worked. So in the winter in grounds, they were shooting them too or capturing them or finding them and they were reporting. And that's how allowed basically to keep growing the knowledge of the wintering grounds in the south and the brewing grounds in the north and connecting them. So that's why it was mostly because knowing that past the border, people will just speak Spanish and will understand avise comes from avisar or report. in Spanish. I had no idea. So that's how it came up. But yeah, those are really old. Later on, once we start understanding better the patterns, then we, over time, we were things. Well, you Lauren, you work with looking at the details on the bands and edging and all that stuff. You can tell us more about the different types and how it's been evolving over time.

Lauren Walker: Yeah, so the second part of those older bands that you mentioned said, you know, write Washington, D.C. on them. And today they say Laurel, Maryland. So it's kind of tracking the BBL's history as well, giving clues to how and where to report the bands if you recover them. So they used to say, write Washington, D.C. And then They said Laurel, Maryland. And then eventually we switched over to a 1-800 toll number, which I think was in the 90s, to kind of help hunters know how to actually get the information to us. And now most of our bands say www.reportband.gov to reflect our current reporting website. So that's part of the reason why the inscriptions change. And the style of the inscription actually helps us do a lot of kind of our comparisons to make sure that the band is a real band, it's not a replica. There's a lot of minute details in the band inscriptions that kind of give us clues to make sure that it is what it's supposed to be.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Another interesting part that hunters know very well, because especially those who've been hunting for like 30 years or more, and they've seen these changes, they will realize that sometimes even the shape of the numbers or the size of the number changes. And a lot of that is because here we consider those marks to be permanent, basically until the bird dies or gets shot. So, but you know, behavior of every species is different. I mean, it could be some waterfall that spends all the time in the water and the band is going to be underwater for every day for 20 years and then they get like washed up. Right. So scientists here, they've been looking at materials, shapes of the bands, the type of printing, size of the numbers, to ensure that over time, like, we realize, okay, if the nine is one way, over 20 years is going to be washed up and we're not going to be able to follow if he's nine or seven or things like that. So it's been a lot of work behind the scenes trying to make sure that the evolution of those bands, it allows for better recognition of the numbers, identification, and that last. And I said, it's just the materials too.

Lauren Walker: Yeah, and the root of it all is to try to make it easy to report the band, like if it's readable, if you know where to report, because we really, I mean, I say we, but I mean, the managers and the scientists all rely on getting those reports back. If the bands aren't reported, then it doesn't do anybody any good. any good and so really getting a good reporting rate and having an understanding of what that reporting rate is is really important for how that data translates to like sound management decisions.

Mike Brasher: You know, you mentioned reporting rate. We talked to Mike Runge. We've also had conversations with folks like Scott Boomer here this week. And there are different kinds of bans that are used. One that's critical in calculating sort of reporting rate is reward bans. So, talk about that. I mean, a hunter that would have harvested those knows exactly what it is. It has a monetary value inscribed on it. So, talk about, why do we do that? How frequently do we do that? What's the deal with reward bands?

Lauren Walker: So reward bands have been around since the late 40s even. And I think, you know, in 1950, the reward was like $2 or something like that. And today they range, you know, up to $100. But really, like we said, they're designed to enable us to calculate an accurate reporting rate and to even kind of improve reporting rates to some degree. The reward band program isn't run by the BBL. It's run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service kind of in coordination with us. So they pay out the rewards. They, you know, organize which banders get which reward band numbers and the values and all that stuff. And then we, you know, collect all that data and make sure that when we get a report of a reward band and a federal band that it all matches up, and then we hand over that information to Fish and Wildlife to process it and pay out the reward.

Mike Brasher: Not everybody that harvests a banded duck is going to report it, for whatever reason. Some people are skeptical of the government, some people don't have the time, some people have harvested so many banded birds, they're like, I'm not doing this anymore, any number of reasons, right? There's several different uses of banding data, recovered bands and release bands, that data can be used to estimate survival rates, harvest rates, those types of things, right? And so, it's really important to get as accurate of an estimate of the actual number, let's just say, of banded birds. that are harvested, that's really what you're concerned about, right? Is what's the percentage of the birds that we banned this year, let's just say, that are harvested, if we're wanting to estimate a harvest rate, just to kind of keep things simple. So, that's what we're looking for. If not everybody reports those bans, then that means we would be underestimating the harvest rate if we just went based on the number of bands that you get reported. So really what you want to know is how many people aren't reporting their bands? How much is it being underreported? That's right. And so the idea being that you're paying people through these reward bands to report that, and then you assume that reward bands are shot with the same frequency as regular bands, right? And you assume, and they've tested this, that what's the monetary value at which a reporting rate begins to kind of level off, and you assume that's 100% reporting. Am I getting that kind of right?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, exactly. You're comparing the… So of all the birds, use mallards as an example, all the mallards that you banded, how many of the ones with just a federal band were reported versus the number of ones with the federal band and a reward band? And kind of the differences in proportions there kind of give you clues as to how maybe how much underreported just the federal band birds are.

