RELOADED EP216 - Waterfowl Harvest Management Series, Part 7: Stabilized Harvest Analyses & The NAWMP

The 1970s and 80s brought a flurry of activity, including early teal seasons, stabilized regulations, foundational analyses of compensatory vs. additive mortality, new views on harvest management, and the most important development for waterfowl management in at least 50 years – the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Repeat guests Ken Babcock and Dale Humburg rejoin the DU Podcast to continue a discussion about the history of waterfowl harvest management.

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Mike Brasher

DUPodcast Science 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: 01:51

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: 02:23

We are fortunate again today to be joined by Dale Humberg and Ken Babcock, our guest in our continuing episodes about the history of waterfowl harvest management. We are now on episode seven, and we're gonna pick up with Dale and Ken where we left off last time. But first, I guess, let me welcome Ken and Dale back in. Ken, Dale, welcome.

Ken Babcock: 02:45

Great to be here, Mike.

Dale Humberg: 02:46

Thanks, Mike.

Mike Brasher: 02:46

So on our last episode, we made it through the nineteen sixties, basically. Somewhere around that time, we started talking about the point system. That's when we introduced that new type of regulatory alternative, and we're gonna have doctor Jimbovsky on a subsequent episode to talk about that in even more detail. But for this episode, we're gonna continue on into the seventies, and here, eventually, over the next couple of episodes, we'll get into I think with the with the two of you, we're gonna wrap up somewhere around the mid nineties with the introduction of adaptive harvest management. But, yeah, on this episode, one of the first things that I guess we need to do couple of things.

Mike Brasher: 03:33

One is we after the airing of our first two episodes, we got some feedback from at least one of our listeners saying, hey. You guys might need to clarify this particular aspect of of of something that was discussed. And so that's what we need to do first off. And and so the specifically, what we need to do is go back and clarify something with respect to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. I think in one of those first two episodes, we referenced how it was amended to include to include Mexico, Japan, and Russia.

Mike Brasher: 04:03

And I think, nope, maybe the way it came off is is if we we might have might have sounded as though Mexico, Japan, and Russia were part of were amended to become part of the original migratory bird treaty with Canada, but that's not exactly right. It was clarified to us, and and we apologize for making it sound any different than it is, but the subsequently entered into individual treaties with Mexico in 1936, Japan in 1972, and Russia in 1976. The migratory bird treaty act itself was in was amended to cover those separate treaties, but we wanted to clarify need to clarify that The United States has a series of bilateral treaties with each of four nations, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia. And so there are other aspects of that that we could discuss, but we're gonna forego some of those at this time. But we do appreciate the input that we got from our listeners, and, you know, the the one thing that we probably should begin these episodes with is that there undoubtedly will be a few things that we we might we might not state in their in their full extent as we go through this, and so we appreciate opportunities to clarify those.

Mike Brasher: 05:18

And, Ken, I think where we wanna start off this one is to kinda step back a bit and to touch on something that first came about in the nineteen sixties, and we can just talk about this in generalities, but it's something that continues with us today in a form of, you know, a harvest opportunity that we all that most of us here in The States have, and that is the early teal season. And I think it became experimental in the mid sixties. So if you could touch on what you recall about what led to the the desire for a special teal season in in early fall and kinda how that came about?

Ken Babcock: 05:55

Sure, Mike. As we have discussed before, the early sixties were was a period of time when there were fairly restrictive regulations all across the North America in terms of ducks, mostly related to the fact that populations were down in response to drought across the breeding areas and lower fall flights. And the people that were responsible for managing ducks and duck harvest at that time were looking for additional opportunities. And the blue winged teal being a very early migrant, moving through much of The United States even prior to the regular season dates that were established seem to offer an opportunity for that that that additional chance to to harvest birds without having any impact on population. So that was the the primary thing that that drove that.

Ken Babcock: 06:47

It was established as an experiment, and that experiment went on for three years, '65, '66, '67. And then there was a time frame that the the season was not offered so that the results of those experimental years could be evaluated in in in in 1970 or the early seventies. It was reinstituted and has basically been carried on and offered as an option to most states since that time.

Mike Brasher: 07:19

Thank you for that, Ken. I wanted to we wanted to go back and just cover that in case any of our listeners are you know, have ever wondered when the ex that teal season, early teal season first came about. There have been a number of changes to the the teal season regulations through the years, and we might touch on those as we go forward. But but, nevertheless, just wanted to at least put a marker, so to speak, on when the the teal seasons came about because that is certainly a part of our regulatory options or our harvest opportunities that we have today, and so they date back to the mid sixties. So, you know, now I I we want to move into the seventies with this conversation.

Mike Brasher: 08:00

Can the you were you were an active participant in the Flyway system at this time. And, Dale, remind me. I think I feel like I ask this every time, but usually a couple weeks go by between our conversations. When did you when did you take a position in the in the flyway system?

Dale Humberg: 08:19

Yeah. In the mid seventies, Mike. I was officially on the Mississippi flyway technical section beginning in 1977, '78.

Mike Brasher: 08:28

Okay. And so Ken would have been an active member of the technical committee at at this time in the early seventies. And so, Ken, I'll direct this question to you. Is it fair to say that the '19 that the nineteen sixties and certainly as we get into the nineteen seventies was an era of rapidly increasing interest into in trying to apply data to our understanding of the harvest effects on waterfowl population dynamics. Is that am I kinda getting a feel?

Mike Brasher: 08:58

Like, we've thought about the effects of harvest for quite some time as we've talked about, but were the late were the sixties and certainly into the seventies a time when we had we began to get enough data to sort of evaluate that analytically?

Ken Babcock: 09:11

Yes. It was. And, you know, up until that period, the primary lever that we had at our disposal in terms of managing harvest based on what we knew at that time was read through regulation by reducing or increasing bag limits, reducing or increasing seasonal length as being the primary lever. And during that period of time, there were different schools of thought about the impact of harvest. Some people felt that harvest was the primary driver.

Ken Babcock: 09:48

Other people felt that while harvest may have some impact, there may be other things at play, particularly habitat conditions that were more important. And so the people that were in technical responsibility positions during that time frame wanted to find answers to those questions. So setting up experiments, analyzing available data, doing the things that needed to be done to answer those questions and how they impacted populations and impacted the opportunities for hunting certainly became a a very important aspect of of of waterfowl management during that period.

Mike Brasher: 10:26

Dale, around the time that you came to the Flyway system, I I think I'm gonna get this year right, but there was a fairly significant, and I guess the the actual analytical work would have preceded that, the year in which you came to the Flyway system, but there was a fairly significant report by a by a couple of guys named Dave Anderson and Ken Burnham, and that, my reading is that was a pretty influential analysis and report that came out of that. Do you can you share some of of that history? What was the significance of the analyses that Anderson and Burnham undertook?

Dale Humberg: 11:03

Well, Mike, the the significance of that era was that the work by Dave Anderson and Ken Burnham really set the stage for actively exploring through advanced analytical techniques the whole idea of additive versus compensatory mortality. It put it in a form that biologists using the data at hand could actively test during years that followed. Prior to that, as Ken pointed out, we made an assumption that the the gun was the lever that we had and that a a bird taken out of the population during the season was not going to be there next year to lay eggs. And and so virtually all of our management was oriented toward this idea that the shotgun was was the key element in waterfowl management. What Anderson and Burnham's analytical work exposed was that we've got a couple of different possible alternatives to consider, additive or compensatory mortality, that that perhaps there's some other things going on in the world of waterfowl from the time they leave the wintering grounds till the time they return the next fall, that have as much or more perhaps to do with the status of populations, their growth or their decline.

Dale Humberg: 12:29

And so what it did was accept that we still had work to do with regard to the period of the year when birds weren't harvested, the relative impact of various habitat conditions, harvest pressure, non hunting mortality on drake birds versus hen birds, that it may not be the same for either sex. And so there was a whole number of things that were introduced at that point in time that caused biologists to begin a couple of things. One, being more explicit about what their beliefs were, and secondly, collecting the data to begin informing those beliefs.

Mike Brasher: 13:13

So, Dale, do I remember correctly, or do I under understand correctly that sort of the the key nature of the analysis, or at least one aspect of the analysis by Anderson and Burnham, was to look at look to see if there was a relationship between harvest rate and annual survival rate. And if if we had additive mortality occurring, then as harvest rate increased, survival rate annual survival rate would decrease. But if there was some compensation going on or if there was no effect of harvest on annual survival, then as harvest rate increased, you would you would either see no change in annual survival rate or maybe you would see no change up to some point of harvest rate at which time annual survival rate declines. Was there any definitive outcome from that analysis, you know, that that Lynn did more support to one idea versus the other?

Dale Humberg: 14:05

I think the key there, Mike, was that it it caused enough question marks among people who were pretty certain of additive mortality prior to that point that began to scratch their heads a little bit and ask about, well, what would be the processes by which mortality could be compensated for or the degree to which additivity occurred, and, you know, what what are the mechanisms that drive it? So I think most important was by the mid to late nineteen seventies, people were asking better and more explicit questions about the process itself and how that related to harvest management.

Mike Brasher: 14:45

The analyses that you mentioned there, Dale, and some of the thinking that was was going on in some of the discussions and debates led to something, I believe, in the late seventies that was known as the Stabilized Regulations Experiment. Would that be the next appropriate place to go in this conversation with regard to the evolution of our understanding and how we were trying to improve that?

Dale Humberg: 15:04

That makes sense, Mike. You know, if we think back to the nineteen seventies, even though we were gaining some additional information, some additional and emerging analytical techniques, there was still a tendency year in and year out to change seasons by five days here and there, a bag limit by one or two birds. And so we were still, in quotes, tinkering with regulations with the belief that those minor changes year in and year out were having an effect on harvest. And so what it brought about was by late nineteen seventies, Canada and then the following year, The US joined in a process called the stabilized regulations experiment. And what that did was, you know, for a period of five, six years, was maintained regulations constant so that you weren't constantly chasing populations with regulations on an annual basis, and gave you a chance to, over this period of years, learn something when you were not changing regulations on an annual basis.

Mike Brasher: 16:13

And so give us a bit more on the stabilized regulation experiment. Now were they were they stabilized? I guess they would have to be specific to each flyway and how much work went into figuring out what they at what level they would be stabilizing? Are we talking about only mallards, or was this across all species where we saw some stabilization?

Dale Humberg: 16:35

Yeah. It was across species. Now recall Canada stabilized, started the experiment in 1979, and The US followed suit in 1980. After the nineteen seventies, when people were, for the most part, pretty satisfied with the seasons that were in place, it made sense to then stabilize seasons at 1979 levels. There were no changes for the most part across species.

Dale Humberg: 17:02

The flyway differences were retained during that period of time, those five year periods, and a whole lot of emphasis then was shifted towards efforts on the breeding grounds, Incredible level of banding occurred not only in the summer, but also during the the fall and winter. And so it gave us an opportunity after banding some 35,000 mallards, for example, in spring and summer, and some 30,000 banded in fall and winter, along with radio equipped birds as well to look at specific aspects of winter behavior, and with just any number of things that that opportunity introduced. And we learned in a in a five year period some pretty solid biological detail as well as aspects related to harvest manage.

Mike Brasher: 17:56

Did we come out of the stabilized regulations experiment with having solved all the problems? I know the answer to that is no, but what were the key advancements? And we don't have to go through all of them, but just give us some examples of what what we learned. You know, we do an experiment like this. We invest some time and thought into it and collect a lot of data.

Mike Brasher: 18:15

And and I know that we did not arrive at at all of the answers, but what were some of the most significant findings to come from that?

Dale Humberg: 18:22

Well, then even though you were tongue in cheek commenting on did we learn everything, of course, the answer is no. What it did was better define some of the key questions that we had. Some of the more interesting aspects related to the the nature of interval survival. Because we were banning at different times of the year, both males and females, we began to gain insights in the degree to which those mortality rates, the timing of that mortality, differed between males and females. Learned that, for example, the majority of the mortality among female mallards, for example, occurred during the breeding season.

Dale Humberg: 19:09

You know, they're the ones that, after the male inseminates the female, sits on the territory for a couple weeks and then boogies off, really has no responsibility, and for a large part, no exposure to predators. The female, on the other hand, is exposed constantly during that entire four week nesting period, as well as the broom rearing period, and so a whole lot of the mortality of hens occurs during that time of the year. A lot of it pointed to a relatively low rate of post season mortality. And so it really helped biologists understand that we need to be thinking about these processes differently between the two sexes of of malards in this in this example. Ken may have some other insights in that regard, but I think a lot of it was related to our ability to understand based on banding at different times of the year when those mortality processes were occurring, and at least by implication, how and why they were occurring.

Dale Humberg: 20:10

There was some really good work done during the winter that looked at how birds were distributed depending on different habitat conditions, hunting pressure, and the like. And so we we gained insights into the nonbreeding part of the year that perhaps we hadn't paid much attention to prior to the early nineteen eighties.

Ken Babcock: 20:30

Yeah. I would I would just add to that that since the regulations, the seasonal links, and bag limits were unchanged during this stabilized period, it gave us an opportunity to look at other factors that we knew had an impact on populations. The most important of which we thought was habitat conditions and be able to start to relate changes in habitat from year to year to changes in populations. It gave us a chance to to either confirm or disprove some of the theories that conditions on the breeding ground determined what the productive rate was that year. And then it gave us an opportunity to look at things other than just the shotgun in relationship to its effect on on on on duck populations.

Ken Babcock: 21:27

And Dale pointing out the fact that the difference amongst between sexes of mallards with most of the mortality occurring outside the hunting season for hens was a very significant aspect of regulations that followed. And we'll talk about the point system a little later on, and part of that relates to different points for for hens versus mallard versus drakes and the mallards.

Dale Humberg: 21:55

Another key point, Mike, I think is is that it was during this period of time, because we were looking cross seasonal, that we really began to ask questions about what's going on during the non breeding part of the world. It was right after that that we had a a symposium called Waterfowl in Winter. And so we began to ask questions about the entire annual cycle of birds that perhaps we didn't pay as much attention to prior to that experiment during the early eighties.

Mike Brasher: 22:23

So at the end of this stabilized regulations experiment, where did we go with regard to with regard to harvest regulations, Dale? You know, the stabilized regulations experiment was in the early eighties, and then we came out of that. And so I guess to frame up this your answer to my question about where did we go with regulations after that opportunity to learn, what were our waterfowl populations doing at that time? And then, yeah, where did we go from that point forward with regulation? Because it certainly didn't solve all the answer all the questions.

Mike Brasher: 22:57

There were still debates about compensatory versus additive mortality and what the harvest rate should be, but I think there were some key changes to come out of that. So kind of set that up, start with what were our populations doing, and then where did we go with regulations?

Dale Humberg: 23:10

Well, Mike, if if we recall any recent history with regard to declines in populations, deterioration of habitat, and so on, it was certainly the the beginning in the relatively early nineteen eighties, but certainly in the '85 through '88 and continuing into the early nineties. The most recent period of pretty severe drought habitat condition decline, population decline, and the fact that we just came out of stabilized regulations, I believe, changed the mindset going forward about how frequently we were going to revisit regulations. And so during the period of 1985, 8687, we had consistent regulations for that three year period. Similarly, 1980, say, '89, '90, and through 1993, we had relatively consistent regulations. The whole idea that stabilized regulations give us an opportunity to learn about the impact of regulations on populations and so on showed up in the supplemental environmental impact statement in 1988 as a primary theme.

Dale Humberg: 24:21

And so if nothing else, STAB REGs and the seasons that followed and the drought and decline populations that followed set the stage for a different way of thinking about waterfowl harvest management through regulations.

Mike Brasher: 24:35

Ken, were at at what time during what year did you go to the council of the Mississippi Flyway Council? Did you transition away from the technical section and go to the the council?

Ken Babcock: 24:46

Well, it was not until the mid to late eighties that I actually came back in. I was I continued to attend flyway meetings, but I was not actually the council representative until the the late eighties through through the through the late nineties. So that was the period of time. But one of the things that I think is important to point out that, you know, having gone decades of convincing people that the shotgun was it was important to when populations were down to restrict regulations. During the stabilized regulations periods that Dale referred to, the population fluctuated just like it always had.

Ken Babcock: 25:30

In dry years, populations generally were down and there were individuals, there were organizations that took strong exception of maintaining what they considered to be fairly liberal regulations during a time when the when the when the habitat had had deteriorated somewhat and duck populations had declined. So we had created a a mindset among some people that when duck populations went down, when the prairies were dry, we had to restrict. And so it was and there were lawsuits filed, there were hearings held, there were a lot of things that went on that was was a product of having having set that mindset among people interested in waterfowl over several decades.

VO: 26:28

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Mike Brasher: 28:34

Ken, there were a couple of other things that happened in the late eighties. Dale has already referenced one of these, a supplemental environmental impact statement. And and another we have not yet spoken about is a special session at the North American Wildlife Natural Resources Conference. I don't know if that was '88 or '89, but one of those two years. And I know you, you were involved in in that, probably had a role in in both of those, in some aspect of both of those.

Mike Brasher: 28:57

So what is an SEIS? What was the significance of the of the one that occurred in '88? And then also the its relationship to the special session at the North American Conference.

Ken Babcock: 29:08

Well, the supplemental environmental impact statement that was developed in in '87 and '88 basically laid out a new way of thinking about establishing waterfowl regulations. It took the data from the stabilized regulations period. It took the data from decades of of harvest and changes in regulations. And it basically said that we're going to be looking at things other than just harvest to determine status of of of waterfowl populations. And it was that supplemental environmental impact statement that led to the special session that was established by the Wildlife Management Institute as a part of the nineteen eighty nine North American Wildlife Conference.

Ken Babcock: 29:58

And the that conference which I had the privilege of of co chairing with doctor Rollins Sparrow, who at that time was the chief of the office of migratory bird management. We tried to pull together people who had the expertise in all aspects of what we understood about impacts on populations of waterfowl. And I think that session started the discussion among folks that the supplemental environmental impact statement has challenged us to take a new look at how we regulate harvest of of waterfowl, primarily ducks in in North America and specifically in The United States in this regard, and challenged us to bring those people together to say, how are we gonna respond to this this this call for a different way of of doing business.

Mike Brasher: 30:51

Dale, do you recall you were probably a participant in that in the special session at the North American. Do you recall some of the significant conversations from that from that session?

Dale Humberg: 31:02

Yeah. Mike, I think notably, and it actually was Ken's presentation that kind of prompted people to take a step back. The the primary message there was was expectations and reality, because a whole lot of what had occurred the decade or decade and a half prior to that was for people to maybe stop short, beginning with the Anderson and Burnham analyses and other things, to revisit their expectations, and then at the same time, to address the reality going forward of how we were gonna manage waterfowl populations and their harvests. And so it was a it was a turning point, believe, driven by certainly some of the analytical advances, the stabilized regulations experiment, and then in the eighties, the declines in populations and the nature of the management response to it. Those things in combination over about a fifteen year period resulted in pretty close to a sea change in how we saw harvest management going forward.

Mike Brasher: 32:02

Speaking of sea change, Dale and Ken, we we can't get out of the nineteen eighties without talking about one of the other most significant developments of that of that decade, and that being the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. I'm gonna get get you guys to talk about that. But the we this is as you guys have both mentioned, and as I've gleaned from some of my reading both before, both during my training, as well as leading up to this, even during the nineteen sixties and and seventies, people were well, you guys being being two of many that were part of these discussions began to really look to the habitat side of the equation and say, we need to we need to start thinking about it. I actually there's a document that I've come across here recently. I think it was in miss yeah.

Mike Brasher: 32:45

It was the Mississippi Flyway, and the title of it is lessons from the sixties and challenges of the seventies in the Mississippi Flyway, and each of you guys probably had some well, Dale, Dale, I don't know if you would've had a role in that. Ken, you probably would have. But I specifically note there were some pieces in that in that particular publication where it spoke directly about the need to focus on habitat conservation, habitat management, not just on the breeding grounds. It was certainly recognized that that's where the ducks are produced, but even back in the sixties, you were explicitly beginning to identify the need to conserve habitats and maybe maybe even had some habitat goals in some form or another for migration areas, staging areas, and and the wintering areas. Ken, I kinda heard you chuckle whenever I mentioned the the name of that publication.

Mike Brasher: 33:30

Does that ring back memories for you?

Ken Babcock: 33:32

It it certainly does. And, it it did it did start to direct consideration to the to the habitat conditions. And one of the things that helped to bring this about that often goes unmentioned is that the pilot biologist that flew the waterfowl surveys in Canada and and the prairies of The United States attended a lot of the tech section meetings during that period of time. And I think they brought the importance of of habitat, changes in habitat on the on the the breeding areas to the attention. And then those of us who were on migration areas or in wintering areas that led to discussions about habitat in wintering areas, I think was generated during that period of time.

