| | “When we look around for the root cause of the northern pintail’s decline, it’s here in the Canadian prairies, in our own backyard,” says Dr. Karla Guyn of Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC). This private, non-profit agency has created the Pintail Initiative, which aims to reverse the pintail’s serious population decline.
In the mid-1950s, these elegant ducks were almost as common as mallards, with a population around 10 million. Drought conditions in the 1980s reduced the populations of many prairie-nesting ducks, including pintails. However, unlike most of these other ducks, pintails did not recover in the 1990s. In fact, the pintail population reached a record low of 1.8 million in 2002. Pintails tend to prefer to nest in gently rolling landscapes with large, shallow wetlands. Since those landscapes are mainly found in the southern Canadian prairies, that’s where most pintails nest. It’s also where most of the decline in pintail numbers has occurred. So it’s the target area for many activities under the Pintail Initiative. 6Guyn has been studying pintails since 1994.
“Pintails will nest in crop stubble more than any of the other dabbling ducks. Unfortunately for them, pintails are an early nesting species. They tend to arrive in the prairies in late March and start their nests in mid-April. Obviously if they are nesting in stubble fields in mid-April, the chances of them successfully hatching before a seeding operation goes through are pretty slim,” she explains. And as more and more prairie farmers reduce or eliminate summerfallow in their rotations, nesting in stubble becomes even riskier.
The Initiative includes such strategies as: working with farmers and ranchers to adjust agricultural practices in ways that enhance pintail habitat; securing wetlands and native prairie through agreements with landowners; and working towards more effective policies for landscape conservation.
To evaluate and refine the Initiative’s habitat management efforts, DUC started a three-year study in 2005. “In this study, we are looking at the various habitats on the landscape to see which habitats pintails are choosing for nesting, and how many nests they hatch in those different habitats,” says Guyn, who is one of the study’s lead researchers.
The study encompasses a variety of habitats including those that DUC believes will improve pintail nesting success: winter cereal fields, hayland, tame pasture and native pasture. Guyn says, “Preliminary results from last year tend to confirm our initial hypotheses in that pintails do tend to select winter wheat and cropland in general at a much higher level than other ducks do. And, at least in last year’s case, they typically have higher nest success in winter wheat fields than in any of the other habitats.”
DUC is using a range of measures to encourage producers to adopt practices that improve pintail habitat. For example, DUC is supporting breeding research to improve winter wheat quality, cold tolerance and disease resistance. It has winter cereals agronomists who carry out extension activities. It has a Core Grower program where successful winter wheat growers share their experiences with other producers. And it is working on ways to improve winter wheat markets.
Although the continuing loss of prairie wetlands troubles Guyn, she does sees some encouraging hints of a better future for pintails. Wetter conditions in the southern prairies in 2005 and 2006 have boosted pintail numbers to 3.3 million this year. As well, the number of acres in winter wheat and the number of acres converted from spring-seeded cropland to hay or pasture have been gradually increasing. Change is happening slowly, but at least it’s going in the right direction. |
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