Mike Brasher: So if you release some reward bands in one year and regular bands in one year and let's say you get 10% of the reward bands reported to you, 8% of the non-reward bands, you would assume, I don't know, it's 80% reporting rate, right?

Lauren Walker: Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of assumptions that go into that math and there's a lot of nuance to it, you know, depending on the age of the birds, the locations, the timing of everything. But yeah, that's the general idea.

Tony Celis-Murillo: I should say that also one interesting thing, especially for hunters and why the reward bands sometimes are so unique is that usually the reward program starts and ends based on specific projects across the country. So, for instance, the scientists figured out that, okay, it seems like in the Northeast or in the Northwest, in some region of the country, they feel like they're unsure about the efforts of reporting. And then they focus a reward band program. So it's going to be an sporadic project showing up here and there. So maybe some years there's more, some years there's less, or some regions shows more and others. So it's like variable. So that's what it makes very interesting for, for hunters because You never know when you're going to get one.

Mike Brasher: Right. We talked about that yesterday or day before, again, with Scott Boomer. Are there any reward banding programs or studies going on right now? I don't remember what the answer to that was, but they cost money because you're paying out for these recovered bands. So, it's a cost, right? That's why it's a rare event because it's a costly thing. And they periodically test to sort of, as you said, Tony, if there's some reason to believe that we need to refine our understanding of the reporting rate. I want to back up because when you said something, you talked about the Fish and Wildlife Service, the reporting rate, the reward band studies are designed sort of commission paid for by the Fish and Wildlife Service. And here we are within USGS. I want to make sure we clarify. Like, where is the bird banding lab? Because I think a lot of people just assume that the bird banding lab is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We spoke with Mike Runge about this and he unpacked a little bit of that history, but I want you all to also speak about that as well. You're part of USGS, U.S. Geological Survey. I mean, that's an important point for people to be aware of.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yeah, that's correct. USGS, US Geological Survey, is basically an arm of the Department of Interior that focuses on the science. Most of what is happening is scientific research and kind of the goal is unbiased science. And so if you think about it, it makes sense why the BBL is here because we are not just about the bands and the permits, we are also about the data and analyze that data. Many other partners are doing it, other agencies, other organizations are also doing it in collaboration with us. But I guess it really makes a lot of sense For the VBL to be in US, yes, because we do this unbiased work basically with the science without the connection with management basically. I think that's the reason why it was ultimately decided.

Lauren Walker: And going back to, you know, the inscriptions on the bands, like the older bands do say Fish and Wildlife because at one point we were in the Fish and Wildlife Service. So it is confusing for folks. The bird banding lab has bounced around. Originally, we were in USDA before Fish and Wildlife was even a thing. And then we moved into Fish and Wildlife Service in 39 or 40, I believe. And then for a brief period in the 90s, we're in this biological… Biological survey, right. Yeah, and then that was kind of quickly done away with and we were moved into USGS.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, you mentioned, it used to be in the US Department of Agriculture, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act originally said it would be up to the Secretary of Agriculture to to, as information allowed, to open hunting season for waterfowl and other migratory game birds. So yeah, but then move to the Department of the Interior, which is where we are today. And both U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and USGS are within the Department of Interior. We're going to take a break. Time is flying by here. So we're going to take a break. We're going to come back, and then we're going to get into a few other questions, and we have some kind of fast facts that we want to ask y'all as well. Bands provide data and all sorts of cool data, and so we want to do some little quick questions here. So stay with us, folks. We'll be right back.

Mike Brasher: Welcome back, everyone.

Mike Brasher: We are here with Dr. Toni Celis-Murillo and Lauren Walker of the Bird Banding Lab. I'm joined by my co-host, Kayci Messerly, and we're going to jump right back in. Kayci, I think you have the first question here.

