The Waterfowl Report

December mallard survey in Delta totals half the long-term average

By Randy Zellers

AGFC Communications

Arkansas Geese Estimates Top 1.2 Million

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s first aerial survey of the 2021-22 waterfowl season offered results expected by biologists considering the dry conditions plaguing the state through the latter half of the fall. The good news was, it wasn’t the lowest December estimate of mallards since formal surveys

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began in 2009; it was the second lowest. However, it was almost 30 percent greater than the record low December mallard count last year.

Biologists conducting transect- based surveys in the Delta estimated 566,456 total ducks, 326,064 of which were mallards, and 13,434 ducks in the Arkansas River Valley, including 6,719 mallards. Biologists performing cruise surveys in southwest Arkansas reported an estimated 54,031 ducks with 10,109 mallards.

Arctic goose population estimates totaled 902,848 light (lesser snow and Ross’s) geese and 381,067 greater white-fronted geese (specklebellies) in the Delta. Luke Naylor, the AGFC’s waterfowl program coordinator, stresses though that these aerial surveys are not as accurate for goose totals as they are for ducks.

Much like December 2020, dry conditions continue to play a major role in duck distribution and abundance.

Habitat availability remains low as a result of almost no runoff, limited overbank flooding and low amounts of flooded agricultural fields.

Habitat is almost exclusively limited to actively managed sites.

Goose Hunters Enjoy the Conditions En Masse

The conditions that hunters are experiencing over the Delta seem to be more suitable for goose hunting, particularly greater white-fronted (specklebellies). Anecdotally, several large parties of speck hunters were noted throughout Arkansas, Lonoke and Prairie counties on Saturday and Sunday. In fact, Hollywood actor and director Kevin Costner reportedly was among those hunting geese over the weekend in Arkansas County. Significant numbers of geese were noted just off the highways in fields or on reservoirs, from Humnoke to St. Charles and south and east of Stuttgart.

Though the AGFC’s aerial survey for the Delta showed geese outnumbering ducks more than 2 to 1, the reason the goose estimates are not as reliable for Luke Naylor and the AGFC biologists as with their duck counts is due to the basic nature of geese: Geese on the ground are more likely to flush before an approaching airplane coming in at 500 feet altitude than ducks will in the specific areas being counted, Naylor said.

“These surveys are best when a bird stays stationary,” he said. “Geese won’t do that.

They won’t stay on the ground where they fall within a transect.” A transect is a 250-meter strip on the ground in which surveyor is counting and estimating the birds. They apply the math to their transect totals in their flyovers to determine an overall estimate.

“There is more subjectivity in counting geese, whether they fall in the transect or not as you are flying over them. You never have to do that with ducks. They count on having birds within a transect below the airplane and ducks wil hold tight,” Naylor said.

“It’s a judgment call, there is more uncertainty in it with geese.”

What’s not a judgment call, however, is enjoying the current conditions, the goose population that is evident in Arkansas, and taking in a hunt. Greater white-fronted geese can be hunted for 88 days in Arkansas now, through Jan. 31, and the limit is 2 a day. The daily limit for snows, blues and Ross’s geese are 20 with no possession limit.