RELOADED EP78 | Estimating Annual Waterfowl Harvest, Part 2
Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, Reloaded. We bring you the best of our past episodes. Whether you're a seasoned waterfowler or curious about conservation, this series is for you. Over the years, we've had incredible guests and discussions about everything from wetland conservation to the latest waterfowl research and hunting strategies. In Reloaded, we're revisiting those conversations to keep the passion alive and the mission strong.
VO:So sit back, relax, and enjoy this reload.
Mike Brasher:We're back here today, to continue our discussion about waterfowl harvest estimation, and I'm I'm happy to to welcome back in our guest, doctor Kathy Fleming and doctor Paul Panning, and we're gonna jump right in and pick up with where we, where we left off from the the previous episode. And at the conclusion of that, we had introduced the harvest information program as a as a new, component of of waterfowl harvest estimation process. And, Paul, I want to give you an opportunity to tell us a bit more about that and why it came about.
Paul Patti:As early as the nineteen sixties, state and federal biologists recognized the need for national harvest surveys of other migratory game bird species besides waterfowl, primarily doves and woodcock, and they started trying to find a way to get an annual sample frame of people who hunt those other species. But it seemed like it was gonna require a federal migratory bird hunting permit and a number of states were opposed to that. Issuing licenses has always been the state's purview, and although the states, supported establishment of the federal duck stamp in the nineteen thirties, they didn't want another exception to the rule. So despite repeated efforts, no progress was made until the late nineteen eighties. By that time, the National Waterfowl Harvest Survey was experiencing problems.
Paul Patti:The main one was that many post office clerks just plain stopped handing out our name and address cards to duck stamp purchasers. So it became harder and harder to get a large sample of waterfowl hunters in the survey. I recall that in the early and mid nineties when I was when I first started there, we were sending 400,000 name and address cards out to post offices in order to get about 50 or 60,000 of them back. So that whole system was just sort of falling apart. So the combination of the need for a survey of other migratory game bird species and the need to shore up the waterfowl harvest survey led the states and the Fish and Wildlife Service to a compromise solution and that was a mandatory requirement for migratory bird hunters to register annually as a migratory bird hunter at at the state level.
Paul Patti:In every state, they're gonna hunt migratory birds. So it's kind of an odd situation. This is required by federal regulation, but it's issued and administered by the individual states. Some states charge a separate fee for it and others don't. But the bottom line is that the states through the harvest information program collect the names and addresses of all the migratory bird hunters in The United States, at least all the ones that have to buy a hunting license, and they provide that to the Fish and Wildlife Service and that's what we use for our sampling frame for the surveys that we conduct now.
Mike Brasher:It's required to have a HIP certification and it's required by the, I guess, by the federal government. And so help me understand how this came about. You know, the states administered this HIP certification. So what was it that happened that effectively forced the states to do this? And I don't know if forcing the states to do this is the right way of saying it, but what what was the process by which this became a requirement?
Paul Patti:Well, it became a requirement through a federal regulation. Now we would not have been able to put that federal regulation in place if even one of the 49 states of Hawaii is not included in this, if even one of those 49 states had objected to it, we would not have been able to do that. However, all of the states supported it, and so we were able to put in place regulation that requires migratory bird hunters to provide their name and address to the state agency.
Mike Brasher:Kathy, I think we'll move to you now. I have a few questions here related to sort of the modern day implementation of harvest estimation. And I think I want to start off with just talking about the collaboration between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the individual states, and Paul has certainly provided a great segue to that, noting that it's hand in hand cooperation, but I'll ask you to speak a bit more about that collaboration that occurs.
Kathy Fleming:Sure. Yeah, the flyways and when I talk about flyways, mean like the state agencies that make up the administrative flyways, not the actual physical flyways are an essential partner to us in estimating harvest. Obviously registration for the harvest information program starts at the state agency. We depend on agencies to provide hunter information, obviously, that we use to conduct our survey, and something that Paul didn't mention that we'll talk about in a little bit, I think, is that state waterfowl biologists are also really important partners when we go to determine the species, age, and sex of wings submitted in the Parts Collection Survey. So we work very closely with the states, not only because they're giving us data, but we are providing them with a harvest estimate.
Kathy Fleming:In many cases that's very important to the states to know how many of each species or each type of bird is harvested in their state.
Mike Brasher:Okay. And I think the next thing we want to talk about here is just sort of decomposing the different components of harvest estimation. I think I know we'll get into these in more detail, but when I think this is really important for our listeners, especially our hunters that are key parts of this to be able to see what are the different pieces of the harvest estimation process? So Kathy, can you touch on those?
Kathy Fleming:Yes. And it is confusing because there's a lot of different know, we're federal government, we like to use a lot of acronyms, so it is important for people to understand. The harvest information program itself is the state component of our harvest surveys. So it's the states that collect the name and address data and provide the registration to hunters so that they can legally harvest migratory birds. They send that data to us and then we use it to sample for our surveys, but our surveys aren't part of HIP.
Kathy Fleming:Our surveys are the Migratory Bird Harvest Survey and the Parts Collection Survey. So it's not really that they're all contained under HIP, but that HIP provides that basic information that we need to conduct those other surveys.
Mike Brasher:So is it fair, big picture, to say there are three primary components? One is HIP, which is where you get the information on on the the hunters that you can sample. And then there's you called it the what is the
Kathy Fleming:Migratory bird harvest survey.
Mike Brasher:Migratory bird harvest survey. Is that kinda commonly known as the hunter diary? Is that is that what it used to be called or still is called?
Kathy Fleming:It is.
Mike Brasher:Okay. And then there's the parts collection survey. That's where you send in the wings.
Kathy Fleming:And that's also known as the wing survey.
Mike Brasher:Okay. The wing survey. So three components, and I just want to emphasize that so that we can clarify the different pieces here. So what else do we need to know about those three components there, Kathy?
Kathy Fleming:Well, they're all interconnected. So for example, we select a sample of hunters for the migratory bird harvest survey, which is the diary survey, and of those hunters that respond we use those data to estimate the harvest of, for example, ducks and geese. But then from the responses we select for the following year another sample of hunters and we invite them to participate in the parts collection survey. So it's basically the same group of hunters and then we ask those hunters to send us the actual wings or the tail feathers from every duck or goose that they shoot. And that information is used to partition out the duck and goose estimates to give us species specific estimates like the number of mallards or the number of pintails harvested in each state.
Kathy Fleming:So they're all interconnected and again it all gets back to hunters registering and providing us that critical information that we need to sample.
Mike Brasher:So let me me see if I have this correct. If you if someone is asked to participate in the I'm gonna just use the short name, the diary survey during this year, those individuals would then be contacted the following year to ask to participate in the wing survey?
Kathy Fleming:So anyone who returns a survey to us could be asked. Not everyone is asked because we don't take a don't take a full sample of all the hunters that return the survey, but you could be asked to participate just through we'll send you out another letter the next year and also from time to time people are asked in the same year to participate in both, and sometimes that gets a little confusing as well. But basically, we sample from the parts survey from anyone who returned a survey the previous year.
Mike Brasher:Okay. And you don't get the data if the hunters don't participate. So, again, just as we emphasize the importance of returning the vans, recalling in the bands, reporting bands, we wanna emphasize the importance of answering these surveys, participating these in these surveys when you when you have an opportunity to do so. It's it's a really neat chance to contribute to to the management of the populations that we're we as hunters and conservationists are are all invested in. So so let's let's talk I think we wanna wanna talk about the harvest information program in a fair bit of detail because this is this is the piece that every hunter every year is required to do.
