Thread: Do you think i am really stupid ?

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

IF the ratio of drakes to hens WAS an issue.....making a drake only season in July august or september would make far more sense to me...targeting the rapist mobs would give mother duck a break to raise her broods without being pounced on constantly.
we shoot what comes in,usually try to target drakes first and it seems to run at about 60/40 ratio at end of tally up....
other than parries..the whitehead goes down first....often drake will come back if you dont get him too.

I have not been able to find any data on NZ but i was under the impression [rightly or wrongly ?] that the mallard drake hen ratio was 70 /30 in favour of drakes, due to predation of hens during the nesting season.

Here is a bit of info from Nth America where it talks about the hunter harvest for drakes is 2 or 3 times higher than for hens and yet drakes still out number hens.
https://www.ducks.org/conservation/w...owl-sex-ratios

Jenn Sheppard who did her thesis on breeding ecology and productivity on mallard ducks in NZ dedicated her thesis to those who "go for green and stay within the limit" which infers to me that she sees hen harvest a limiting factor in mallard numbers ? One of her influential professors also said that "one of the simplest ways that people can manage waterfowl populations is refrain from harvesting females " again hen harvest is a limiting factor in waterfowl numbers ?