history

Focusing on Mallards Part VI: States claim the game

Rae SpencerLeave a comment

‘When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley,’ said her mother, ‘I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet’s manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the best of the covies for you.’ –from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Content Warning

This multi-part blog post contains references to hunting, agriculture, and research practices of killing birds. This particular installment references various methods and means of Mallard hunting, past and present. If you decide not to read on, I respect and admire your choice.

Photograph from a recent spring nesting in the yard. In this photo, a Mallard hen is leading her day-old ducklings from their nest in the irises bordering the dragonfly pond. The hen is balanced on a large rock, downy nest-fluff sticking to her feet. The ducklings are following in a huddled flock, clinging together for safety.
Photo from the Mallard archive. Here, a Mallard hen and her ducklings are leaving their nest for a family swim in the dragonfly pond.

Limiting (and limited) expectations

It was easy to position my own context for these posts (see Part IV). But all of my (deleted) attempts to contextualize Mallards in pre-1800s North America have been as flawed as my knowledge.

It’s a given that there are records outside of the Mallard archive, outside of the Mallard mine, that explain how and why North America’s waterfowl maintained flagrant abundance within and around the continent’s early nations. But I don’t have a discourse for these records.

In the end, after all of my reading, I am not equipped to know North America’s pre-colonial Mallards, much less describe them. They are, for me, a personal singularity. An infinite intangible that disturbs my erratic journey.

In other words, I’m only telling one facet of the Mallard story: the part written by and for Europe’s descendants.

Caveat lector.

Sepia-toned photograph of three young adults posing beside a pump-handled well in what appears to be a fenced yard. All are wearing formal-appearing attire—two wearing layered and ruffled dresses and one wearing a suit with a prominent pocket-watch chain. A beribboned hat is on the ground in front of the well.
Photograph from the family archive, Iowa, 1881. The trio in this photo were younger than Iowa (granted statehood in 1846) but not a lifetime younger.

In medias res

When I last left the Mallards, in the opening decades of the 1900s, their populations were collapsing. For the moment, I’m leaving them suspended in free-fall.

This post circles back to the 1800s. Back to an era of unchecked habitat destruction and overhunting. Back to the transition years, when state lawmakers claimed title over wildlife and began to legislatively dismantle game markets.

“Wetland utilization in North America provides a classic case of conflict in resource management. The disadvantages of marshes and ponds for the individual farmer encourage their drainage and conversion to cropland. At the same time, these wetlands provide vital habitat for migratory waterfowl, a principle wildlife resource…” (Pospahala, Anderson, & Henney, 1974, pp. 5–6).

Sepia-toned postcard image of a wetland setting in South Dakota. A smallish body of seemingly stagnant water is bordered by dense brush and shrubs.
Photo postcard from the family archive, South Dakota, c. 1900.

“We, who cannot live without wild ducks, must first of all acknowledge two facts: 1. We are the minority; 2. The majority regards any land which is too wet to plow, but unsuitable for swimming or water boating, as useless” (Anderson, 1953, p. 122).

Sepia-toned image of a large body of water with a distant silhouette of truss bridge. The photo's horizon is slightly tilted, the bridge has six visible segments, and a jointed corner of wood is visible in the upper right corner of the frame.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1900. A large body of water with a truss bridge in distant silhouette.

These were never the King’s ducks

After fleeing systems in which wildlife belonged to the aristocracy, the English and French colonists in North America drafted new rules. In the colonies, wildlife would belong to the citizens. To the People. (Not, however, to the People who already lived in North America. Only to those who staked their various flags along eastern coastlines and cascaded westward.1)

“The explorations of these settlers were driven by the incredible wealth of North America’s renewable natural resources—and by an unfettered opportunity to exploit it” (Organ, Mahoney, & Geist, 2010, p. 23).

Photograph of a Mallard hen perched on a stone that is part of the border of our dragonfly pond. One of her days-old ducklings is scrambling up the stone's slope, trying to reach the safe and familiar comfort of her protection. Two other ducklings are in line, waiting to test their own climbing skills.
Photo from the Mallard archive, of a Mallard hen standing on one of the stones that border our dragonfly pond. Here, the hen was taking a break from teaching her ducklings to swim and forage.

Who killed (kills) the People’s birds?

During the glut years of the 1800s, US hunters took to the field in three different pursuits: subsistence hunting, sport hunting, and market hunting.