Kayci Messerly: Okay. So we've talked a little bit about, well, we've talked a lot a bit about waterfowl, but outside of waterfowl, we know that you guys also keep records of bands for other species, but what are a few of those species that you're keeping records for?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, so that's a really great question. People are often surprised how many different species we cover. Waterfowl get a lot of the spotlight. We have data for probably 1,000 different species in our data set. So the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which you mentioned earlier, gives us authority for permitting banding efforts on basically all native wild birds. So hummingbirds, shorebirds, seabirds, passerines, raptors, all these species are covered. There are a few exceptions. Sometimes hunters are surprised to learn that we don't cover bands for things like turkey or grouse and quail. These are actually not covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They don't migrate and they've been so heavily managed. moving populations around, especially for hunters. So we don't cover data for them. We also don't have data for condors, which sometimes surprises people. We get lots of reports for condors. They obviously move around, they're big birds, but they were a reintroduced population. They're just not covered under our purview.

Tony Celis-Murillo: I have a follow-up on that. I think one thing that is important about studying the other species, and I guess hunters will be happy or waterfowlers will be happy that all the knowledge that we have acquired with this long-term waterfall management, now it's been applied to all the other species. So basically we are like interchanging knowledge from one set group of efforts to the other species. And now it's just, it's really helping basically all the species.

Lauren Walker: And it goes the other way too. The data from other species helps guide, you know, habitat protections and things that ultimately also impact waterfowl.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yeah. Especially when we were focusing on habitat conservation, that's where it really matters.

Mike Brasher: A lot of people when they think about the information we get from band recoveries, they think about migration. The band recoveries back in the 30s, 40s, whatever, that's how we began to learn about migratory flyways, right? That's sort of the historical legacy of what we started to get from banded birds and in the recovery locations. Where did we band them? Where do we recover them? Then we began to build out these patterns of these large migratory flyways. We've learned a ton more than that from these markings and recoveries of individual birds. So, what are some of those other ways that banding of these individuals helps us understand bird ecology?

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yeah, well, you are totally right. We simply initiated where are the birds going and focusing on migration and ensuring that we recover that band in the future. But over time, yes, we really keep expanding our science and now basically we're focusing on both the biology, which is the what, what's happening, what are the patterns that we see. and also the ecology, which is the why. So it's not about knowing that the bird populations are declining, but also why. And that's where the ecology part comes in, where like, what are the factors that are driving those declines? And that's how it's been a very, now we have a much comprehensive perspective of what is happening. We have with the bands itself, we have information at the individual level. I mean the actual individual because we capture the bird and when we put the band. we have the opportunity with the bird in the hand, you can collect so much data right there. The age, the sex, you know, all demographic data. Nowadays, you can even collect blood from the bird and do genetics, look at the molting patterns, the fat, all that stuff with the bird in the hand. That is even before the bird is recovered, right? Or the band is recovered. So yeah, even if we don't have a report of that bird later on in life, we have so much information already collected. And now imagine, we have information about the individual, but now all together, all the 80 million records, it really allows us to understand more about the population. And both, like I said, the biology, what is happening, and the ecology, like why it's happening. So yeah, that helps us a lot. It really becomes like a very comprehensive way of studying birds and their habitat.

Mike Brasher: And there's a beautiful complementarity to the data collected through the bird banding lab and the data collected through your colleagues in the Fish and Wildlife Service, especially when it relates to waterfowl. We can also make the case with a breeding bird survey and the data that it collects on all sorts of other migratory birds. And within the waterfowl field, we talk often about the three legs of the stool from a data stream standpoint. The banding data, there's the population and habitat survey data, and then there's the harvest survey data. We were here for a day and a half prior to this meeting with some world-class population dynamics scientists, waterfowl population demographers. Pretty much every presentation relied on one or two or all of those data sets. Mike Runge, again, that is why waterfowl management in North America is the envy of the world. is the envy of wildlife scientists worldwide because of this volume of data. And the value of that is synergistic. You take one away and it erodes the value of all three of those and really limits our ability to understand what's happening with populations at so many different levels. We saw new techniques being applied where we're looking at where birds are banded and pulling out that sample of birds and looking at how their survival may vary based on, or harvest rates may vary based on birds that were banded in another area. We just recently completed a study in collaboration with Dr. Lisa Webb, Dr. Bram Verheijen, relying on 60 years of band recovery data to understand changes in distribution, harvest distribution during winter. There's not a hunter alive that isn't concerned and interested in learning about where the ducks are and where they have been and how those things may have changed. Without banding data, we would not have been able to do that study. We would not have been able to talk about how the patterns of change in winter distribution differ among regions. We can answer that question for birds that were banded in Prairie Canada in the boreal forest and compare it to birds that were banded in Prairie US and compare that to birds banded in the in the Great Lakes region, in Ontario, and then on the Pacific Coast, in Flyway, in Atlantic Flyway. There's a ton of information there to help us understand what's going on with these populations of birds that we love so much. I'm doing too much talking, y'all are the experts.

