Ducks Unlimited Podcast

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Dr. Scott Boomer, USFWS wildlife biologist, rejoins the show to offer his thoughts on sex-specific regulations and provide a brief update on the ongoing revision to the Pintail harvest strategy. Scott also shares his thoughts on the relative importance of harvest management vs. habitat conservation in achieving duck population goals.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Mike Brasher
DUPodcast Co-Host

What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?

Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.

VO:

Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast RELOADED, where we bring you the best of our past episodes. Whether you're a seasoned waterfowler or curious about conservation, this series is for you. Over the years, we've had incredible guests and discussions about everything from wetland conservation to the latest waterfowl research and hunting strategies. In RELOADED, we're revisiting those conversations to keep the passion alive and the mission strong. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this reload.

Mike Brasher:

Today, we're continuing our discussion with doctor Scott Boomer on sort of contemporary aspects of adaptive harvest management and and other other items related in general to how harvest management for duck species occurs. So, Scott, welcome back to the podcast.

Scott Boomer:

Thanks for having me, Mike.

Mike Brasher:

When we concluded the previous episode, we had we had talked about what all goes into some of the debates about new harvest ideas, new harvest regulations and how science plays an important role in those discussions. And so to start with here today, I wanna focus on a question that is often of particular interest. It's it's reflected in some of our harvest regulations and those are sex specific regulations. Hunters will know that there are well, the mallard is probably the most notable example of a species for which over a number of years we have had sex specific restrictions. All if you if you go back far enough, you will find find times when we had sex specific restrictions for a few other species, pintails being an example during the point system.

Mike Brasher:

But but we get question often about what's the population level effect of harvesting hens? And we spoke about this briefly with Jimbovsky. He shared some of his thoughts on it and what we know relative to, you know, the science behind this. Is it is it harmful for us to be harvesting hens out of the population? What is the what does our scientific understanding tell us?

Mike Brasher:

So I guess I wanna start with just start there with you, Scott. What what type of additional insight can you provide regarding our understanding of how female harvest affects the population dynamics of ducks?

Scott Boomer:

In general, you know, we we rely on our ability to estimate some of the key demographic parameters for these pot at the population level. And and as you noted, you know, there are regulations associated with sex specificity, particularly, you know, with regards to hen mallards. And and your you know, to answer your question about the impacts of harvest on females, it it sort of speaks to some of the uncertainty that that Jim Nichols was describing. You know, depending upon the relationship between harvest mortality and annual survival, you know, you can answer that a couple different ways. I mean, I think beyond a threshold, you know, female mortality is gonna negatively affect waterfowl populations.

Scott Boomer:

It's in the determination of what that threshold is. That's that's where the complicated part comes in and is is often hard to do. I will add that, you know, our in our frameworks, we attempt to model, let's say, the compensatory mortality relationship. And so we account for the harvest mortality in the prediction of populate subsequent population sizes explicitly for females. And so our analytical frameworks are representing this relationship.

Scott Boomer:

And I would argue our optimization frameworks are providing direction as to what a sustainable harvest level would be for, you know, for females or at least the way we represent that harvest mortality. And so, you know, the resulting harvest policies that we're relying on to inform regulatory decisions are accounting for the uncertainty in our ability to represent this relationship.

Mike Brasher:

Scott, is it fair to say that if female harvest at the levels it's currently occurring, whether we're talking about mallards or any other species for which we can estimate that sex specific harvest rate, that that would be a very important part of determining its effect is being able to measure the harvest that is occurring on these different, you know, sort of sex specific stocks. And that's gonna come from banding data. And, of course, we all know that we there are some species for which we don't have robust banding data, but let's just assume that we did for a lot of these species. If and maybe specifically for those species for which we do have good banding data at the sex specific level. If harvest of hens at the level it is occurring right now was detrimental to a population, would we be able to pick that up in some of our analytics?