As subsistence hunters took (take) only what they need for survival, their impact on bird populations was (and still is) minimal. But sport hunters, in the 1800s, tended to binge. Each adventure piled up the carcasses:

“The geese were flying all day, thousands upon thousands of them. We killed 163 that day. We had a farm wagon with extra side boards for carrying eighty bushels of wheat. Our kill nearly filled that wagon box. I know that night when we drove back to Dawson, which I think was eight miles distant, we were cold and wet and we all stuck our legs down in the geese and the warmth of their bodies kept us comfortable” (Mershon, 1923, pp. 117–118).

Sepia-toned photo of a horse harnessed to a cart (carriage? buggy?) driven by a man in a suit and hat, complete with thick gloves that have a star emblem on the wide cuff. A cluster of two-story houses make up the background.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1900. Not a wagon, I know, but still a reminder that personal transportation in the 1800s was single-digit horsepower.

After each binge, sport hunters returned to their families and their varied professions.

Unless the binge was their profession.

The Meat and Feathers Market

Between 1820 and 1860, America’s cities blossomed from a thin seeding of only 5% of the population to a significant 20% demographic. “Markets for wildlife arose to feed these urban masses and to festoon a new class of wealthy elites with feathers and fur” (Organ, Mahoney, & Geist, 2010, p. 23).

Market hunters earned a living harvesting the wildlife that lived in unclaimed (or claimed and unsupervised) wild places. The siren song of profit penetrated every field, marsh, and wooded acre, tempting hunters to abandon the traditional and self-imposed restraints that defined hunting as a sport.

“A momentary question goes through your mind. ‘Shall I give them the first barrel on the water?’ It is dismissed almost as soon, for early I have been taught it is not the way of the sportsman. Give the birds a chance is the rule. Yet I can not help hoping they will be well bunched and I can get more than one with the first barrel and hope for another with my second. Well, sometimes it works one way and sometimes another. Either way it’s the life worth living” (Mershon, 1923, p. 76).

Giving the birds a chance, for the market hunter, was a profit gamble.

Sepia-toned portrait of two young adults seated at a table. Both are posed with a hand of cards, as if playing poker. Both are wearing suits, though they have taken off their jackets. Both are wearing hats. One is smoking a pipe. The gambler on the right is showing an ace to the camera, held below the level of the table. Paper money, larger than today's bills, is hanging over the edge of the table.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1900. Photographer’s stamp: “W. C. Bryant Artistic.”

It was highly likely that a hunter the next county over would happily shoot all the birds on all the waters, rules be damned.

The market wanted meat and feathers, so meat and feathers the market would have.

Sepia-toned portrait, c. 1900, of two young adults wearing hats decked out in feathers. Their coats have big fancy collars, one of thick fur and the other of feathers.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1900. Time has taken their names, but their faces and feathers remain.

Any hunter willing to renounce the title of “sportsman” could cash in.

What would you have done?

Endless demand v. limited supply

Around cities and towns, market hunters drained the wildlife from marshes and woodlands and fields. And as nearby wildlife dwindled, sportsmen were forced further afield for their binges.

Postcard photograph stamped "Photographed by H. J. Linton" and hand-labelled "East Main St., Lexington, O". A small, single-section truss bridge crosses a brook, several two-story houses line the road beyond the bridge, and utility poles break the horizon.
Photo postcard from the family archive; East Main St., Lexington, Ohio; c. 1900. The photographer’s stamp, HJ Linton, suggests the image was snapped by a relative on some distant branch of a grandmother’s family tree.

“Conflict soon arose between market hunters, who gained fortune on dead wildlife, and the new breed of hunters who placed value on live wildlife and the sporting pursuit of it” (Organ, Mahoney, & Geist, 2010, p. 24).

By the late 1800s, some of the birds had been hunted to extinction.

“The first bird I ever killed on the wing was a wild pigeon. They frequented the Saginaw valley in thousands from early spring until after the harvest. I had been taken with my uncle and father pigeon shooting many times to pick up birds. It was no trick for them to get seventy-five or a hundred birds before breakfast, and soon after I was given my 16-gauge double barrel gun I was taken out to shoot pigeons. The flocks were dense, as I now recall, so it was not a difficult feat to bring one down, and at the very first discharge a pigeon from my shot came fluttering to the ground. I grabbed it and admired it and was satisfied for that morning to have it my entire bag, and proudly took it home to show my mother. It was not long before I was going pigeon shooting regularly every morning, for the flight began at daylight and was generally over by seven o’clock. Then I would get my breakfast and be off to school. My pigeon shooting continued every spring until about 1880, when it was gone forever” (Mershon, 1923, p. 3).