Mike Brasher:As we've talked about, only a sample of hunters participated in the diary sir diary survey or the the wing survey. I've never participated in the in the wing survey. I've participated in the diary survey, but never the wing survey. But every year, I have to do a hip certification. So it bears some discussion here.
Mike Brasher:So tell us a bit more about the HIP certification, Kathy, and that that's the the point of sale whenever you're there, you know, buying your license or, I guess, you can do it online now, but that's the piece of this that every hunter should be familiar with and there are probably a lot of questions about.
Kathy Fleming:Okay. Well, it is required. It's required of everyone who intends to hunt any kind of migratory game bird. So that includes in a lot of states there's not just, you know, your standard waterfowl license, but there's free licenses, there's sportsman licenses, some lifetime licenses. There are some exceptions.
Kathy Fleming:Some states don't require junior hunters or senior hunters to get a hunting license. Some of those states might require them still to register for HIP and some and others don't. So but for, you know, everyone who is purchasing a license to hunt migratory birds, they must be HIP certified.
Mike Brasher:Okay. And anyone that's gone through this will know that that there are a series of questions that you are asked. So just, you know, briefly, we don't have to go through every one of these if you don't want to, but just remind us, remind our listeners what those questions are.
Kathy Fleming:Okay. So the first question, the most important one is, Do you intend to hunt migratory birds this year? And so that's the one that determines whether or not you have to get HIP certified. If the answer to that is yes, then some follow-up questions are asked and the hunter is going to be asked how many ducks they shot last year and usually not necessarily the number but in did you shoot a few or none or a lot of ducks How many geese they shot last year? How many doves and woodcocks they shot last year?
Kathy Fleming:And then they're also asked questions about whether or not they intend to hunt certain species, especially in some states that have permits for those species like sea ducks or brant or sandhill cranes. There's also a couple other I don't need to go into detail but there's a couple other questions related to rails and snipe and coots and galanoles.
Mike Brasher:Okay. I want to draw out something here again. The first question is, do you intend to hunt migratory birds this year? Right? That's emphasis on this year.
Mike Brasher:And and so if you answer yes, then you're asked about your harvest success the previous year. Right?
Kathy Fleming:Right, and this is asked as a way to determine whether or not you're an avid hunter or, you know, you don't hunt all that often or maybe you don't hunt at all that particular species. So it's not necessarily that we need to know exactly how many birds you harvested the previous year, but we're using that to determine whether or not you fit into that group of avid hunters or hunters that, you know, don't hunt quite as much.
VO:After these messages.
Mike Brasher:I wanna go to Paul now and ask about the rails, cranes, and doves, and any of the other birds. Why are we why are we asked about those? I I I get that I get a funny look when sometimes whenever the the clerk is asking me these questions, it's it's it's abundantly clear that that person has no idea what a rail is or a coot. And I what what is a coot? So why are we asked those questions?
Paul Patti:Well, probably the main reason for implementing the hip was to get a national sample frame for migratory game bird species other than waterfowl. And, of course, the most important ones are doves primarily, morning doves, and woodcock. But some of these lesser species, important to have some information on those too if for no other reason than to help us justify the fact that we have hunting seasons on them. So those questions help us target the few people that hunt rails and send them surveys about rail hunting and not just have to do a random sample of all three three three and a half million migratory bird hunters to try to get a hit on a few rail hunters. The legality part of it, maybe it'd be a good idea for me to use rails as an example.
Paul Patti:You know, prior to the harvest information program, if the Fish and Wildlife Service had been challenged on rail hunting, know, justifying rail hunting, the questions might go something like this, well, how many rails are there? Well, there aren't we don't have rail surveys, so the answer is, well, I don't know. How many people hunt rails? I don't know that either. And how many rails are shot every year?