Scott Boomer:

Oh, that's a good question. I you know, we definitely have the ability to estimate female harvest rates for some stocks, and we can also estimate survival rates for for some of these stocks. And so, you know, if there was a deleterious impact, it would come through in at least in the frameworks in terms of the support for a particular model. And let's say, you know, that the the harvest impact was additive, you know, we would expect the weight on that model to increase. So yeah.

Scott Boomer:

I mean, I think we would be able to pick that up. What would probably happen is that the policy would respond to those impacts, as the harvest rates increased, and, you know, we would the the direction that we would get in terms of the types of regulations that would be optimal would account for that increased mortality.

Mike Brasher:

Well, your response there clarifies that it's it's complicated, but but

Scott Boomer:

Yeah. Apologize for that.

Mike Brasher:

No. No. I I think that's part of the point is that if I think it's important for people to realize that harvest management and our ability to kind of differentiate the effect of these different components of harvest is sometimes challenging. Fortunately, we have smart people like you and all the others that participate in the harvest management process and technical review of all of our harvest management regulations to keep an eye on these things and to make the best use of the data that we do have available. Moving on here a bit, Scott, but still related to this issue is in terms of sex specific regulations.

Mike Brasher:

One of the one of the justifications that we often hear for a more liberal limit on on Drakes than hens is that there's a there's some evidence, if you look back through some of the literature, that that these populations are are male biased, certainly at at at some times of the year. What do we know about are the data from some of the data that you all are looking at tell us with regard to those sex ratios of male to female? And, you know, I'll use Pintails as an example here. That's the one that I've heard here recently a lot of discussion about in terms of these the number of Drakes vastly outnumbering hens on the Pintail side and that kind of being used as a discussion point behind, hey, why can't we shoot more Drakes than Hans? What do we know about those sex ratios as measured from data relative to what may be observed in the field, and this gets back to the importance of using, in my mind, using rigorous science to as the basis for some of our decisions.

Mike Brasher:

Do you have any insight on what of what the data are telling us with regard to some of these sex ratios?

Scott Boomer:

I I think you're correct in that, you know, we don't really have an estimate of sex ratio directly from our, you know, monitoring programs. For example, you know, in midwinter counts, we're not, collecting information on the number of males versus number of females, So we can't necessarily directly observe it. However, you know, we tend to estimate sex ratios as sort of a derived parameter, in our population models. Based on the schedules of births and deaths, we can we can make some assumptions and come up with estimates of what the the sex ratio is, let's say, in each spring. And, you know, interestingly, we're we're piecing some of this stuff together with more some of the more recent Pintail information, and our most recent estimates from the the estimation frameworks that we've developed based on some of the modeling work doesn't really suggest that the overall sex ratio is that skewed.

Scott Boomer:

Now granted, these are preliminary results, and we're we're piecing together a lot of datasets in the common estimation framework, so there's undoubtedly some variation that we're not accounting for, but, it's it's something we're considering.

Mike Brasher:

That's interesting. And I'll just say I look forward to seeing how all those results come out. So thank you for wading into that discussion. I know it's a it's a common conversation that a lot of us hear, and so I appreciate your insights on that. I wanna move now to just a discussion about the intended role of harvest regulations and whether you find that there is any level of confusion, maybe among our our hunter constituency, not necessarily among our professionals, but among our hunter constituencies on the proper role or intended role of harvest regulations.

Mike Brasher:

Is there is there a misconception perhaps that harvest restrictions during one year should be expected to produce a population increase in the following year. Do you hear that at all or have conversations about that in terms of potential misinterpretation or misconception of the role of harvest?

Scott Boomer:

Yeah. It's a question that we respond to quite often. And, you know, I I hearken back to some of the things that Jim Nichols was talking about relative to the decision frameworks that we've developed for purposes. And and in general, it speaks to objectives. And, you know, I would say for the bulk of our frameworks, we seek to determine the harvest levels consistent with the long term conservation of the population.