Sepia-toned photo of a group of twenty-seven children, teens, young adults, and adults—seemingly assembled for a school photo. All of the children in the front row are barefoot, most are wearing long-sleeved shirts and coveralls or long-sleeved dresses with large ruffled collars. Two children in the front row are holding hats on their lap, one has a hat hooked over one knee, while yet another hat has been tossed to the side and waits, upside down, to be reclaimed. Some of the younger children have neatly parted hair pulled back in (probably) a braid, others have very short hair that is either too short to style or barely long enough to support styling to one side or the other. The teens and young adults with long hair have puffy updos with a few prominent ribbons, while those with short hair have a suggestion of bangs swept to the side. A dog has joined the first row of students.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1890(?). I wonder if the author of the previous passage went to school barefoot, with his hound to keep him company?

“No ordinary destruction”

In the sport v. market skirmishes, sport hunters always had the upper hand. Reputation and tradition amplified their voices.

“Furthermore I will prove by sundry reasons in this little prologue, that the life of no man that useth gentle game and disport be less displeasable unto God than the life of a perfect and skillful hunter, or from which more good cometh. …he shall go and drink and lie in his bed in fair fresh clothes, and shall sleep well and steadfastly all the night without any evil thought of any sins, wherefore I say that hunters go into Paradise when they die, and live in this world more joyfully than any other men” (Edward, Second Duke of York, 1406–1413/1909, pp. 4, 11).

“It is stated that in their migrations northward, the waterfowl often reach the lake in the spring, while it is still covered with ice, and that while huddled in great numbers in the mouths of streams and other open places, they are slaughtered indiscriminately, and that while too poor and unfit for eating. It is also represented that they are killed and wounded in great numbers by the swivel or punt gun, which is a small cannon fixed to a boat, and that by these practices they are driven from their usual feeding grounds and places of resort. It is the well known habit of waterfowl to follow the same line and stop at the same points in their migrations, and such a serious disturbance at this great half-way station, may eventually result in their seeking other quarters. To prevent this it is asked that the killing of waterfowl in the spring be prohibited altogether in certain counties, and that the use of the punt gun be absolutely forbidden. The petitions upon this subject have been so numerous, and the petitioners so respectable, that there evidently must exist good cause for complaint, and their request should be granted. The use of the punt gun along the sea board has been made illegal for like reason, and if it is necessary there, it is still more so here” (Collins, 1860, p. 388).

“The ‘game hog’ is an animal on two legs that is disappearing. May he soon become extinct! The ‘game hog’ formerly had himself photographed surrounded by the fruits of a day’s ‘sport,’ and regarded the photograph as imperfect unless he had a hundred dead ducks, grouse, or geese around him. To-day a true sportsman would be ashamed to be pictured in connection with a larger number of fowls than a decent share for an American gunner, having due regard to the preservation of game for the future” (Lacey, 1900, pp. 4871–4872).

Grainy and faded grayscale portrait of a toddler. The child is standing on an upholstered footrest and is wearing knee breeches, a short jacket with long sleeves, a rounded hat with a small rolled brim, and rumpled boots. One arm rests on a curtain-draped prop. Another heavy drape hangs in the background. Time has robbed the image of most facial features, leaving only the child's dark eyes staring into the lens.
Photo from the family archive; unnamed child (likely surname Linton); Elmore, Ohio; c. 1890. In my internal filing system, this image lives in the “haunted children” file.

Haunted by pigeons

A single piece of market-favorable legislation murmurs from the archival cacophony: an 1848 Massachusetts statute that prohibited anyone from frightening passenger pigeons out of netting-beds, under threat of a $10 fine and compensation for damages (General Court of Massachusetts, 1848, p. 650).

It should be no surprise that this particular law is audible to search engines. After all, passenger pigeon extinction is a holotype cautionary tale that should linger.

A faded, folded, and foxed photo from February 1, 1887. The child's image has almost completely faded. Loose curly hair, a long-sleeved jacket buttoned at the neck, and what might be a pleated waistline for a dress. Hands folded in lap. Serious eyes peer out over the photo's broken fold.
Photo from the family archive; unnamed child (likely surname Craig); Columbia, TN; February 1, 1887. Another haunted child.

Ohio bids farewell to their big game, but assumes the pigeons will never die

In 1857, as the Ohio legislature sought to revise their “Act to Prevent the killing of Birds and other Game” (Ohio General Assembly, 1857, pp. 107–108), legislators requested assistance from the state’s Board of Agriculture.