Ken Babcock: 34:25

And that what we learned for us is that in the sixties, we spent almost all of our time trying to figure out how to how to change season length and change bag limits to impact populations and started to direct our attention to not just that, but what can we do about the habitat situation? Up until that point in time, think I everybody thought, well, they're gonna drain all the marshes. They're gonna channelize all the rivers. There's not anything we can do about it. It's bigger than the conservation community.

Ken Babcock: 34:56

But fortunately, there were leaders in the movement at that time that said, no. It's too important to ignore.

Mike Brasher: 35:03

Dale, I know you were a critical figure in in the the discussions and development of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. I wanna hear, I want your perspective on the thinking that led to the development of that plan. We're we're kinda it doesn't have you know, harvest management doesn't have a a tremendously strong footprint or presence in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. It's certainly acknowledged as a critical part of our overall efforts to conserve waterfowl populations. But and we're gonna get back to some of the harvest discussions here in a minute, but I didn't wanna go too far without touching on this significant event of the nineteen eighties.

Mike Brasher: 35:39

But, Dale, your perspective on the events leading up to the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, whether it be any kind of precursor documents or attempts and, you know, the discussions whether they were I'm sure some people were doubted whether we could be effective with this, but I'd like to get your thoughts on that.

Dale Humberg: 35:56

I think it's important to note that from the time that that Friedrich Lincoln identified flyaways and people began to think about this as an international migratory bird resource with a incredibly broad range of responsibilities, state, federal, flyaway, it was something that emerged seventy years ago as a theme that's carried forward to today. Certainly, in the late forties and early fifties even, there were significant efforts to develop management plans, in some instances they were just species plans, for example black ducks in the Northeast Atlantic flyaway. Emerging from that then were things like lessons from the sixties, challenges for the seventies, and that in many respects was a management document, a management planning document that carried into the early eighties to the late nineteen seventies, early nineteen eighties. There was a a national waterfowl management plan on The US side, but in each instance, people began to ask questions about now, isn't this broader than just our state, just broader than our flyaway, just broader than The US? And that's what gradually led to the the really landmark document, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, that laid out habitat objectives, laid out objectives that at least, maybe not exclusive objectives, but at least acknowledged that people were in part of important part of this equation as well.

Dale Humberg: 37:38

It certainly alluded to the role of harvest management, and in fact it was the the North American Waterfowl Population Goals from 1970s that were the initial basis for a lot of the work on adaptive harvest management that emerged during the early nineteen nineties.

Ken Babcock: 37:57

Mike, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another factor related to the North American Waterfowl Plan. As is the case in any major issue related to conservation. There's usually key individuals that are involved. And I don't know who in the US Fish and Wildlife Service made the decision to bring two individuals from the Flyway Council system into play in terms of drafting that North American plan. But these two people were folks that had served both in the technical section.

Ken Babcock: 38:33

They had served on the councils of their respective flyaways and ultimately became the chief administrator or assistant directors of their respective conservation agencies. One of those individuals was Dick Yancy from the state of Louisiana. Dick Yancy had been one of the people who had said for years that maybe we're putting too much emphasis on on on harvest in terms of status of of duck populations. The other individual was Jack Griebe who became the director of Colorado. And Jack Griebe was an innovator.

Ken Babcock: 39:10

He was the one that was involved in the early stages of experimentation with the with the point system. But these two individuals brought to the table a tremendous amount of respect from people, not just in their flyaways, but in the other flyaways across the country. And putting those two people in the position of being the primary authors of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan made this thing work. And if I had to pick one thing in my career, the development of that North American plan and the commitment to update it periodically as we continue to learn is probably the most important thing that we have to lean on in terms of managing waterfowl even still today. And, again, Dick Yancy and Jack Grieve were the were the key players in that.

Mike Brasher: 39:59

Dale, anything to add to that?

Dale Humberg: 40:00

I think what was notable, Mike, I remember some of the meetings that we had during the early to mid eighties that really hit me was that the broad participation in addition to those, you know, individuals was the participation by others, whether they be from the flyway that you were in, whether they were from Canada. I recall in 1985, the session that we had that we spent a full day on introducing the North American plan, where it was headed, and so on and so forth. It was hosted or at least led by Jim Patterson from Canada. So here we are in the Mississippi Flyway with this guy from Canada coming down, really clarifying and emphasizing the fact that these are migratory bird resources that that is gonna require a commitment and responsibility in a much broader way than we might have considered in a flyway management plan, in our national waterfowl management plan. This was in fact a migratory bird resource that required participation across all sectors.