Scott Boomer:

Most of our harvest management objectives include this, you know, to to maximize long term cumulative harvest. And in general, you know, we don't have an explicit population growth objective, but we expect that over the long term, the strategy is gonna find the population size required to maximize that harvest opportunity. So it's something inherent within the dynamics that we're representing through our modeling frameworks that sort of determines the population sizes that are gonna allow us to maximize our harvest opportunity.

Mike Brasher:

Related to this, Scott, I wanna get your kind of personal opinion how you would answer this question. You know, what what do you think is the relative role of harvest regulations versus habitat, habitat quantity and habitat quality in determining population growth?

Scott Boomer:

Well, there's, you know, there's no question they're related. And, you know, I always tend to think that the the harvest management, I mean, the the habitat managers are really setting the table. Right? That they're providing the the resources required for that population to to, you know, achieve a certain level of production and population size. And then as a harvest manager, it's our job to determine what the appropriate harvest rates should be in relation to our objectives for harvest management and in relation to what the productive capacity of that population is that's being driven by the habitat conditions and the and the habitat availability.

Mike Brasher:

So, Scott, related to the habitat component of this discussion, we we all know that that eventually, in the prairies of The US and Canada, we will eventually be faced with a rather severe drought. We've had twenty five years of liberal regulations under adaptive harvest management, at least for the midcontinent population of mallards. And someday that will change and it's likely going to occur whenever we have a severe drought or a couple of years of severe drought strung together. Do do you you think think that's gonna give us an opportunity to learn a disproportionately greater amount relative to waterfowl population dynamics and the interaction with harvest than, let's say, what we've been experiencing over the past twenty five years?

Scott Boomer:

Absolutely. I think from the reproductive side of the equation, yeah. If if we experience prolonged dry conditions, we'll learn more about the interaction between habitat conditions and density dependence at a a pretty large scale. As we discussed, the the reproductive output, you know, that we've been experiencing for the last twenty five years has been driven by primarily good wetland conditions. And so the weak density dependent model has gained a lot of support.

Scott Boomer:

We have yet to experience dry conditions, so it'd be interesting to see if that density relationship holds. That's sort of how, you know, learning will manifest itself through AHM. We may also learn more about the role of harvest mortality in duck population dynamics, but this may be complicated or confounded if our decision making results in a regulatory change. And so I agree that, you know, we'll have an opportunity to learn how harvest rates and hunter participation are gonna respond to restrictive regulations. It'd be really interesting to to think about how, you know, hunter effort might change with declining habitat conditions and potentially maybe regulatory change.

Mike Brasher:

Yeah. That's I would probably agree with that, certainly, on the hunter side of things, and that's gonna be interesting whenever we get to that point because we have an entire generation of hunters that has experienced nothing but liberal regulations, least regarding Mid Continent Mallards, and probably Western Mallards, too. Have they gone into anything other than Liberals since that since Western Mallard has come about?

Scott Boomer:

I don't believe there's been any regulatory changes for the Western Mallard framework.

Mike Brasher:

Yeah. So definitely gonna be interesting to to see how that unfolds, and look forward to learning along with everyone else. I I said I said at the end of the previous episode on today, we're gonna on this one, we're gonna talk a bit about pintails. That's a obviously, it's a species that is a favorite of many people for many different reasons, and they are a species that certainly is not not without some debate and consternation within the harvest management realm of things. And so we had a recent Ducks Unlimited magazine article where we spoke about pintail populations, some of what's affecting affecting them on the habitat side of things and some of the conservation work that's occurring.

Mike Brasher:

But we also took an opportunity in that article to talk about some of the ongoing work with regard to, you know, a revision, a revisitation of the harvest strategy around Pintail. So I wanted to use this time to talk a bit about that, maybe as an example for people to see what kind of goes into these periodic revisitations or reevaluations of harvest regulatory strategies around a given species. So can you elaborate a bit on how that is unfolding? Obviously, the Harvest Management Working Group is gonna be key in this discussion. But, yeah, just give people some insight on what goes into these periodic reevaluations of a harvest management strategy.

