Report: Waterfowl Doing Well in America’s Duck Factory
by Rebecca Williams
If you’re a duck, this is a good news, bad news story. The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service takes surveys of the ten most abundant duck species every year.
Brad Bortner is Chief of the Division of Migratory Bird Management at the Fish and Wildlife Service. He says this year’s survey recorded 48.6 million ducks. That’s the highest number of ducks recorded since the agency started keeping records in 1955.
“We’ve had a series of very good years on the prairies, with excellent water conditions and great habitat management and restoration programs.”
He says more than half of North America’s duck breeding happens in the prairie pothole region of the Dakotas and eastern Montana. It’s nicknamed America’s duck factory. Bortner says species such as mallards, gadwalls and redheads are all doing great, and he says the breeding duck populations in Michigan are doing well too.
So, that’s the good news. The bad news: some other duck species are not doing so well…
(read more: Michigan Radio) (photo: Diane Hammond)