Lauren Walker: You're doing great, I agree with everything.

Tony Celis-Murillo: You're explaining it really well in a way that it's all connected, you know, and we think about birds, as biological indicators. And I like to think about the typical, in the past, we, you know, miners used to have like canneries in a little cage when they win. It was the warning system for them when they There was like, the air was not, not enough oxygen or things like that. Right. So if they saw the canary drop from the post, it means like we got to get out. There's this, it's a warning signal. That's exactly what we're doing with, with bird bending. It's the power of bird bending. It's just allow us to get signals of the environment. So yeah, that's how it works all together.

Kayci Messerly: Yeah, we model kind of a similar structure with our Duck DNA program that you guys do with reporting. So we get tissue samples from hunters that have harvested birds, but in response to that, we provide them with their certificate of information so that they also get something out of that contribution because it's just so valuable to us. But what I've seen is this overwhelming excitement from hunters, right? And on occasions, we get phone calls from out in the field or some really, really exciting and detailed emails. I'm assuming you guys have some similar experiences to that.

Lauren Walker: Yeah. Well, I mentioned before, sometimes folks are very, very eager to get their certificate and figure out where the bird came from. And we get lots of emails wanting to know that data. And sometimes the delay in getting that data is because something really cool has happened. Like the bird is really old and might be like a longevity record or has made this really cool, interesting movement. We actually get reports of birds that were banded in other countries sometimes. There's banding up in Eastern Russia and in Greenland. Um, and we get reports of those, those geese and those ducks all over the U S. Um, so we had one, uh, Northern Pintail recovered in Louisiana that was banded all the way up in, in Eastern, in Eastern Russia and Siberia. Um, and you just think about, you know, the things that Bird has seen and the amount of country and habitats and like, it's just really incredible. So we get those inquiries and those requests and sometimes that brings reports to our attention that we wouldn't necessarily have given another look at. One really cool story, and maybe Tony can tell it, there was a reporter from the middle of some tropical forest.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, it's true. We have really interesting stories with every report. And so someone found a band in the middle of the forest in Central America. And I don't recall exactly which country, but He walked through the forest for a week until he got a phone and he reported the bird. And he said, I'm only here and I did the effort to walk to the phone because I want to know why I found this bird. Right. And so we explained the whole, the whole project and everything. And he was amazed and he said, like, it was worth it for him to do the walk through the forest for a week. and report the band because yeah, those bands can end anywhere. So yeah, we have some amazing stories from the public hunters or the kid who is his first shot and gets a band. So imagine that is like the first bird you shoot and he's banded. It's a big deal for the kid. I mean, it just changed his life. His hunting life basically started strong.

Mike Brasher: It's too bad you don't have an opportunity, I'm assuming you don't have much of an opportunity to welcome people in, you know, to give tours. I mean, it's not to those of us, the two of you that work here and the other staff that work here, you think, well, it's just our office, we just kind of work here. But it means something different to the people that are part of this. It's like when people come tour Ducks Unlimited's headquarters, There's some fancy mounts that have been donated and that we can show off in our collection of raffle items and guns of the year and all that type stuff. And those things are pretty cool. But, you know, I think to most of the employees that work there, it's where we go to do the thing that we really care about. But it never fails that when other people visit, it's like, oh, this is so cool.

Tony Celis-Murillo: I should say that we actually were working on that. We realize how important it is and we're here because of them. And that's why we think it's very important. And I feel sorry for the other folks that are not here because here we see all these things happening and all these stories and thousands of people. I mean, we had a hundred thousand reports that we get at least from waterfall owner. Plus a hundred thousand more for other things. But every one of those reports is a story. It's a great story. So, so yeah, we, we value that for sure. And we're working on that.

Mike Brasher: That's a, that's a great transition to our next segment here. We have a series of BBL fast facts, as I so creatively labeled them when putting this together. So, Kayci, how about we trade these off? You take A and we'll just rotate back and forth. Until I interrupt you and kind of figure all that out. That seems to be how it goes, doesn't it?

Kayci Messerly: Okay, we're going to rapid fire these off at you guys, so answer as you will. How many bands are put out annually for all birds combined?

