Blind Ambitions

Article found at www.deltawaterfowl.org

 The area around Minnedosa in the parklands of southwestern Manitoba has become waterfowl’s equivalent of the “roach hotel”. Ducks check in but they don’t check out.

In recent years, nest-success rates have been so low that Minnedosa qualifies as a “population sink”. Translation: More ducks set up housekeeping each spring than migrate south in the fall.

Yet despite Minnedosa’s apparent lack of productivity, the breeding population of mallards has actually increased, climbing from 10 pairs per square kilometer prior to the 1990s to 16 pairs in the 2000s. Scientists know that given adequate wetland conditions, hen mallards often return to the area where they were hatched, but if Minnedosa is producing so few ducklings, where are all those breeding birds coming from?

That’s the question University of Saskatchewan Ph.D. candidate Dan Coulton set out to answer in 2002. What four years of field research showed is that the local breeding population has been propped up by artificial nesting structures called Hen Houses.

Developed by Delta Waterfowl, Hen Houses are wire-framed, grass-lined cylinders mounted on posts and erected above the waterline to buffer hens and nests from predators.

Nest success for mallards using Hen Houses during Coulton’s study was 58 percent. That’s well above the 12- to 15-percent minimum necessary to sustain the population.

Mallards nesting in Minnedosa’s upland cover haven’t fared nearly as well in recent years. In a study conducted by Ducks Unlimited’s Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research (IWWR), nest success on “managed upland cover” in the Minnedosa region was just 1 percent, and that was in 1998, a time when mallard populations were soaring.

Coulton’s research mirrored those findings: non-tunnel nesters averaged just 2.8 percent nest success, and one year nest success was just one one-hundredth of a percent, which translates to one successful nest for every 10,000 initiated (waterfowl scientists measure nest success using a complex formula rather than a straight percentage).

Hen survival was also higher for birds nesting in Hen Houses. “Hen House females spend less time attending nests,” Coulton explains. “Hens whose nests are destroyed early in the breeding-season will typically attempt to re-nest, often several times. The more time hens spend nesting, the greater their exposure to predators. Most terrestrial predators that prey on hens don’t swim, thus they cannot access hens in nest tunnels.”

Hen Houses, most of them erected as part of Delta’s Duck Production (DDP) program, enjoyed occupancy rates ranging from 85 to 92 percent during Coulton’s study.

Scientists know that nest success and hen survival are the two most important factors in determining mallard populations, and Coulton’s research confirms that Hen Houses are a cost-effective tool for increasing both.

In the beginning Coulton had to consider the possibility that Minnedosa was being populated by ducks hatched in other places. The immigration hypothesis seemed plausible given Minnedosa’s proximity to the highly productive Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres just across the border in North Dakota, but determining where a Minnedosa-nesting hen originated would be a challenge. After all, migrating ducks don’t leave forwarding addresses.

To find the answer, Coulton incorporated a bit of high-tech sleuthing that sounds like a plot from one of television’s crime-scene investigation shows: stable isotopes.

“Ducklings grow their first flight feathers from the food in their natal area, and stable isotope patterns from these foods are incorporated into feathers,” explains Coulton. “They don’t molt those feathers until after their first breeding season, so by analyzing the feather tissue of juvenile birds, we can link the stable isotope values to breeding regions and re-track which region an individual came from.”

Surprisingly, these “isotopic signatures” showed most of the juvenile females captured by Coulton originated not in the U.S. prairies but in Canada’s parklands. While stable isotopes cannot reveal exactly where in the parklands those ducks hatched, Coulton’s banding data did confirm that Hen Houses are an important source of juvenile mallards in Minnedosa.

“My top-performing model said that tunnel recruits were important to the Minnedosa mallard population,” Coulton says. “Of the banded juvenile females I recaptured during the study, 89 percent hatched in Hen Houses the previous year.”

Delta and its partners have installed 3,600 Hen Houses in Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado and Utah and are launching new projects in Minnesota, Iowa and Saskatchewan. Delta anticipates installing another 1,600 Hen Houses this winter.

A native of Bay Village, Ohio, Coulton is working on his Ph.D. at University of Saskatchewan and hopes to publish this research in the near future.

Why is it after a vacation I feel like a need a few days to recover from the vacation? Had a great few days in Florida visiting family, but I am glad to be home and even more glad to see the rain falling at home.

Now it’s time to get back after it. The dogs got a couple days off and we will get going again today. We only have two months until the spring hunt test season gets going again, so we have a ton of work to do between now and then; not to mention a bunch of ducks to hunt as well.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

I know it’s a little early, but I’ll be heading out this afternoon towards Florida to spend the rest of the week with my parents.  This is one of the few times a year we take a couple days off, so I am looking forward to it. Plan to duck hunt a few mornings on Merritt Island Refuge and maybe spend some time catching redfish in the afternoon.

I hope everyone has a blessed Thanksgiving, and remember what we all have to be thankful for.

I’ll have some new posts up first part of next week.

The cold weather really hit us Saturday morning. It was down in the 20’s which is very unusual for this time fo year. That didn’t stop the dogs from picking up the ducks though. Here are a few pictures from some succesful hunts this past weekend.

 Hershey with one of the woodies we shot Saturday:

This is Lucy, a lab I trained this summer with her first succesul hunt:

Perhaps the easiest way to deal with hypothermia and your dog is to avoid it. This does not mean you cancel those cold weather duck hunts, but a few precautions should be taken when the mercury drops.The first thing is transporting a dog to the field. If you have a dog box, put cedar shavings in the box to help insulate it. If you use the plastic or wire crates, use an insulated kennel cover. This will keep the cold wind of the dog as you drive to your hunting location.Once you arrive, put a neoprene vest on your dog. The neoprene vest does a great job at keeping the body warm even when wet. There are several manufactures and several models to choose from.Keep the dog from sitting in the water. Sitting in the cold water will zap the warmth right out of the dog; so use a dog stand or find a spot in the boat or blind that is dry for the dog to sit.Keep your wet dog out of the wind. You can do this buy hanging a piece or burlap or placing the dog behind a brush pile. Anything that will help keep some of the cold wind of will be beneficial.Dry the dog often. Try and help keep the dog dry, use towels, or better yet a chamois cloth, to dry the dog off when the shooting slows down.Keep a bumper in your blind bag. If it’s bitter cold and the shooting is slow, throw bumper (on land) a few times and let the dog run some to retrieve it. Just getting the dog up and getting the blood flowing will help add warmth.Hypothermia is serious and kills hunting dogs every year. Knowing the signs and symptoms, having some basic knowledge of first level treatment may one day save your dog’s life. There is no better cure than prevention, so use good sense when the temperatures are cold, and you and your buddy can enjoy a lot more cold mornings together.

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 So now that we know what the signs and symptoms are we notice that are dog is shivering and seems clumsy and uncoordinated. Hypothermia is suspected, so we grab our Field First-Aid kit and check the dog’s temperature; it’s 94 degrees F. What now?At this point the number one factor is to remove the dog form exposure to cold, and prevent any further heat loss. For most of us duck hunters that will mean drying the dog. Use towels, your coat, anything you can that will absorb the water from the dog. The next step is getting the dog out of the wind. If you are in a blind this will not be too difficult, but if you are hunting from a boat or in flooded timber you may want to use your coat to make a wind block for the dog. Body to body contact can help as well. This doesn’t mean you have to get naked and huddle with the dog, but pulling the dog close or opening your coat and huddling with the dog will help the dog warm up. If you can get the dog to your truck, put the dog in the floor board, crank the truck and use the heater. This is about all that can be done in the field, but anytime you have to do any of this an emergency vet visit is needed. Once at the vet’s office there are number of things they can do like warm fluid IV’s and flushing stomach or rectum with warm isotonic fluids. Next time we will look at ways to prevent hypothermia while hunting.

Hypothermia can be divided into 3 categories or stages.

1) Mild: The dog begins to shiver and cannot control the shivering. Your dog will begin to act lethargic or tired. Typically at this stage the dog’s temperature is between 96-99 degrees F.

2) Moderate:  Once a dog’s temperature falls into the 90-95 degree F. range it lose it’s ability to shiver. The dog will lose coordination and appear clumsy; at this point the dog may lose consciousness. If it gets to this point, your dog life’s is in serious danger.

3) Severe:  82-90 degrees F. At this point your dog will have collapsed, it will have trouble breathing, the pupils will be dilated and the dog will be unresponsive. If hypothermia gets to this point it is critical that the dog be warmed quickly and taken to an emergency vet center.

Like most things, if you pick up on the signs early, it is very treatable and will have no long suffering effects on the dog. Keep and eye on your pup when it’s cold out so you can be sure he can share the blind with you again next time.

Over the summer I posted a number of articles relating to dogs becoming overheated; but as duck seasons are opening up across the country, now is the time to think about hypothermia. It doesn’t have to be frigid conditions for a dog to show signs of hypothermia, exposure in cold water with some wind are all that is needed. Over the next few days we will discuss the signs and symptoms of canine hypothermia, the treatment if your dog is showing signs and common sense ways to prevent it; but first I want to provide some basic information of what hypothermia isHypothermia is when the core body temperature drops due to exposure to cold. It can be deadly if ignored. A dog’s normal body temperature is 101-102 degrees Fahrenheit. Hypothermia occurs once a dog’s temperature, taken with a rectal thermometer, drops below 97 degrees. The temperature outside does not have to be below freezing for this to occur.  In fact studies have show that 55 degree water, with 40 degree air temps and 10 mph winds are prime conditions for hypothermia to occur in a dog. Most of us duck hunters have all hunted in much worse conditions than these. Check back throughout the week as we will take an in depth look at how to protect our hunting partners from this deadly condition.

The teal that were around Saturday the 10th have vanished, looks like they have headed for warmer waters. The woodie numbers were high again; reports all over the state indicate an unusually high number of woodducks.

Well it has been, I believe about two weeks since my last entry. Been really busy with the new chessie pup, getting my dog ready for duck season and working other dogs, plus trying to get scouting for todays duck opener.

 That being said, new posts should be coming almost daily now.

As for today, the duck season got going in full swing. Me and Heshey headed out to a little backwater hole that showed promise. It did not let us down. We took 5 birds total, 3 GW teal drakes, a drake woodie and a hen woodie. Thge birds were pretty active this morning, and saw a ton of woodies. The water conditions were good, but it was much colder than I thought. I made a mistake in not putting a vest on the dog and it showed. She was pretty cold. Lesson learned and a mistake we won’t make again. Sadly, no pictures today, the batteries in the camera were dead, and by the time I got home, got the kennel takec care of and unloaded mys tuff, I had no desire to take any pictures, so I cleaned birds and called it a morning.

As for the bird situation, it doesn’t appear than the big ducks are here yet, but there were enough teal and woodies to make a good shoot. From what I have heard, the piedmont section of NC had some mallards and black ducks. Rumor is that the migration has started as people are reporting that birds are leaving the Ohio River Valley in large numbers. The next couple weeks should bring in some good numbers of birds if Mother nature cooperates.