The resulting work, published as a select committee report in 1860, wrote off Ohio’s big game as a lost cause: “Ohio has no waste land. It is all useful for agricultural purposes—if not for tillage, at least for pasturage. It has no sterile wastes, marshes, or mountain ranges where the larger game can find permanent security. The deer, the bear, the wolf, and such like animals will soon be gone, and laws that relate to them a dead letter” (Collins, p. 382).

Sepia-toned photo of taken from inside a fenced field that looks recently cut to stubble. In the background three massive, multi-story, wood buildings with steeply framed roofs are surrounded by a field so flat and uniform that it looks like water. A very distant treeline marks the horizon.
Photo from the family archive; The Steele Farm; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; c. 1900.

Wild turkeys, prairie hens, and pheasants were in the same sunken boat. Excepting a few isolated flocks in isolated localities, no protections could save them. Even so, sportsmen wanted the legislature to regulate hunting, so hunting should be regulated. Ohio’s lingering populations of deer, turkey, prairie hens, and pheasants should be granted undisturbed breeding seasons (Collins, 1860, p. 384).

Seasonal protections were recommended for game birds that could adapt to progress—quail, meadow-larks2, kill-deer, doves, flickers, woodcock, and wood ducks (Collins, 1860, pp. 385-387)—as well as for waterfowl around Sandusky Bay (Collins, 1860, p. 389).

The multitudes of warblers, finches, and flycatchers were safe without protection. At least, being small, shy, and drab, they were safe enough. The food-and-feathers market didn’t covet such birds. Besides, providing bird-by-bird protections would require parsing dozens of common and scientific names (Collins, 1860, pp. 383-384).

Sepia-toned portrait, c. 1900, of a young man wearing what looks to me like a scratchy wool suit. His dark hat is garnished with a stiff sail of white primary feathers.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1900. The photo was in my great aunt’s album, but was addressed to my grandmother.

Woodpeckers, blue jays, and blackbirds, the kind of birds that damaged agriculture when they ate crops but protected agriculture when they ate insects, could be left to the chances and whims of circumstance (Collins, 1860, p. 384).

The report singled out two game species as immune from overhunting (in Ohio) and in need of no protection: the snipe and the passenger pigeon.

Snipe were mere passers-through, fleeting visitors so well-camouflaged and difficult to flush from wet spring landscapes that only “practiced” sportsmen could hope for success (Collins, 1860, p. 387). During brief April sojourns, snipe were “good sport and a choice morsel for the table”, but “yearly numbers cannot be materially lessened by the gun” (Collins, 1860, p. 387).

Sepia-toned photograph of a steam crane and six workers in a field in Iowa, c. 1900. The field has been cut to stubble. The steam crane is belching smoke, and the crane's body looks like a wooden building on a massive wood platform. Mounds of bare dirt are visible in the background. The workers are lined up in front of the crane, posing for the photo. A few bare trees are on the horizon, suggesting a winter setting.
Photo from the family archive, Iowa, c. 1900. I don’t know what kind of progress was underway, with this steam crane, but I doubt it involved wetland restoration.

And passenger pigeons?

“The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, traveling hundreds of miles in search of food, it is here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow, and no ordinary destruction can lessen them, or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced” (Collins, 1860, p. 387).

Forty years later, passenger pigeons were extinct in Ohio3 and functionally extinct everywhere else. It was, indeed, no ordinary destruction.

“Property of the State”

“Section I. That all the game and fish, except fish in private ponds, found in the limits of this State, be and the same is hereby declared to be the property of the State, and the hunting, killing, and catching of same is declared to be a privilege” (Arkansas General Assembly, 1889, p. 173).

Photograph of a female Mallard threatening a squirrel that had ventured too close to her brood of days-old ducklings. The hen is standing over her brood, all gathered on the stone border of our dragonfly pond. The hen's stance is tense, head low and neck coiled, ready to strike at the squirrel should it venture closer. The squirrel's back is turned to the ducks, seemingly unaware that it has disturbed the scene.
Photo from the Mallard archive, of a female Mallard threatening a squirrel that had ventured too close to her brood of days-old ducklings. Mallard hens usually ignore the antics of squirrels in the yard, but new mothers are a different story.

“Section 4650, Wisconsin statutes of 1898 is hereby amended to read as follows: The ownership of and the title to all fish and game in the State of Wisconsin is hereby declared to be in the state, and no fish or game shall be caught, taken or killed in any manner or at any time, or had in possession except the person so catching, taking, killing, or having in possession shall consent that the title to said fish and game shall be and remain in the State of Wisconsin for the purpose of regulating and controlling the use and disposition of the same after such catching, taking or killing. The catching, taking, killing or having in possession of fish or game at any time, or in any manner, or by any person, shall be deemed a consent of said person that the title of the state shall be and remain in the state for said purpose of regulating the use and disposition of the same, and said possession shall be consent to such title in the state whether said fish or game were taken within or without this state” (Wisconsin General Assembly, 1899, pp. 576–577).

