Alabama Waterfowl Association, Inc. 1346 County Road 11 SCOTTSBORO, ALABAMA 35768  Email: [email protected] http://www.alabamawaterfowl.org

THREE YEAR BAND REPORT 2002-2005


I would like to thank all who have volunteered labor, reported a band or donated to the AWA Mallard Restoration project. Thank you for supporting AWA's doctrine of "Increase harvest and bird watching opportunity and the private sector will respond and create and restore habitat to enjoy the hunting and bird areas." 

Enclosed is the second synopsis of the AWA Mallard Restoration Project report. First, I will mention that many of the North American mallards that winter in the Southeast stayed north of Kentucky. This 2004-2005 duck season is the third year of very little southern migration of mallards. As I have said before, the average mallard hen in the wild lives only two years. This means that a large percentage of mallards have never flown south of the Mason-Dixon Line and have never seen our habitat. According to the AWA banding data, the mallards released by AWA do migrate back to the original release area.

In the last three years AWA have banded and released 5,000 mallards and participated in the web based banding data site, http://bandreturns.com. AWA has received 400 band reports. This 8 percent band return is much better than the return rate of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. I think the user friendly web site deserves the credit for this phenomenal success. 

Out of 400 band reports, 106 AWA banded mallards were harvested in sixteen different states. This equates to 26.5 percent that was harvested and reported out of Alabama. This is almost exactly the same percentage in AWA previous 5 year study. Here is a breakdown per state. 

7 Arkansas
5 Georgia 
25 Tennessee
16 Mississippi
5 Missouri
7 Kentucky
7 Indiana
4 Ohio
9 Minnesota
2 North Dakota 
2 South Dakota 
2 Iowa
2 Wisconsin 
4 South Carolina
1 Louisiana 
4 Maryland 

The great part of this program is the number of year old birds that are harvested north of Alabama that have most likely raised a brood or fathered ducklings and coming back down the flyway bringing other mallards with them. Also, 73.5 percent of mallards are harvested within 50 miles of their release site. 

AWA would like to expand our Mallard Restoration Project. If funds were available, AWA has the technology to make the Tennessee River Valley one of the top duck hunting areas of the southeast. 

Anyone wishing to order mallards email [email protected] 

For more information, please check AWA's website http://www.alabamawaterfowl.org.