Scott Boomer:

It's interesting to step back and sort of say how we got here with regards to the pintail situation. The harvest strategy of Pintails has evolved over time. We have been using an framework for Pintails. And in order to establish that initial decision framework, we had to go through the same types of stages or develop the same elements that that Jim Nichols talked about with regards to MidCon and MLADHM, where we developed a model to make predictions of how pintails will respond to harvest regulations. And and then, you know, we had deliberations about appropriate harvest management objectives and the suite of regulatory packages that we would consider.

Scott Boomer:

And then what we end up doing is in working closely with the tech section reps from the flyways and the representatives from the service, we end up using an assessment framework that represents population and harvest dynamics and accounts for different forms of uncertainty to represent the system. And so we'll simulate under a number of different objectives or die different types of regulatory alternatives and, summarize the important metrics that harvest managers care about, the relative population sizes, average harvest levels that you would expect for a particular strategy. And then more importantly, what a lot of folks are interested in is the the the number of times you would expect to be in a liberal versus a restrictive versus a moderate type of package. And so we performed a whole suite of those types of exercises and worked across all four flyways to really determine what's the appropriate set of objectives and alternatives that make up the current Pintail framework that we're operating under today. We've been operational with that framework for, I think, since at least 2010, and there has response to some new information and in in response to a desire to reconsider some of the alternatives, and maybe that, you know, the revisiting the objectives for pintail harvest management.

Scott Boomer:

So really spearheaded by the the Pacific Flyway, where we've we've gone into sort of the double loop phase for for Pintails, the double loop learning phase of a Pintail And we've been working closely with the advisory group from that has folks from all four flyways and members of the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as researchers from USGS. And we've been going through and revisiting objectives, alternatives, and the models, and the data that we have available for Pintails to to revise that harvest strategy.

VO:

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Mike Brasher:

Scott, I want to dig into the objectives here. Well, maybe not maybe dig in isn't the right word, but I wanna I wanna give people an illustration of how the what these objectives look like. We've talked a lot about objectives. You mentioned earlier that with regard to adaptive harvest management for Mid Continent Mallard, the original objective was as simple as, at least I think this was just the simple articulation, was it was to maximize long term cumulative harvest. And but but we've since kinda grown in the way we think about objectives around harvest, if I'm interpreting things correctly, and for the Pintail harvest strategy, we have actually a series of objectives, if I remember correctly.

Mike Brasher:

Do you have those handy? Just to kind of give people an idea of what we mean when we talk about what our harvest objectives are. It's not just as simple as we wanna maximize long term cumulative harvest of pintails. We've kinda gone beyond that and become a bit more explicit to include multiple objectives that we're trying to achieve through our harvest alternative our harvest regulations.

Scott Boomer:

What is interesting, and you're you're right to point out that, you know, we have an overall objective, let's say, of maximizing long term cumulative harvest. And, you know, that is a a long winded way of saying that, you know, we wanna maximize hunting opportunity over the long term, and it really also speaks to some additional objectives. So we really are dealing with multiple objectives in that one statement. So, for example, you know, we've already talked about how long term cumulative harvest incorporates a conservation objective because we need to carry that population forward in time to accrue the benefits that we're going to expect in the future. In addition, you know, we're providing hunter opportunity.

Scott Boomer:

The for for example, as pointed out, I think, in deliberations for the Pintail framework that we're operating under right now that we wanna minimize regulatory burden on the public with the set of the limited set of regulatory alternatives that we're considering. We're encouraging hunter participation, and there's, you know, also an expectation that we're providing for other non consumptive uses. So these are sort of means objectives that fall under this blanket fundamental objective of maximizing long term cumulative harvest. And I think that's a that's a consistent theme within the bulk of the the harvest strategies that we we derive in our frameworks.

Mike Brasher:

So you have we do have one objective, but embedded in that are some other implied objectives. Is that is that accurate?

Scott Boomer:

Absolutely. Yes.