Sepia-toned photo of a young woman wearing a pale dress with a fur collar. Her dark hat is tipped to a jaunty angle and is decorated with (maybe?) feathers, flowers, or ribbon. (The decoration fades into the background, so it is difficult to say exactly what has been attached to the hat.) The woman's head is slightly tipped, she is looking off to the side, and her lips are not quite smiling.
Photo from the family archive, location unknown, c. 1900. Her expression captures my bemusement, on trying to follow Wisconsin’s the “shall be and remain” syntax.

Such legislative grabs by Arkansas and Wisconsin, asserted during the closing years of the 1800s, didn’t materialize out of thin air.

State legislatures had been controlling the game within their borders since the 1820s, and courts had upheld a variety of statutes.

Let the alewives migrate

One of the earliest challenges to game laws came in Maine, after members of a town’s fish committee destroyed a dam on private property. On May 3, 1839, the fish committee took action on behalf of alewives, a type of herring.

Charles Peables had maintained a dam on his portion of Alewive Brook, in Cape Elizabeth, for some 12 previous years, diverting the water to power his mill. In May of 1839, local Fish Committee members Hannaford and Davis demanded that Peables open his dam and let the alewives pass.

When Peables declined, the Fish Committee disabled the dam in question. Litigation followed, and the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine eventually ruled for Peables, citing a technicality: Hannaford and Davis had acted early.

As the statute required the brook to be open May 5–June 5, Peables should have been able to run his mill straight up to the stroke of midnight on May 5. As long as the alewives could migrate upstream on May 6, Peables was not in violation of the statute (Peables v. Hannaford, 1841, 106).

Had Hannaford and Davis waited until May 6, they could have destroyed the dam at their leisure, and Peables could not have stopped them.

Peables v. Hannaford set a precedent, at state levels, for the states’ authority (embodied in local officers) to regulate game on private property.

Sepia-toned photo of a house and barn at the foot of a hill, surrounded by a large empty field. The house is set within a cluster of trees, while the field has been cleared for (probably) pasture usage. A line of large rocks and boulders runs along the hill's lower slope, and a thick tree line obscures the top of the hill. A utility pole and utility lines run through the field in front of the house, and a single strand of barbed wire stretches between the camera and the farm.
Photo from the family archive, unknown location, c. 1920(?). The barbed wire running across the foreground would be a distinct “no trespassing” indicator, in the rural area of my childhood.

“We see nothing unconstitutional in the Act”

On July 8, 1874, David S. Randolph served two dressed and cooked prairie chickens to diners in his St. Louis restaurant. According to a Missouri statute, these were the wrong birds in the wrong season.

Even though Randolph could prove that he had purchased the birds in Kansas, where July hunting was legal, he was cited and fined $9. Which would be about $250, today. Randolph appealed, but the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the fines:

“We see nothing unconstitutional in the act. The game law would be nugatory if, during the prohibited season, game could be imported from the neighboring States. It would be impossible to show, in most instances, where the game was caught. The State of Missouri has as much right to preserve its game as it has to preserve the health of its citizens, and may prohibit the exhibition for sale, within the State, of provisions out of season, without any violation of the Constitution of the United States. So far as we know, this right has never been disputed, and its exercise by the absolute prohibition of the having in possession, or sale, of game within the State limits, during certain period of the year, is no more an illegal attempt to regulate commerce between the States than would be a city ordinance against selling oysters in July” (Missouri v. Randolph, 1876, p. 15).

Did you catch it?

Sepia-toned postcard photo of my great-aunt Birdie as a toddler. She is standing up, one hand balanced on a blanket-draped prop. Her ankle-length dress is a dark material with heavy-looking gathers at the collar and a bright band of (probably embroidered) zig-zags around the hem and cuff. Her eyes are very wide as she looks at a spot just to one side of the lens. Under her image, print on the card reads "The Park Gallery, Chas. Eberhardt, Artist, 20th Street, Rock Island, Ill." Handwritten on the back of the card was "To GrandMa from Birdie Dec 7 1894".
Photo from the family archive; my great-aunt Birdie; Rock Island, Illinois; December 7, 1894.

In knotting up the import loophole, