Thread: Whats your solutions to the duck decline?

Yes, Bill Spooner, Hawkes Bay, would roll in his grave if he knew how things are now!

F&G seem to be dithering and their staff have vested interests in that big money earner Mr Trout .

I believe the best thing for F&G to do would be to sponsor an independant University graduate who wants a good subject for a doctorial thesis , we would get brains , hard work and published results at the end of it , The researcher would need to be given a ranger warrent , to enable land access etc and be given free and open access to the historical records compiled by Tom Canthesis et all, He/she would need to be able to catch , blood sample , tag and maybe even do necropsies , outside the bird season , without fear of prosecution , etc . And above all be removed from the political bull and influence that seems to infest F&G societies

Yes, Bill Spooner, Hawkes Bay, would roll in his grave if he knew how things are now!

WAS HE THE GUY THAT RAN THE PHEASANT RELEASE and breeding pozzie on the backroad betweeen hastings and napier??

aparently f&^g have kicked off a major research effort ??im awaiting details from the national office

Originally Posted by gsp follower

WAS HE THE GUY THAT RAN THE PHEASANT RELEASE and breeding pozzie on the backroad betweeen hastings and napier??

aparently f&^g have kicked off a major research effort ??im awaiting details from the national office

Yes thats him, then Roly Bagshaw helped after Bill retired.

I did 5yrs as honorary F&G ranger with Bill and 3 with Roly.

this will make you laugh ngai tahu,s only objection to the goose culls here last year was that eels and flounder might ingest the lead shot used

not a word was said about the waterfowl native or otherwise and waders species

Oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee



Talking to a veteran duck campaigner this morning and asked his thoughts on the matter...he says that mallards and spoonies should be off the HB list and teal back on for a season!!

you ever get out patangata /elsthorpe way i was on mangatapiri station out there1977/78
man that was duck heaven with all the dams.

the numbers are still not increasing then that points to something other than lead shot being the issue and research needed to find out what are the real issues. Fish and game???
Stop giving out off season permits if you are so worried
The real decline is shooting into the breed time and all season with 5, 6,7,8,10,shot Auto's.
The big one is Habitat disappearing with more disturbance in breeding area's and grain feed area's are a lot smaller thats true.

There isn't many people around that would do a six for six on ducks, never mind a 10 for 10!

we need to get duck shooters to have the same mind set as fisherman.when was the last time u heard a fisher brag about geting more than there limit or taking undersize fish?in fact most i fish with impose there own limits size and amount . has probably been the result of heavy policing and people lossing cars/boats but it has worked . maybe fish and game should use there fish officer resources to police duckshooting insteed of the local game officer who does what he can.

Originally Posted by 30calterry

we need to get duck shooters to have the same mind set as fisherman.when was the last time u heard a fisher brag about geting more than there limit or taking undersize fish?in fact most i fish with impose there own limits size and amount . has probably been the result of heavy policing and people lossing cars/boats but it has worked . maybe fish and game should use there fish officer resources to police duckshooting insteed of the local game officer who does what he can.

I like your style of thought squire and it certainly does have more than a whiff of good old commonsense about it. furthermore why dont F&G periodically issue license holders a wee questionare on the details of ducks etc in their shooting areas. If this was done province wide and returns collated it may provide insight into the birds lifestyles and habits ,populations etc. take that to a national level and maybe we could end up with some information on why the birds are behaving like they are.

They ring now kotuku for that information, how many they ring I don't know.

I have not seen the reference you refer to in the H&F catalogue. However, Fish and Game has a national mallard duck research programme that is still in its methodology development stage and is set to run for the next 2-3 years. This will include GPS telemetry (transmitter tracking), defining mallard habitat characteristics for recruitment, standardising monitoring techniques of population change, modelling harvest regulation effectiveness and a citizen science project that will involve members of the public reporting on local brood numbers and survival rates.

a glimmer of hope from the national councill

Originally Posted by Wirehunt

They ring now kotuku for that information, how many they ring I don't know.

I've been phoned every season I've had a license during the duck season, and just after the end of it.

six for six on ducks, never mind a 10 for 10! Well I have seen it, but they still have to be able to shoot.
If there are, say, three in a mai mai with autos not many that leaves the pond. Say they are 5 shot auto.
There's 15 chances. Old days, just 6 shots to look at it another way.
The kills are up and the numbers down. This has been the trend for a good number of years.
Eastern Otago doesn't grow the grain it did when I was a boy in the early sixties.
Even in those days there was the odd unpinned auto you could hear at first light.
Getting all happy just thinking about it.
By the way, a lot of the ponds I know have four or more shooters. Talk about rape and pillage.
I shoot most of the season and some of the younger people I have met when out jump shooting are always looking for new places to shoot.
Dairy hate the ducks in there water troughs but a lot don't shoot and have put the digger in and put ponds back into land. The activity around these farms
has stuffed up some good hunting ponds and creeks.F&G if they can't see this??? They don't need to spend to look at decline.Habitat Protection & Management money mostly goes to the North Island Lookhttp://www.fishandgame.org.nz/sites/...ort%202012.pdf See where your money goes. Try and go past what's in the bank and wages, The big money is on FISH.