Assessing Duck Hunting Management along the … · Assessing Duck Hunting Management Along the...
24
Jim Gammonley, Avian Research Leader Jon Runge, Biometrician Parks and Wildlife Commission August 8, 2014 Fort Collins Assessing Duck Hunting Management Along the South Platte River Corridor in Northeastern Colorado
Transcript of Assessing Duck Hunting Management along the … · Assessing Duck Hunting Management Along the...
Jim Gammonley, Avian Research Leader Jon Runge, Biometrician
Parks and Wildlife Commission August 8, 2014
Fort Collins
Assessing Duck Hunting Management Along the South Platte River Corridor
in Northeastern Colorado
Presenter
Presentation Notes
This is an update on a research study CPW has been conducting on duck hunting management over the past six years.
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The corridor along the South Platte River from Greeley to the state line is an important area for duck hunting in Colorado. There are numerous state wildlife areas along the South Platte corridor, as well as state trust lands and state parks, which provide public access for duck hunting. Much of the private land along the river is managed in private duck hunting clubs. The river and associated wetland habitats, the large reservoirs along the river corridor, and the adjacent agricultural fields provide habitat for large numbers of ducks during fall migration and winter. Most of these ducks come from breeding areas in Montana, the western Dakotas, and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Presenter
Presentation Notes
About half or more of Colorado’s annual duck harvest and duck hunting activity occurs in Weld, Morgan, Logan, Washington, and Sedgwick counties in northeastern Colorado. These counties also account for some of the highest annual harvest of mallards and all ducks combined throughout the ten states in the Central Flyway. (The darker shaded counties in these maps have higher average annual harvest during a recent 10-year period.) The South Platte River corridor in northeastern Colorado is an important area for ducks and duck hunting not only in Colorado but at a regional scale.
0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000
100,000 120,000
1965
19
67
1969
19
71
1973
19
75
1977
19
79
1981
19
83
1985
19
87
1989
19
91
1993
19
95
1997
19
99
2001
20
03
2005
Duck harvest – Northeast Counties
Ducks - Colorado
050,000
100,000150,000200,000250,000300,000350,000400,000450,000500,000
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
January Duck Count – Eastern Colorado
Presenter
Presentation Notes
However, there are long-standing concerns that the quality of duck hunting has been declining along the South Platte River corridor, particularly on public areas. The perception has been that the relatively high hunting activity in this area has forced ducks to move to other areas during the hunting season, has led to crowding problems on hunting areas, and has resulted in lower harvest success and dissatisfaction among hunters. These concerns are primarily anecdotal – we have little specific information on long-term trends in duck hunting activity, hunter success, or hunter satisfaction on hunting areas along the South Platte corridor. The two long-term data sources we do have are annual duck harvest estimates at the county level and a waterfowl count that is conducted each year in early January.
MANAGEMENT ISSUE • Concern about the quality of duck hunting and
influence of hunting pressure on duck distribution, hunter success and satisfaction
• Concern over declining recruitment and retention of duck hunters
• Proposals to greatly restrict hunting access on public and private lands
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Concerns remain that hunting pressure along the South Platte corridor causes hunter crowding problems and redistributes ducks to other areas, which results in lower hunter success and satisfaction, which could in turn contribute to declines in duck hunter recruitment and retention in Colorado. In 2007, Commissioners proposed greatly restricting duck hunting access on both public and private lands along the South Platte River corridor. This was a controversial proposal because while the intent was to improve the quality of hunting throughout the area, we could not predict what the gain in quality would be, and this action would have also resulted in a substantial loss of duck hunting opportunity.
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Historically, there have been several State Wildlife Areas along the South Platte River corridor that have hunting access restrictions – generally they are open for hunting only on a few days during the week, and hunters must make reservations that limit the number and size of hunting parties. However, we had little information on hunter success and satisfaction on these areas, and virtually no information on hunting activity and hunter success and satisfaction on public areas where there were no restrictions.
“BLUE RIBBON PANEL” • Convened July 2007 • Public land hunters (3), private land managers and
hunters (4), Ducks Unlimited representatives (2) • November 2007 - 11 recommendations on hunting
regulations, habitat programs, administration and communications
• Recommendation 2 - formal evaluation of the effects of property access restrictions on hunting quality
• Commission and Division support for a field evaluation of hunting restrictions on SWAs
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Division leadership established a blue ribbon panel of stakeholders to provide input on issues affecting duck hunting quality in the South Platte corridor. The panel provided a number of recommendations, and a key one was to conduct a formal research study to examine how access restrictions affect duck hunting quality. Division researchers and Area 3 staff developed a study proposal that was initiated with the 2008-2009 duck hunting season.
STUDY OBJECTIVES • Accounting for other variables, compare between
SWAs with and without access restrictions: – Hunter activity – Hunter success – Hunter satisfaction
• Data-driven recommendations for future duck hunting management
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The quality of hunting can be defined and measured in a variety of ways. The main purpose of this study was to quantify several of these measures and examine the effect of property access restrictions on them. We could then make recommendations about hunting regulations in relation to these measures.