Mike Brasher:

Scott, related to the Pintail regulation, kind of revision of the harvest strategy. I don't know if you can answer this question realizing that there's a lot of people involved in this, and I'm not encourage you to get out in front of anyone because I know all of this is a partnership type deal, but is there anything that you can share with our listeners here with regard to where we stand on that harvest strategy revision. And, of course, I know one of the questions that people would die would really want me to ask, and again, I don't know if you can answer this, but do you know at this time if there's any consideration of some of the sex specific restrictions that we would have talked about earlier, maybe more Drakes than Henson, or or is it the or or are we not there yet?

Scott Boomer:

Yeah. I'm not in a position right now to comment on the the specifics of the regulatory alternatives that are currently, you know, in consideration for this revision. I'll just point out that, you know, we have a that we've been working with the harvest management community in an effort to revise the Pintail harvest strategy. We've got a great working group together that is considering all these key elements of this decision framework, talking about objectives, regulatory options, and there's been a fair amount of technical work involved with, you know, assessing the available data and developing modeling frameworks to inform pintail harvest regulations. Yeah.

Scott Boomer:

I'll just leave it at that. It's a it's a work very much in progress.

Mike Brasher:

Yeah. Well, thank you for that, Scott. I know I know some of these well, harvest management decisions are a tightly coordinated effort between states and feds. And, hey, it's no secret that it's there are topics around, which there's a lot of, there are some challenging conversations around. And so I appreciate your willingness to share what you can.

Mike Brasher:

I certainly understand that there are some things you can't out of respect for partners and everyone else that's involved in this. And, hey, you're not far along in the process in some respects as well. But I just wanted to kind of probe some of those questions and see if we could figure out where we are with regard to some of those Pintail Harvest Management kind of revisitations. So thank you for taking a stab at that. As we kind of move to a close on this episode, it will probably be the I think we'll wrap up our conversation here with you in a bit.

Mike Brasher:

You know, we have harvest managers constantly thinking about evaluating these harvest decisions and alternatives that balance all of these objectives, some of which would be notably harvest opportunity and population sustainability. In recent years, these discussions have produced a new multi stock management approach in the Atlantic Flyway. You referenced that, I think, previously. Experimental Hunter's Choice options in the Central Flyway, I don't believe those are offered any longer. And soon, an experimental two tier license system in certain parts of the Central Flyway.

Mike Brasher:

And we plan to discuss some of those in more detail next year. But but for now, just a general question and one that we've talked with previously talked with talked about previously with Dale, Ken, and Jim Nichols. Do you think we'll ever get to a point where we have a greater degree and I realize that's a that's a that's a very vague description in itself, but a greater long term stability and regulation to cross species of waterfowl. We can restrict it just to ducks if you want to. Or by the very nature nature of the dynamics of waterfowl populations, the different resource threats that different species and populations face, and then the the the hunter population, do you think there will always be some necessary adjustment?

Mike Brasher:

Do you envision a time where we will have a bit more stability over the long term outside of the adaptive harvest management, which we have, you know, we've looking back, we've had twenty five years of liberal regs under midcontinent mallards. Do you think we'll get to a place where we see more of that stability over a larger swath of the the waterfowl species?

Scott Boomer:

That's an interesting question. We've had conversations in the past about some of that expectation of regulatory stability. And even during the revision of the Mid Con and Mallard framework, I mean, we did discuss objectives about maximizing long term hunting opportunity while minimizing regulatory changes. But I on the other hand, I think there's also a very real concern that we're not gonna be able to maintain all of these individual decision frameworks as we move forward with due to the complexity involved with trying to knit them all together in the common suite of regulations, especially given the required resources necessary to maintain them. I think what your question is really sort of getting at is, you know, are are we going to enter a phase of waterfall harvest management that we formalize this expectation that we wanna minimize regulatory change?

Scott Boomer:

I I don't know. I mean, that's up for debate within the the five way councils and within the service, you know, as we as we continue to update and revise these decision frameworks. I will add that, you know, in general, policies that seek to maximize will require regulatory adjustments eventually, especially in dynamic systems like we're we're operating with wind waterfall. It's just the the nature of the the maximization function maximize an objective function, you're trying to really hone in on levels of harvest. And in certain situations, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna require regulatory changes to do that.

Scott Boomer:

So unless our objectives change and we don't formally or explicitly acknowledge that we'd like to minimize regulatory change in our objectives, you know, I anticipate that, you know, eventually we're going to have to have some regulatory changes in the future.

Mike Brasher:

Scott, perhaps a final question here related to what we just talked about before we kind of move on to close. This idea of regulatory complexity and knowing when new ideas are worth pursuing, the complexity and the trade offs involved in that relative to the reward that it gives to our hunters and ensuring population sustainability. Is that one of the greatest challenges in your job and of all harvest managers that you could think of, you know, in terms of knowing when those regulatory ideas are worth pursuing?

Scott Boomer:

Yes. Absolutely. I think we're as a harvest managed community, we are struggling with how to to implement and maintain these frameworks across the all four flyways and develop good robust methods to, you know, inform regulatory decisions. I think the you're you're absolutely right in that we're challenged to provide within our decision making community, you know, we're we're challenged to provide those decision makers with answers to those questions to say, hey. Can we optimize across these two different frameworks?

Scott Boomer:

And if so, you know, how much bang for the buck should we expect? We spend a fair amount of time trying to wrestle with those types of questions. And ultimately, you know, we have to to rely on the available information that we have, but also the close work within the flyaway councils and in the tech committee representatives to to answer questions about objectives and other policy related elements that really drive the frameworks that we use to to answer those questions. That's a rather long winded way of saying that it is a challenge, but, yes, that complexity is something that is something that we're having to contend with more and more.

Mike Brasher:

I figured that might have been the case, and it's not unrelated to the topic that we occasionally revisit here that we come back to, and that is with when Dale and Ken noted that Waterfowl Harvest Managers have never been short on creative ideas. If harvest managers themselves ever run out of ideas of alternative regulatory options or possibilities, think I all we need to do is go sit in the duck blind for a few days and there will be no shortage of new ideas that come up. But I just wanted to get some perspective, get some thoughts from you on, you know, what, yeah, what goes into considering those new ideas as they come up. And so it's definitely a lot goes into it and a lot has to be in place before we can actually pursue those. So thank you for sharing that.

Mike Brasher:

Scott, I think that covers all of the harvest management discussion that that I that I had for you. I'm gonna give you an opportunity here in closing to cover anything else that you wanted to. But before I do that, I wanted to ask you about something that that I I know will be on the minds of all waterfowl hunters and waterfowl managers here shortly, and and I don't know if you have an answer for this right now. Again, recognize the sensitivity of a lot of these things are are partnership driven, if you if you don't have an answer for it or don't feel comfortable providing an answer, that's fine. But do you have any insight on where we stand relative to planning for the twenty twenty one May breeding population and habitat survey.

Mike Brasher:

Obviously, last year, we were not able to conduct that survey. Steve Quartz told us the other day when we interviewed him that he he was not certain if his state was gonna be able to to do their survey the way they normally do because of some pandemic related restrictions that remain in his state. Do you have anything that you can offer from the Fish and Wildlife Service perspective with with regard to where we stand on planning and thoughts about whether we're gonna be able to conduct the survey this year?

Scott Boomer:

Yeah. I mean, the only thing I can speak to is that I know that the branch of migratory bird surveys is working very hard to to plan for any contingencies that might happen this spring. And and ultimately, you know, the service leadership is gonna be making those decisions with regards to health and safety of all involved as what, you know, throughout the Waterfowl, you know, community and our partners in Canada and The United States.