Lauren Walker: So each year, you know, it varies a little bit, but nearly a million probably is a good estimate. 2024 data isn't fully in yet, but for 2023, there was about 980,000 bands in our dataset.

Mike Brasher: That's incredible. Okay. Of those, how many bands are put out on waterfowl annually?

Lauren Walker: So again, it varies year to year, kind of depending on what species are being targeted, what projects are happening. But across the last 10 years, about 330,000 annually on average.

Mike Brasher: I bet you it's going to surprise people to learn that you put out more bans on species other than waterfowl than you do waterfowl. This surprises me. So how many of those are ducks?

Lauren Walker: Okay, so excuse me. So that was for game birds actually. So for waterfowl, it's around 280,000 and for ducks specifically, it's about 165.

Mike Brasher: That's going to be even more surprising to people. Wow.

Kayci Messerly: Okay. How many waterfowl band recoveries do you receive annually?

Lauren Walker: So that's about 85,000, um, recoveries, uh, for, for all waterfowl, not just ducks. Um, and the vast majority of them come from like September to January. So, uh, so we're, our encounter team is very busy during hunting season.

Tony Celis-Murillo: We know when the day the hunting season starts.

Kayci Messerly: Pour us in.

Mike Brasher: So, what are the top three most banded species in your data set?

Lauren Walker: So, not surprisingly, these are all game birds. So, the most banded species is the mallard, about 6.9 million records. Canada geese, about 4 million. And then morning doves, about 2.6.

Mike Brasher: But that would be over the long term.

Lauren Walker: Yes, that's our entire data set.

Mike Brasher: So, do you know what that… is it still broken down like that? Like this now, because I'm kind of doing the math, if there's nearly a million birds banded and released, but, you know, 300,000 of those are game birds.

Lauren Walker: I didn't, you know, I didn't give you that question. But my guess is that it would be, that would hold true annually that it's, it's, it's definitely going to be game birds and mallards and Canada geese are probably at the

Mike Brasher: So, when you're looking at a single species on a single species level, you know, it's our game birds, our mallards.

Lauren Walker: In a given year, yeah.

Mike Brasher: And so, that speaks to… people may be thinking, well, how can that be? It's just because of the sheer number of species of non-game bird birds, right? Yes.

Lauren Walker: Correct. Lots of little warblers and sparrows out there, yes.

Mike Brasher: Doves, for example, doves are… Yeah, that would accumulate over the several hundred species of birds that are part of that group. Close to a thousand species.

Kayci Messerly: Okay. So of the waterfowl birds or the game birds, what are the top three most reported species in your database?

Lauren Walker: So again, not surprising. The top two are mallards and Canada geese with over a million records each. And the third is actually wood ducks with about 276,000. So we do have a trade out there.

Mike Brasher: And that 267,000, that's over… Yeah, that's total, yeah. Did you say what it was for mallards? Do you have that number?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, mallards is 1.36 million and Canada geese is 1.25.

Mike Brasher: That's amazing. That's a lot of birds. What are the most banded non-waterfowl species?

Lauren Walker: So, morning doves are, you know, a game bird, but not waterfowl. So, they're up there. And then after that, it's actually kind of surprised me. It's actually a passerine. It's juncos, like colored juncos. And so, he turns. Really?

Mike Brasher: So, a lot of studies on some colonial nesters there, right?

Lauren Walker: Right. And they each have about 1.75 million banding records.

Kayci Messerly: So we've heard a lot of big numbers already. So I just want to blow that one out of the water. How many total banning records are in your database?

Lauren Walker: So it's a little tricky to put like a concrete number on it, because even though we've been around since 1920, most of our current database is actually just reflects data from 1960 on. A lot of the banning data prior to 1960 we have on paper records. It has not necessarily been digitized. We're in the process of scanning. but we're not anywhere near actually getting them in the database. If there was an encounter, like if the bird was reported to us, then we have that banding data in the database. So, with that caveat, we have over 80 million records.

Mike Brasher: 80 million?

Lauren Walker: Wow, that's insane.

Mike Brasher: That's a lot. Okay, what is the probability that a duck hunter will harvest a band on any given hunt? Were you able to come up with that? So this is one that I did share with you beforehand, right? I was not going to just show up for that one.

Lauren Walker: Yes, thank goodness. Okay, so this is actually an incredibly difficult number to come up with.

Mike Brasher: We should have asked Mike Runge earlier, right?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, I see. And we don't really have a good sense of the true number. It's going to vary so much through time and space, the month, the hunters out there, the wetland they're on, like how far away from a banding site they might be. But I guess holding our feet to the fire, I kind of looked up some recent numbers and a recent US Fish and Wildlife Report estimated between eight and nine million ducks are harvested each year in the US, right? So if you look at the average of 34,000 banded duck reports that we get each year, That gives a rough number of 0.4% of harvested ducks are banded. But that's assuming all banded ducks are reported to us. Getting back to that reporting rate question.

Mike Brasher: That's a challenging math. Maybe somebody listening to this is going to take up that challenge. I hope they do. That would be great.

Lauren Walker: It's a question we would love to know.

Mike Brasher: And so I'll add to it, like, what's the probability of harvesting two banded birds out of four in a single day? Because that actually happened to me one time.

Kayci Messerly: Humblebrags.

Mike Brasher: It's never happened before. Never since. I'm sorry. Never happened since. And then there's also like, what's the probability of somebody harvesting their first duck ever harvested being banded? I know several people that fall into that category.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Which is amazing. And that's why every band needs a trophy, because of the difficulty to get them. But also, that's why we are so proud about our lanyards.

Mike Brasher: Because it means a lot. It really means a lot. Now, with the caveat that we do not encourage people to target bands, Ducks Unlimited kind of talks about that and others do as well. We don't want people to go out and specifically target banded birds. That violates some of the assumptions and the analyses that are based on the banding data. So, I always want to provide that caveat and how to be a sort of responsible harvester of these ducks and participant in science. Are you up next?

Kayci Messerly: Technically, yes, but if you want to do this one… No, you go ahead. If you want to interrupt and take over. Okay, so what is the oldest banded bird that has ever been recovered and reported?

Lauren Walker: So that title belongs to Wisdom of Laysan albatross, and at more than 70 years old, she's the world's oldest known bird.

Mike Brasher: But now there's a difference in recovery here. Like when you say the, maybe, I don't know if you included that in your question, the oldest banded bird ever recovered and reported. Now, wisdom is recovered by capture, right? Not like harvest. So that's, yeah.

Lauren Walker: Yes, I see.

Mike Brasher: So whenever I, in my brain, when I think recovery, I think of a harvest. But that's not entirely, but that's an important correction, I guess, to make in that birds can be recovered. through capture, which does happen, and it is an important part of collecting data. From a hunter standpoint, a recovery means a harvested bird, most likely. But there are recoveries that also do occur in annual banding operations. So, that's a good clarification. I was thinking, I think I was thinking of harvested. So, that's my fault whenever I crafted that question.

Kayci Messerly: I would like that.

Lauren Walker: It was unclear.

Kayci Messerly: In the record.

Mike Brasher: I think it is in the record.

Kayci Messerly: I'm just requesting it doesn't get removed.

Mike Brasher: Oh, so, okay. Do you want… Can I have another one? You have a redo. Oh, thank you.

Kayci Messerly: I appreciate it. So… Moving on, what is the oldest banded waterfowl specifically that's ever been recovered and reported?

Lauren Walker: Alright, so this kind of circles back to what you were just saying. So the oldest waterfowl was a greater white-fronted goose that was banded as a gosling in Alaska in 1977 and harvested in Utah in 2012. So it was 34 and a half years old. Wow. The oldest game bird, I just threw this in there, was a sandhill crane. It was actually hit by a car at 38.

Mike Brasher: Oh my gosh. Wow. Crushed it. Yep. You couldn't resist, could you?

Kayci Messerly: I could not.

Mike Brasher: Okay, so we've covered wisdom, the oldest known living bird. That knowledge is made possible because of banding, right? We would not have known. Yes, exactly. And the BBL keeps tabs on longevity of every species. So y'all have a website where people can go and check that out. How would they find that?

Lauren Walker: If you search for bird banding lab and longevity, that should, you know, bring up our page. And we update it once a year, so it's not like… up to the moment, but that'll give you the oldest bird in our database, not necessarily documented in the literature, but in our database for each species.

Mike Brasher: And for wild birds.

Lauren Walker: Yeah.

Mike Brasher: Do researchers ever change out bands if they get excessively worn? Because we talked about recaptures as a way of recovery. If they look at a band and it's starting to get worn, will they change that out?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, so we generally discourage folks from doing that, um, with a few exceptions. And one is if the band is very worn or difficult to read or like, you know, it's so thin that you can tell it's going to fall off shortly or, um, the other is if something has happened to the band. So it appears that it's causing the bird some sort of injury and then we, we, you know, encourage them to take it off to not cause injury to the bird. Um, So if you do find a band as a hunter or as a bander that's taking a band off a leg that you can't read the numbers, there are ways often to retrieve those numbers. You can do chemical etching. And the BBL actually offers that service if you find a band that you can't read, even if it's fully wiped out, you can mail it in to us and there's a good chance that we'll be able to retrieve the number. We create a report for you. We will mail the band back to you. You'll get it back. I know that's a common misconception that we won't send it back, but we do. And then you'll get your certificate and most of the time we can retrieve the band number.

Kayci Messerly: Yeah, it's absolutely remarkable. I've done it once where the band was completely smooth. There was nothing legible on it at all. You throw it into some acid solution that I don't remember off the top of my head. Don't recommend for people that haven't used it before. Um, and yeah, you can, the numbers just come back and like sometimes that's more clear than others, but it's enough that you can very distinctly get those numbers and report them accurately, which is incredible.

Tony Celis-Murillo: In our lab does that. You can send those to us and we'll send it back.

Lauren Walker: And we have access to chemicals that maybe aren't accessible to the general public that can get some of those harder to read bands.

Kayci Messerly: Are all bird bands the same? If not, how do they differ and what are the different metals that can be used?

Lauren Walker: So they come in like obviously a wide variety of sizes to match the bird legs and shapes even depending on the type of bird. But also lots of different types, well, several different types of metal depending on the species and kind of the habitats that they live in. maybe how long they have potential to live. So most bird bands are made of aluminum. Others are stainless steel and some are inkloy, which is a mix of nickel and chromium. Some are what we call butt end, which is just where the, like a simple wrap of metal where the two ends kind of neatly join.

Mike Brasher: That's what hunters would be most familiar with.

Lauren Walker: Some are rivet or lock-on bands, and so some swan bands are lock-on. Often they're more likely to be used on like an eagle or something with a strong bill that, you know, the lock-on helps it stay on the bird. The hard metal bands like the stainless steel and the inkloy are also kind of more difficult for the birds to pry off, but they also are better at withstanding kind of those harsh environmental conditions, like if a bird spends a lot of time in salt water, for example. So a good example might be like a brant, like a long-lived bird that spends a lot of time in salt water, more likely to be given a stainless steel band than maybe like an interior goose, like a Canada goose or a snow goose, might be more typically given aluminum. Not always, but yeah.

Mike Brasher: Yeah. And you're also, your group also manages and keeps records for web tags, neck collars, all of those types of, like the, even the color-coded bands that people would see on Shorebird, kind of. going along down at the beach or whatever.

Lauren Walker: The coded kind of field-readable color bands. Some shorebirds get little like flags with codes on them, neck collars. We permit all that and keep track of the codes and the colors. So if someone sees and reports a bird that way, then we can kind of tie that back to the bird band, even if they don't even if they can't see the actual bird federal band. Web tags are a little unique. Sometimes we have the data and sometimes we don't. A lot of states put out web tags without putting out a federal band, and some of those birds get federal bands later, in which case we have the web tag data, but a lot of times they don't.

Mike Brasher: Like ducklings, is that kind of what we're… Yeah, yeah, a lot of ducklings get them, A lot of them don't make it. But you would still have to permit that, issue permits for those types of things.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Yes, generally we try to have a record of everyone's activities and we know who is doing what and which kind of tags they're using. I mean, it could be in the colors, web tags.

Lauren Walker: Transmitters.

Tony Celis-Murillo: Transmitters. Any kind of, we call it, auxiliary marker in addition to the band. is in our data and that allows us that when a report comes in, we know basically who is coming what.

Lauren Walker: And that's part of our kind of data curating too. If a hunter reports a band but doesn't say anything about a neck collar, but the banding record says it should have had one, then that's one of those things we kind of double check and make sure that everything lines up.

Tony Celis-Murillo: And when they're coded, in many cases, because we have the records, when you go to reportband.gov to do the report, even if you don't have sometimes the band number, you can still track to the individual in some cases.

Lauren Walker: Yeah, just from the auxiliary marker information.