Hunting Season Regulations R = Restricted
U = Unrestricted TYPE SWA 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
On-channel small property
Atwood U U U R R R Overland Trail R R R U U U
On-channel large property
Jean K. Tool/Brush U U U R R R Bravo R R R U U U
Off river channel
impoundments
Red Lion U U U R R R Jackson Lake R R R U U U
STUDY DESIGN - SCHEDULE
Presenter
Presentation Notes
We expected that the effect of hunting restrictions would vary depending on the size and habitat types on State Wildlife Areas. We categorized the SWAs along the South Platte corridor as properties that included portions of the river channel that were relatively small and had little habitat diversity, large river properties that had more habitat diversity such as off-channel sloughs and other wetlands, and off-channel properties with managed wetland impoundments that were located near large reservoirs. We then selected two SWAs from each of these three categories to include in the study, so that we could account for the influence of type of SWA on the effectiveness of hunting restrictions. We also wanted to account for annual variation and individual variation among SWAs, so we used a cross-over design in which each of the study SWAs had three years in both restricted and unrestricted regulations. Therefore the study involved six years of data collection, with the final year being this past duck season.
• During regular duck season (Oct-Jan), waterfowl and small game hunters only
• All properties – designated access points, mandatory check stations
• Unrestricted – no other property regulations • Restricted:
– Open weekends, Wednesdays, holidays only – Property closed at 2 p.m. – Reservations required, limited number of
hunting parties and limit on party size
STUDY DESIGN - REGULATIONS
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Our focus was on waterfowl hunters during the regular duck season, but we also collected data on other small game hunters using these SWAs during the duck season. The regulations we implemented during the study did not affect deer or fall turkey hunters on these SWAs. On all of the study SWAs we required waterfowl and small game hunters to access the property only at established parking areas, and all hunting parties were required to check out before leaving. When a study SWA was in unrestricted regulations, there were no other limitations on waterfowl and small game hunters. When a study SWA was in restricted regulations, we placed additional regulations on the SWA that limited access.
Presenter
Presentation Notes
To obtain data on our three measures of interest – hunting activity, hunter success, and hunter satisfaction, we placed check-out stations at each of the study SWAs, and interviewed every waterfowl and small game hunting party that used each property throughout the regular duck season each year.
STUDY DESIGN – DATA RECORDED • Hunting party size, individual hunter information,
time • Waterfowl and small game harvested • Hunting methods
• Decoys, calls, dogs • Satisfaction
• Rank 1 to 5 (lowest to highest): crowding problems, bird numbers seen, habitat conditions, property regulations, overall
Presenter
Presentation Notes
We recorded the following information for each waterfowl and small game hunting party. Check station attendants could generally obtain this information in <5 minutes for each hunting party.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
>5,250 duck hunting parties
>1,650 other small game
hunting parties >90% check-out
compliance
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The six seasons of data collection were completed at the end of January this year. We’re still double-checking the information on individual hunters, so these results are preliminary, and we’re still conducting statistical analyses of the data, so I’m mainly going to present graphical summaries o the results. We have information from a large number of duck hunting parties, as well as hunters targeting other small game, primarily pheasants and quail. Some parties did not check out before leaving the SWA, but we had high compliance with this regulation at all study SWAs throughout the study period.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Waterfowl Hunting Parties, 2008-2013
Blue = Unrestricted regulations Yellow = Restricted regulations
Small river SWAs Off-channel wetland
SWAs Large river SWAs
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Looking first at hunting activity, here are the number of waterfowl hunting parties that used the study SWAs during the study. This series of graphs are all in the same format, with the two small river SWAs first, the two large river properties next, and the two off-channel managed wetland properties last. The bars show the results from each of the six years of the study, with blue bars representing the years when that SWA was in unrestricted regulations, and the yellow bars marking the years when that SWA was in restricted regulations. The number of hunters per party averaged about two on all areas and years, so the number of waterfowl hunters on these SWAs was roughly twice the number of hunting parties.
9:59
10:59
12:00
13:00
14:00
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Average Party Departure Time, 2008-2013
Presenter
Presentation Notes
One of the restricted regulations was that the property was closed to hunter access after 2:00 p.m. The idea behind this was to provide ducks that might have been disturbed by hunting activity earlier in the day the chance to return to the SWA later in the day, and perhaps more ducks would consistently use the SWA during the hunting season. Here are average departure times for waterfowl hunting parties on each of the study SWAs when they were in restricted and unrestricted regulations. You can see that the average departure time under unrestricted regulations was about 1-2 hours later than under restricted regulations. However, while some hunting parties left study SWAs late in the afternoon, most parties departed well before 2:00 p.m. under both restricted and unrestricted regulations.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Total Annual Duck Harvest, 2008-2013
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Next looking at hunter success, here is the total annual regular season duck harvest during the study. There were substantial differences among areas, as well as differences among years and between regulation types.