Paul Patti:Well, we don't know that either. Well, that doesn't give a very solid basis for justifying a rail season that's that last seventy days and and has a bag limit of either 25 or 15 or if you if you combine you Virginia, Sora, and Clapper reels, the combined bag daily bag limit is 40. So so now that we have the harvest information program, we know from our surveys that only a few thousand people nationwide hunt rails and the total harvest of rails is probably less than 20,000 a year. So, that makes it a lot easier to justify the kinds of seasons that we have, and that's one of the things that going all the way back to the sixties and up until the harvest information program, biologists were somewhat concerned about.
Mike Brasher:Kathy, I want to go back to you now and we've talked in brief already about how our responses to these questions are used. Whenever we answer questions about how many birds we harvested the previous year, information is used to assign us to these different categories of avidity, how avid we are as hunters. Actually, don't you explain why that's important from a survey standpoint, even from a statistical standpoint? Why do we need to know that? How does that help us?
Kathy Fleming:Yeah, it is important and it into more of the statistical aspects of estimating harvest. We're sampling hunters based on how they answer those questions, so we're going to sample those groups of hunters at different rates. So we'll sample the small group of very active, very successful hunters at a high rate, and then the larger group of less successful hunters at a lower rate, and then the group that doesn't hunt at all will sample at a very low rate. And the reason why we do this is because we want to get the most precise harvest estimates we can, but we also don't want to spend a lot of money doing it. We want to be able to be efficient in the way we sample.
Kathy Fleming:We're sampling a huge group of people, so when we do this, like Paul said, we're not going to be sending out surveys to a million hunters, five or six of whom might have only harvested birds. And being able to classify hunters into one of these three groups allows us to sample very efficiently.
Mike Brasher:You said something, Kathy, that I'm not sure I knew, and I want to make sure that it is this way and that you didn't misspeak. You said you har you sample the people that don't harvest anything at a very small at a at a very low rate. So does that mean the people that when they're answering the very first question, like, did you do you intend to hunt, waterfowl or migratory birds? They answer no. You do sample those, that group, or are there three different levels of harvest?
Kathy Fleming:Yeah. No. We don't sample from the non migratory bird hunters, but if you think about it, someone might be a waterfowl hunter but they're not a dove hunter. So we're going to be sampling from that group. They said yes that they were going to hunt some type of migratory birds, but for each individual group of species that we're surveying, like for waterfowl, we do have some hunters in there that might be avid dove hunters but not avid waterfowl hunters.
Kathy Fleming:We're still going to sample from them because again, just because they did it last year doesn't necessarily mean that going to do the same thing this year, and we want to make sure that we are certainly sampling from people who didn't hunt last year but have identified themselves as migratory bird hunters.
Mike Brasher:Okay. So you use their responses to their level of harvest for a particular group of group of species, it would be waterfowl or doves from the previous year as a way to partition them out into different sampling frames in some way for participating in these different types of surveys waterfowl and rail and doves. Do I understand that correctly?
Kathy Fleming:Yeah, that's right. And the other thing that maybe I wasn't clear about is that if we sample at a high rate from the active hunters, that's a very small group of hunters. So if we don't sample from them at a higher rate, we're going to have way fewer number of responses in that group.
Paul Patti:I'm sure you've all heard the old adage 20% of the hunters shoot 80% of the ducks, and the numbers aren't exact, but it's not all that far off. So you'd really like to concentrate much of your survey effort on those people that are shooting a lot of birds so that you get an accurate and precise estimate of their harvest first and foremost. The rest of the harvest is important too, but theirs is really important because that's where the rubber hits the road.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. I hope the listeners realize from this, I'm sure they will, there's a great degree of complexity in this and these the way this program is implemented is designed to maximize our confidence in the estimates and it kind of all goes back to statistical principles and advancements we've made in being able to implement surveys to achieve that. So it can be a bit complicated, but it's all for a good reason in ensuring efficiency and precision. Kathy, I wanna touch on one other sort of common misconception we might even say about those hip questions that we're when we're asked how many birds we harvested last year, I know from personal conversations with folks that that some think that those numbers are used to directly estimate the harvest of waterfowl or other birds last year. So I'll let you answer this question definitively.
Mike Brasher:Is that the case?
Kathy Fleming:No. That is not the case. Yeah, that is a misconception and we do get that from some hunters that are asked to participate in the survey. As I said, all those questions do is allow us to sample hunters more efficiently by putting them in these different classes of avidity, as you say. It is not the survey and once we get that information you may receive a follow-up survey and a letter that comes with the survey that explains what the actual survey is.
Mike Brasher:Okay. Well, hope we've answered that question there. Paul, something that's happened to me on more than one occasion, I will indicate to the clerk at a point of sale that I'm interested in a hip certification, and I see the clerk feverishly punching buttons or clicking the mouse, and then the next thing, you know, that that that clerk will, you know, tell me how much I owe, and I'm all of sudden, well, wait a minute. I you didn't give me a chance to answer the questions about whether I intend to hunt migratory birds this year. What what happened?
Mike Brasher:She said, oh, well, I just I just clicked no. And, of course, I give that clerk a piece of my mind at that time and emphasize the importance of asking me that question and then that person has taken away my opportunity to answer and provide data. And what should a person do if if they find themselves in that situation?
Paul Patti:Well, I've been in this situation too. You can imagine that it didn't fool me when I was chief of harvest surveys. So I I think a good response is to just tell the clerk to start over and do it right and don't pay for the license until it's done right. My the way I handle it now is I I typically hunt waterfowl in several different states and and every year, and I buy all my licenses online now. You know, if you when you do it online, the the the questions are asked automatically.
Paul Patti:There's no question about whether a clerk is entering them correctly or not. So, I would encourage all of your listeners, anybody who can buy your licenses online, it's really convenient.
Mike Brasher:Do that quite often as well, Paul, I've gotten to where I that's kind of my mode of operation. The other thing that I'll do if I do if am at a point of sale, I will tell the clerk before they start entering the information, I will indicate that I I need HIP certification, and I'll add to that immediately. And I want to answer the questions. Ask me the questions. And so in every case that's they've they've done that, thankfully.
Paul Patti:That's good. That's a good idea. I will say I've had mixed success with just saying let's start over and do it right. One place told me to go fly a kite and another place went ahead and did what I asked.
Kathy Fleming:And I would just add to that that it doesn't mean just because you don't fill out the questions does not mean that you won't get a survey. And what it could possibly mean is that you get put into the wrong category, and so it ends up not helping us when we're trying to estimate harvest.
Mike Brasher:Now another question I have for you on HIP certification. Paul, you mentioned that you hunt in multiple states. I find myself in that same situation as well occasionally. Do I need a separate and and whether this is Kathy or Paul, maybe Kathy, this is for you. Do I need a separate HIP certification for each state in which I hunt?
Mike Brasher:And and if so well, let me just stop there. Do I need a separate HIP certification for each state?
Kathy Fleming:Yes, you do. Every state that you intend to hunt.
Mike Brasher:Okay. Alright. And so then when I'm so the answer is yes. And when I'm answering that question to the to the clerk, they'll ask, you know, do you intend to hunt migratory birds? And so, you know, I'm in that state, my answer is yes.
Mike Brasher:And then they ask me the question of, did you how many ducks or geese or birds of whatever category did you harvest the previous year? Do I answer those questions relative to my harvest in that state or is it overall across all states?
Kathy Fleming:Yeah, I would say that you should just answer it relative to your harvest in the state in which you're applying. So if you're applying in different states, might want to answer it differently. I think overall what we're trying to characterize is the avidity of the hunter, not necessarily exactly how many birds that they hunted the previous year, and the reason for that is because you know, people hunt differently from year to year and so it's not a perfect predictor. But to do the best you can, I think, yes, you should use what the harvest was in the state where you're applying for HIP certification to answer those questions?
Mike Brasher:If I hunt in multiple states, I have multiple HIP certifications, and then let's say that I'm selected to participate in the survey, do I do I say I'm I'm elected or I'm selected to participate in the diary survey. Do I answer that with respect to the state tied to that HIP certification or do I even know that?
Kathy Fleming:Yeah. You'll know that because we have it in the letter that we send out and it's also written on the form, on the survey form itself. So you're asked very explicitly in the letter to only provide your harvest for that state. And the reason why it gets back to the fact that we do estimate harvest separately for each state. So it would not be correct for you to put in all your harvest if you hunted in three states just because you got the survey for the one state.
Kathy Fleming:Just answer the survey that you get and then it's written on the top of the survey form.
Mike Brasher:Anything else we need to convey about harvest information program at this higher level? I know we're going to get into the details of how many people do we select, stratifying by state. We have those things yet to discuss, but anything else at a higher level?
Kathy Fleming:Well, I would just emphasize that, you know, we consider hunters to be the most important partner in estimating harvest and we can't do it without them. So we know that it's a bit onerous for people to have to answer all those questions. It does seem like a little overkill sometimes, but it's for a very good reason and the data are extremely valuable. Our data are not just used for estimating harvest. There's a lot of interest in using this information, as I said, at the county level, for example, at trends in harvest and, like you mentioned, looking at ways to determine how to allocate conservation money, conservation dollars for land acquisition.
Kathy Fleming:So I can't think of anything more important and I just want to thank hunters who do participate and urge everyone who gets an invitation in the mail to follow-up and send in their survey. It's really important.
Mike Brasher:Absolutely. I echo that. And Kathy, I will add something to how this data is used. Now this isn't a necessarily formal application of the data, but you and I and others across the waterfowl community have worked closely over the past few years to use the harvest data, this county level harvest data to help us build a picture of where we build a picture for our conservation planning at the joint venture level, NAWAMP joint venture level. We've had a couple of episodes with Dale Humberg where we talked about NAWAMP and the joint ventures as regional implementation arms for the NAWAMP and the conservation planning that occurs at that regional scale, of course, you know and have helped us with.
Mike Brasher:We've harvest data can in some way serve as a proxy for where these birds are and it's kinda similar to the way that you described it's used to help allocate duck stamp dollars or the the the proxy that it's serving there. We do the same thing in in some way or are starting to do the same way with respect to identifying our habitat conservation objectives in support of continental waterfowl populations across the landscape that supports the non breeding birds or birds during the non breeding season. So all this data has a number of uses and I absolutely echo your urging of people to participate at a high level and provide this data.
Kathy Fleming:Yeah, and you know, one other thing that maybe isn't public, not a lot of people are aware of, is that in the last, I don't know, like ten years or so, budgets have been cut for surveying waterfowl distributions in the non breeding season. We used to do a pretty full midwinter survey and a lot of those surveys have been cut back, and so now harvest is becoming the only proxy for widespread distribution of waterfowl during the non breeding season, And until those surveys return, I mean, I think it's, you know, people are starting to recognize that it's an important substitute for that, for those aerial surveys or on the ground surveys that they used to conduct.
Mike Brasher:Kathy and Paul, we are at about the half hour mark, maybe a bit over it on this episode, and we were kinda at a good stopping point. We still have remaining some additional questions, and we wanna partition that out into a separate episode for folks. So let's let's wrap up here, and we will have you back on to do another episode. So thanks again for joining the the podcast.
Paul Patti:Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Mike Brasher:Special thanks to our distinguished guest on today's episode, doctor Kathy Fleming and doctor Paul Padding for sharing with us a wealth of knowledge about harvest estimation, how it all worked, and the important role that hunters play in this process. And so we thank you hunters for your participation in these surveys, and we encourage you participate at a high rate, provide all the information that you can. We thank our producer, Clay Baird, for the the great work that he does in getting the podcast out to you. And our listeners, as always, we thank you for tuning in. We thank you for your support, passion, and commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.
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