Mike Brasher:

So so not a definitive yes, not a definitive no. That's about all we can can hope for at this point. And and I I certainly realize it didn't take too much imagination to realize that there remained some challenges. And we yeah, just personally, and I know I speak for all waterfowl waterfowl constituents, we hope we're able to find a way to gather that data, but we also understand the limitations that we're all facing right now. So thanks for taking a stab at that.

Mike Brasher:

With that, Scott, I want to give you an opportunity here to make any final remarks. Your position, the work you do, has a direct influence on the activities of waterfowl hunters across The United States. That work also ensures waterfowl populations are in staying for in perpetuity for all people to enjoy. And so you have a direct connection, not just to hunters, but to all people that care about the waterfowl resource. And actually your job, I think, probably carries you beyond just waterfowl, maybe other migratory bird concerns occasionally.

Mike Brasher:

But so because of that, I wanted to give you an opportunity to share anything else that you'd like to, whether related to harvest management, waterfowl harvest management in general, or anything else related to the management of migratory birds. So here's your opportunity to communicate some of our constituents on anything else that you wanted to.

Scott Boomer:

As I said before, I've been really fortunate to work within the harvest management community and benefit from a lot of exceptional work that was put into place by this institution. We we you know, our office is truly standing on giants, you know, within the wildlife management field is you've had, you know, you've had Jim Nichols on the podcast. And, you know, I'm lucky to have colleagues across all four flyaways from state and federal agencies, universities, and conservation organizations like DU. I'm blessed to to work in this environment. These folks are true professionals and extremely dedicated to the resource.

Scott Boomer:

I feel privileged to to have an opportunity to work with them in my current position. And and thanks thanks to you, Mike, for offering up this opportunity to participate in this podcast. I think it's a great resource.

Mike Brasher:

It's been my pleasure, Scott. I thank you for your friendship. I thank you for your time joining us here on these two episodes. One thing that I'll say to our listeners here at this point, this episode will wrap up our Harvest Management Series at least for this season. Sort of a bit of a sort of personal note, I realized as I started getting into this Harvest Management Series kind of planning process that I might have bitten off more than I could chew with regard to the number of topics and number of people that we wanted to cover.

Mike Brasher:

You know, number one, harvest management is not in my background, and so I had to do a fair bit of research on this myself. And then the more I got into it, I realized, oh, boy, there's a whole bunch of things to cover and there's a lot of different geographic representation that we need to address, and certainly it's no secret to those that have listened thus far that we've with Ken and Dale and a lot of those discussions at the state level, it's been primarily Mississippi flyway perspective. We do know that there are some some rather unique conversations relative to the history of harvest management that have occurred in each of the other flyways, as well as some contemporary aspects of harvest management, some of which we've already here discovered discussed, including multi stock management that's occurring in the Atlantic Flyway and some other experiments that are occurring in the in the Central Flyway and and and a lot of history in terms of goose goose harvest management in the Pacific Flyway. I want to get to those topics, but quite frankly, we're just running out of time and running out of steam this season.

Mike Brasher:

So this episode here with Doctor. Scott Boomer is gonna wrap up our episodes on this series for this season. We're gonna pick back up probably in the fall with a continuation of this Harvest Management Series, and we'll have a few other topics to to cover. But but you can also look forward to the wrap up show later this season with Chris and me, we'll kinda highlight some of the other things that are yet to come. But so I just wanted to take this opportunity to close out these episodes for the Harvest Management Series in season three of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast.

Mike Brasher:

And, Scott, thank you again for being willing to be be the one to close this out. So thank you, man.

Scott Boomer:

Thanks again for the opportunity.

Mike Brasher:

A special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Doctor. Scott Boomer, wildlife biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Migratory Bird Management. Again, we greatly appreciate his time. As always, we thank Clay Baird for the great work he does on these episodes in getting these out to you. And, of course, our listener, we we couldn't do this, wouldn't do this without you.

Mike Brasher:

We appreciate your support. We appreciate your feedback, and we thank you for your support, passion, and commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.

VO:

Thank you for listening to the DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.

VO:

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