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Average Duck Harvest Per Hunter Per Day, 2008-2013
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Because hunting effort (number of hunting parties) varied so much within and among SWAs, a more useful measure of success in average duck harvest per hunter per day across the regular duck season. Here you can see that while there is again a good deal of variation, the main pattern is that harvest per hunter-day was higher when SWAs were in restricted regulations than when they were in unrestricted regulations. However, those increases were fairly modest.
Preliminary model – expected harvest SWA type Methods Restricted Unrestricted Off-channel Yes 1.7 1.2 Small river property Yes 0.6 0.4 Large river property Yes 1.1 0.6 Off-channel No 1.2 0.7 Small river property No 0.1 0.0 Large river property No 0.6 0.1
Methods = hunting party used at least 1 dozen decoys, 1 spinning wing decoy, calls, and dogs.
Presenter
Presentation Notes
We’ve started doing some more detailed analyses on the harvest results. This table shows the estimated average duck harvest per hunter per day throughout the regular duck season, by type of SWA, under restricted and unrestricted regulations. In this analysis we also accounted for some measures of methods used by hunters, and separated hunters that used decoys, duck calls, and dogs, from parties that did not. Access restrictions increased the expected average duck harvest on off-channel wetland areas and large river properties (about one-half duck per hunter per day), but had relatively little effect on small river properties. However, hunting methods had as large an effect as access restrictions, and the effect was consistent across all types of properties, and whether access restrictions were in place or not. This suggests that there are numerous other factors that may influence hunter success as much or more than hunting access restrictions, and we will examine those other factors in greater detail as we continue our analyses.
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Average Rank Satisfaction With Crowding
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Lastly, here are some preliminary results related to hunter satisfaction. Recall we asked each hunting party to rank on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being very poor and 5 being very good, their satisfaction with various aspects of their hunt. Here are the average satisfaction rankings from waterfowl hunting parties for problems with crowding from other hunters generally a rank of 4 or higher on each year and for each study SWA, and regardless of whether the SWA had regulations that restricted hunter access. There were some occasional reports of hunters feeling crowded or interfered with by other hunters, but in general waterfowl hunters on these SWAs do not see crowding as a problem.
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Average Rank Satisfaction With Property Regulations
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Here are the average satisfaction rankings from waterfowl hunters for the regulations on that property during their hunt. Again, rankings averaged fairly high, and there was little variation among study SWAs or between restricted and unrestricted regulations. We’re looking in more detail at this result, because this could indicate that either hunters generally don’t care that much about the property-specific access regulations, or that they do care and hunters who like unrestricted regulations only hunted these SWAs when they had unrestricted regulations, and hunters who like restricted regulations only hunted these SWAs when they were in restricted regulations.
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
Atwood Overland Trail
Jean K. Tool/Brush
Bravo Red Lion Jackson Lake
Average Rank Overall Satisfaction With the Day’s Hunt
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Lastly, here are the average ranks for overall satisfaction with the day’s hunt. These ranks averaged a little lower, but again were similar across years, among SWAs, and regardless of the property-specific access restrictions. Preliminary results suggest that overall satisfaction rank for a hunting party was more closely correlated with whether the party saw ducks and to some extent whether they harvested ducks.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS - SUMMARY • Hunting Activity
– Loss of opportunity with restrictions – Lower activity than expected?
• Hunter Success – Increase with restrictions, less than expected? – Other factors have large influence
• Hunter Satisfaction – Hunters are generally fairly satisfied – Little difference between restricted/unrestricted
Presenter
Presentation Notes
The access restrictions we imposed during this study were fairly onerous. Their impact on hunter activity, success, and satisfaction, however, was likely smaller than expected by those calling for widespread implementation of restrictions to improve duck hunting quality. Some hunters clearly liked the restrictions (at least on certain properties), but others liked the ease of hunting opportunity provided by unrestricted properties. The long-standing CPW approach of providing a mix of restricted and unrestricted properties along the South Platte corridor seems to be supported. Note that we still have a lot of data analysis to complete.
NEXT STEPS
• Preliminary results were used to help develop SWA regulations for 2014 forward
• Complete analyses, reports and publications
• Continue voluntary check-out cards on SWAs
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Because the field portion of the study is completed, decisions had to be made about what regulations should be implemented on the study SWAs this fall and going forward. The preliminary data summaries were used by CPW managers, along with other information, to revise regulations on these and other South Platte SWAs. We will complete data analyses and submit manuscripts for publication in the scientific literature in the coming year. In addition, we plan to continue to provide voluntary check out cards at many South Platte SWAs in future years, so we have an index of hunter activity, success, and satisfaction that we can reference when issues are raised about hunting management on these properties in the future.
Acknowledgments
• Blue Ribbon Panel • Area 3 staff • Terrestrial staff • GIS staff • South Platte hunters
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Thank you for your time.
