Water Key to Upcoming Waterfowl Seasons in South

As with any wildlife trends, the mallard population’s decline likely has many factors involved.

“I think part of it is a lot of landscape changes,” Howard said. “Think about how much urbanization has gone on, and just how the agricultural practices have changed in the breeding grounds. Plus, the prairies have been dry now for a decent amount of time. There are so many things we could point to, so we can’t say it’s this one thing.

“But it all comes down to what do we do about it. Are we improving our landscape management? Are we putting our conservation dollars into the breeding grounds and looking at a more holistic picture?”

One bright spot in the most recent survey is the increasing numbers of gadwalls (gray ducks) in the survey.

“We are increasingly getting more gadwall overwintering in Alabama, especially on the Tennessee River and Mobile Bay,” Howard said. “Gadwall mainly eat submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). Historically, Guntersville has a lot of SAVs and is a popular wintering spot for gadwall and other dabbling species. It’s the same thing with the bay with plenty of SAVs. That’s always a positive.”

Other species above the long-term average are northern shoveler, green-winged teal, canvasback, American wigeon and redheads.

“I can’t tell you why those species seem to show up better on our surveys and why we are showing increases,” Howard said. “A lot of those dabbling species use the same resources, so it’s really hard to point to why among similar species some are doing better than others. It largely depends on breeding habitat.”

Howard and other WFF staff journeyed to the Dakotas this summer to participate in a banding operation, and it gave him hope about the northern pintail, which is well below its long-term average.

“We caught a lot of pintails,” he said. “That was encouraging to see.”

In terms of seasons and bag limits, the framework is set for this season and next with a bag limit of 6 ducks per day, which may include no more than 4 mallards (no more than 2 of which can be female), 3 wood ducks, 1 mottled duck, 2 black ducks, 2 redhead, 3 pintail, 2 canvasback and 1 scaup.

The duck, coot and merganser season is split with the first segment set November 27-28 and the second December 5 through January 31, 2027. The season dates are the same for the geese species. The aggregate limit on dark geese (Canada, white-fronted, Brant) and light geese (snow, blue and Ross’s) is 5 per day. Visit www.outdooralabama.com/seasons-and-bag-limits/waterfowl-season for more details.

As usual, weather has a huge impact on Alabama’s waterfowl season with the need of cold weather and snow to the north to push the waterfowl south.

“The big thing this year is what’s happening with this El Nin͂o and how that affects the ducks,” Howard said. “These birds migrate across the continent. They are very good at reacting to changes on the landscape. If there is new water, they’re going to find it.

“All in all, I still think it will be a pretty good year.”

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