Mike Brasher: We're going to start wrapping up. Unfortunately, we have to get on the road. We have to do our own impersonation of a bird and fly back. Migrate away. Migrate away, back to Tennessee. So one of the things that I will leave our listeners with is as you've been listening to this, if there are any questions that we did not ask that you're interested in, Submit those to us, dupodcast.ducks.org. We'll reach out to Tony, Lauren, see if they are interested in following up with us to answer some of those questions. I'm sure you would be. So, this is your opportunity to ask some additional questions of the people that run the Bird Banding Lab. And so, let's get those questions into us. We've discussed a lot of information here that your group is responsible for. And I want to look at this, I want your historical perspective. Where would the migratory bird community, define that however you want to, we can just talk about researchers and ecology or certainly harvest management, the whole thing. Where would that be without the bird banding lab? and without the banding data that y'all are responsible for?

Tony Celis-Murillo: Well I would say honestly without the bare banding lab, well I don't think there would be waterfall management. I mean that simple. At least not in the way that we know it today. Not in the way that, as effective as we know today. So we may not even have waterfall tissue today. I mean that critical is the role of the bare banding lab. Mostly because it's the centralized system that is the nexus to all these communities of hunters, scientists, people, managers, and without the beer-bending lab, there won't be coordination, which means there won't be a way to understand the biology and ecology that we talk about. We wouldn't be able to track the species population trends over time. And ultimately we will figure out how to make effective conservation and management strategies. So it is key and ultimately the BBL role, the key role in waterfall management is what is allowing us to keep waterfall populations healthy. and, well, I guess maintain this heritage of hunting in the United States, which is key part for our country, really. I will say it's not just a lab. It is the backbone of conservation system that lasted a century. So, yeah, proud to be here and definitely it's easy for everyone to understand the value of the Burbanding Lab.

Kayci Messerly: Yeah, you guys work very hard here and you fill a lot of roles. You have a lot on your plate. You work in a beautiful location surrounded by a bunch of very dedicated, passionate people. When you come into work every day, what is it that makes you the most excited and ready to continue your work?

Tony Celis-Murillo: Well, I will say that I guess just it's it's an honor basically to be part of this long lasting system. I mean, it's it's really not just our people here, but it's also our community out there. What it really makes valuable this work. But honestly the people that we serve I think is what is the most valuable that I see. And it's of course humbling for us to be just the stewards of such database, such program that serves as the nexus to everyone and all with the same vision and goal of maintaining bird populations, habitats, and science. Lauren, you have any other added point to this?

Lauren Walker: Yeah, I'll echo all those sentiments. Being able to communicate every day with people that are from every part of bird science, bird interests, anybody that loves birds, from hunters to the fish and wildlife people down the hallway, to our own staff, to the university professors that I email with, or the state agencies that I correspond with. It's really wonderful to be able to kind of be in this supporting, and as Tony said, kind of stewardship role in moving this science forward.

Mike Brasher: We offer our personal thanks to the work that you do, to the work that everyone here does. The people that have been in these positions before you, there have been a number of people that have kept this going for decades, 105 years, if that math worked for me. So thank you for all of that and everyone that came before you. 105 years of an absolutely phenomenal database that has been pivotal in shaping our understanding of bird populations here in North America and worldwide, I would be so bold as to say. And we are, I know our state partners appreciate it. I know our hunters appreciate it. It's a really special thing that y'all do. It's a special thing that, special opportunity for us to be here and to to talk with y'all, to share the story. We are going to have to scoot here, we may miss our flight, I don't know, but you know what I'll say is that if there is an episode that's worth missing a flight for, it would be this one. I mean, because this is a really important message, it's important work that intersects every part of the migratory bird conservation community from the… eight-year-old hunter that shoots their first banded duck and is hooked for life to the to the Mike Runge upstairs that has made a career and everybody that's come before them that has made a career in helping us understand more and more about bird populations based on some of this data. It's incredible and it's an honor for us to sit down here and talk with you all about it.

Tony Celis-Murillo: And just one line, I think it's important what you said. We really believe that hunters are the main players and they have a role in every part of this. And they have a vested interest, you know, in water for conservation. And thanks to them is a harvest management has been one of the more successful programs here. And that's why we are here.

Mike Brasher: Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Tony Celis-Murillo. Thank you, Lauren Walker.

Lauren Walker: Thank you.

Mike Brasher: Thank you for having us. That's great. Thank you. A special thanks to our guests on today's episode, Dr. Tony Celis-Murillo, BBL program manager, also Lauren Walker, biologist and Flyway liaison. Also extend a thank you to my co-host, Kayci Messerly. We thank our producers, Chris Isaac and Rachel Jarrett for the great work that they do. And then to you, the listener, we thank you for your time and support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation and waterfowl science.