A wealth of information that is highly useful to the management of duck populations is contained in these reports. The rewards of reporting the harvest or discovery of a banded duck don't stop with a certificate and a new ring for the call lanyard. (This toll-free number is engraved on every band and has substantially increased reporting rate since its inception in 1995.) The hunter usually keeps the band as a souvenir, but the BBL also sends a certificate to each hunter that details the date of banding, sex and age of the bird, and the location where it was banded.īanding projects can be thought of as a long-standing cooperative research project between waterfowl biologists, managers of waterfowl populations, and waterfowl hunters. Most of these reports are received through the 1-800-327-BAND telephone number at the BBL. Thousands more ducks are banded and released at refuges and wildlife areas across the US and Canada by state and federal wildlife management agencies.ĭuring subsequent hunting seasons, waterfowl hunters report the band numbers of banded ducks that they find or harvest. This pre-hunting season banding effort results in the release of several thousand banded ducks by Ducks Unlimited crews in an average year. Then they record the band number, age sex and species of the banded ducks on 'schedules' which are sent to the Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) in Patuxent, Maryland-where they are uploaded to the bird banding database for storage. They attach an aluminum band engraved with a unique number to the leg of each duck that they capture. Dedicated and experienced research assistants use wire traps baited with grain to capture ducks through the hottest days of August and well into September. Every summer, Ducks Unlimited operates waterfowl banding crews at stations in the Prairie Pothole Region of North and South Dakota.

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