Peter A.W. Green Communications Award (March 4, 2002)

Peter A.W. Green spent two terms as the president of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation. During this time he led Delta to the forefront of the conservation movement and heightened awareness of waterfowl and wetland issues. The Peter A.W. Green Communications Award was established in 1994 by the Delta Board of Trustees in honor of Peter’s six years of outstanding service (1988-94).

This award is presented annually "to the Delta student who best exemplifies the characteristics required to be an effective communicator for the well being of North America’s waterfowl resource. These skills are to include the ability to communicate in both a written and oral fashion, and to present information in a manner which is understood by layperson and professional alike".

For the first time, this award in 2001 was determined by a popular science writing competition open to all graduate students funded by the Delta Waterfowl Foundation. The winner of the 2001 competition was Vance Lester, second place was Lynn Miller and third was taken by Matt Chouinard.

The Role of Hunters and Trappers in Wildlife Management

By Vance Lester

As a youngster I was constantly amazed at the way the natural world operates. As most young people are I was full of questions and spent a lot of time thinking about all things natural. I would spend hours pondering life while watching insects, and every fish I caught for the table was dissected so I could see its inner workings. This passion for the outdoors stayed with me throughout my formative years, and while my friends went off to law school I stayed true to my passion and went on to pursue an education in Biology. I’m now on the verge of completing my Master’s degree, and while my high school classmates are driving nice cars and buying fancy clothes, I spend my money (being a student, not a lot) and spare time (much more of, thanks again to being a student) hunting and trapping, and pondering the science of nature.

I noticed early on, as anyone who spends time in the outdoors does, that wildlife populations are in a constant state of change. At any moment some populations are gaining individuals, while other populations are decreasing. This population fluctuation is regulated by several factors including food, habitat, disease and predation. Humans enter into the population equation in several ways; ultimately, through actions like the development of wild areas to cropland or city suburbs, we control the amount of habitat that is available. This habitat alteration in turn may affect the availability of food and cover for wildlife. Humans also have a substantial effect on the population equation through predation. When people hunt and trap, we essentially become predators of the species we pursue and affect the population by removing individuals from a given area.

In the simplest of terms, with all other factors remaining constant, low levels of predation will lead to an increasing population, while high levels of predation will lead to a decreasing population. Wildlife managers control levels of human predation on game species by regulating hunting and trapping seasons and quotas, so that the optimal number of animals is removed from the population to meet the management objectives. For example, in many areas of the country, white-tailed deer are becoming a problem because of fast population growth and low levels of predation. In these areas, wildlife managers increase the length of the hunting season and the bag limit to decrease the number of deer in an area. Other species, such as northern pintails, have low population levels in many areas and wildlife managers reduce hunting pressure (by reducing bag limits on pintails) to help the pintail population recover. Basically, all game species are managed to meet management objectives, whether those objectives are to increase or decrease the population, managers must maintain sustainable populations.

Unfortunately, predation caused by other animals is harder for wildlife managers to control. As a hunter and trapper I have always been aware of the delicate interplay between predatory animals and their prey. When I went back to graduate school I decided to try and come to a better, more scientific understanding of how wildlife populations affect each other. I began to look at how predation affected duck nesting production, and as my study progressed I realized that human-induced changes have upset the predator-prey balance and I began to look at ways that balance could be restored.

Throughout the Prairie Pothole Region, which stretches from the Dakotas into Prairie Canada, ducks are faced with several different species of predators, many of which have increased in population size in the last several decades. This change in the predator community comes as a result of habitat alteration and changes in land use. Agricultural development in the prairies caused a change in the predator community that is ongoing.

Prior to European settlement, native grasslands dominated the Prairies of North America and wolves that hunted elk and bison were the top predator species in the system. Other carnivores, such as striped skunks, red foxes, and coyotes occurred at low population densities since wolves essentially excluded them from their territories. As settlers moved west the Prairies were converted into agriculture and large tracts of duck nesting habitat was lost. At the same time wolves were eliminated because they challenged livestock production. The combined effects of habitat alteration and the eradication of the top predator speciesin the system greatly changed the predator community. The population of skunks, red foxes and coyotes boomed with no wolves to compete with; this was helped along by agriculture as it provided supplemental food sources for these species. A more drastic sign of the changing predator community is exemplified by the arrival of raccoons in the Prairies; raccoons did not exist historically in the prairies, and have only been in Prairie Canada for the last several decades.

