A Quick Look at Nest Success (March 14, 2003)

Waterfowl scientists constantly crunch numbers, and easily one of the most closely watched of those numbers is nest success

Simply stated, nest success is the percentage of nests that produce at least one duckling. Here are some numbers that reflect the problems associated with duck production across the prairie pothole breeding grounds:

15-20% The percentage of successful nests necessary to maintain the duck continental population at existing levels.

33% Nest success recorded across the prairie pothole region in 1935.*

21% Nest success recorded in 1955.*

15% Nest success recorded in 1970.*

10% The average nest success recorded across the pothole region since 1992.*

22.6% Nest success recorded on Conservation Reserve Program acres on the US side of the pothole region in the early 1990s.

0% Nest success recorded the first three years from one site at Kellys Slough, a $4 million project in the drift prairie of North Dakota.

76% Nest success at that same Kellys Slough site the first year predators were controlled during the nesting season.

43% Average nest success recorded during the first six years of Delta Waterfowl’s predator-management research. That research, which began in 1994, marked the first time anyone had practiced predator management on large tracts of land (36 square miles).

14% Average nest success recorded on Delta’s “control” sites, similar tracts of nesting cover adjacent to the predator blocks where predators weren’t managed.

* Nest success figures as determined by a study conducted by Wendy Beauchamp