Mike Brasher: 41:05

And now the North American Waterfowl Management Plan is primarily a habitat plan, but do you recall any of the, you know, specific reference to how the plan acknowledged the role of of harvest? I kinda mentioned mentioned it at the at the outset here on the NAWMP conversation, but do do you recall specifically what that how harvest might have been referenced in that plan?

Ken Babcock: 41:26

I might offer a thought on that, Mike, is this plan was primarily focused on establishing population goals for for waterfowl, and it really didn't get into the issue of how are you gonna regulate harvest. It left that to the flyways, which I think was appropriate at the time to do that. If it had started to try to direct how harvest was going to be handled, you would have seen resistance from from states, from flyaway councils, from other organizations. So I I think the fact that it was one that said, we wanna have these goals in terms of populations, and we'll let the people to direct the harvest responsibilities take care of that. And if we maintain these population goals, the providing opportunities for people to enjoy these whether they hunt or not will be met.

Dale Humberg: 42:21

Yeah. I think, Mike, it it is important to acknowledge that that duck harvest management was part of the North American plan, like Ken said, it was right on target, is that it was a habitat plan, first and foremost a habitat plan, but it also acknowledged that, in fact if you look at the early document, it basically says recreational duck harvest should be managed through the use of stabilized regulations. And so there was some important thematic elements already established in that, that if the breeding population index of mallards in the surveyed area of Canada and The US falls below 6,500,000. They so they were already thinking about changes in harvest management based on these broad aspects, not on year to year details of five days here or a bird in the bag there, but establishing these overall concepts that would go forward in in harvest management. So it was more than an appendix, but it wasn't front and center necessarily in that early document.

Ken Babcock: 43:25

And and if I could, I'd add one more one more issue. And I've I think I've said this before, but my my good friend out of the Ducks Unlimited Southern Regional Office, Jerry Holden, used to always say, the answer is money. What's your question? And we we found ourselves after the North American plan was approved. We said, okay.

Ken Babcock: 43:46

We got this great plan, but we don't have any money. We don't have any way to implement it. And there were people like doctor Gary Meyer out of the state of Tennessee that stepped up through the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies and said, we're gonna find a way to get this funded. And this plan was was approved by the respective nations in 1986. And by 1989, which is a pretty short period of time in the political arena, the North American Wetland Conservation Act had been had been approved, and the funding that came along with that was also directed towards funding the implementation of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

Mike Brasher: 44:34

Guys, this is probably an an opportune time to wrap up this particular episode. We've covered a lot of ground here. We've moved pretty quickly through the seventies into the into the eighties. I think this may be the first episode yet where we've actually covered two decades. But but maybe maybe folks will be will be reassured to know that there's still some material from the nineteen seventies specific to harvest regulations that we need to cover.

Mike Brasher: 44:59

So we're gonna do that on the next episode. We are gonna go back a bit in time here, a bit a bit different from the way we've done some of the previous episodes, but it felt felt appropriate to move on into the eighties and then talk about the North American plan because that was that era of the of the eighties was quite significant in some some some advancements in the way we're thinking about multiple aspects of the waterfowl conservation enterprise. And, of course, what comes after the eighties is the nineties, and that will lead us pretty quickly to a discussion about the emergence of adaptive harvest management in 1995. So we have a couple more things to discuss on a subsequent episode here with Ken and Dale, and we hope you all join us again for that episode. So, Ken, Dale, thank you guys for joining us.

Dale Humberg: 45:44

Thank you. You bet, Mike.

Mike Brasher: 45:46

A special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Ken Babcock and Dale Humberg for their continued contribution to this series on harvest management, the history of waterfowl harvest management, and we look forward to having them back on at least one more episode. As always, we thank our producer, Clay Baird, for the great work he does on these podcasts. This would not be possible without him. And, of course, you, the listener, wouldn't be possible without you as well. We thank you for your time and support of the podcast, and we thank you most importantly for your support, passion, and commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.

VO: 46:16

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VO: 46:39

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