With such a drastically altered predator community, nesting success of ducks in the Prairie Pothole region is often lower than the 20% identified by scientists as necessary to maintain a stable population. Waterfowl managers are therefore interested in maintaining or increasing duck production, and to do this they must counter the human alteration of the landscape and the resulting change in the predator community. There are basically two ways they can do this: one possibility is to create and enhance nesting habitat by planting cover. Large tracts of continuous habitat are thought to allow ducks to avoid predators by giving them more space to lay their nests in, making them harder for predators to find. However, it is often difficult for wildlife managers to secure large blocks of habitat due to competition from agricultural interests.

The second way to increase duck production is to manage the predators themselves. Over the years duck managers have used various methods, from erecting electric fences around nesting habitat to creating nesting islands. These indirect methods were designed to discourage predators from nesting areas without actually removing them, and have been met with varying degrees of success. Predators can also be directly managed through lethal removal of the predators through trapping. In recent years, waterfowl managers have been interested in whether efficient trapping can reduce predator populations (but not eradicate them) to a level where ducks can nest successfully enough to maintain a productive population.

For the last three summers I have been researching the effects of trapping predators to increase nest success of ground nesting ducks. My study sites are located in southeastern Saskatchewan in a landscape that is highly altered by agriculture. Most of the land area is cultivated annually and planted to cereal crops, and since most ducks prefer to nest in areas of grass there is little cover for them. This agricultural landscape also encourages a high density, diverse predator community, that when combined with a lack of nesting cover results in low nest success for ducks in that region.

I hire professional trappers to trap raccoons, skunks, red foxes, and coyotes on two 16 mile2 research sites every year. During the same period there is a crew of students who search for duck nests on the study blocks and we visit the nests once a week to determine whether the nests hatch or are eaten by a predator. Nest success on the trapped study sites is compared to nest success on similar study sites where we do not trap but monitor nest success. In three years of research, we have found approximately 3000 nests of eight different dabbling duck species. Nest success on trapped sites ranged from 18% to 75%, while nest success on untrapped sites ranged from 5% to 22%. Within years, there is a two to three fold higher nesting success on trapped sites versus untrapped sites.

My research indicates that trapping predators can increase nest success of ground nesting ducks (when compared to those similar areas that are not trapped). These results help show that trapping efficiently can be used as a management tool for waterfowl managers to help increase the nest success of upland nesting ducks.

Hunters and trappers are an invaluable resource for wildlife managers. When we talk to the non-hunting public, we often cite wildlife management as one of the purposes of our activities. How many times have you justified your outdoor pursuits by explaining how deer starve to death in the winter, or how coyotes can freeze to death as a result of mange? Unfortunately, while it is true that wildlife managers need hunters and trappers, we often lack credibility when talking to the public. A trapper telling someone that trapping is necessary for wildlife management is the same as a mechanic telling you that the engine in your car needs replacing. However, a biological study to the same effect holds much more weight in the general community.

As a biologist, it is important for me to find solutions to wildlife management problems. Trapping is one of the tools that a professional waterfowl manager can use to increase nest success of upland nesting ducks. As a hunter and trapper, it is also important to me to show the public that the activities I love are also necessary for wildlife management; the results of my research strengthen the position of hunters and trappers as positive stewards of the environmental balance.

I am fortunate to be able to make a career doing what I love and I wake up in the morning anticipating the coming day. While my lawyer friends look out the window of their urban office, I spend my days outside enjoying the world. My traffic jams are deer crossing the road, my water cooler flows from a hillside, my board meetings are held on the tailgate of a truck.

I love my profession, but I am still a hunter and trapper first and a biologist second. I am lucky that being a biologist supports my extra-curricular outdoor activities, by helping to prove that wildlife managers need hunters and trappers in order to fulfil management objectives. In this era of dwindling numbers of hunters and trappers we need to accentuate this relationship between wildlife management and hunting and trapping. The eighty percent of the population that does not hunt or trap generally does not have strong feelings, either for or against, hunting and trapping. We need to educate the general public of the important role that hunting and trapping play in maintaining ecological balance. By using biology to support the importance of those outdoor activities we love we can help ensure our right to hunt and trap in the future.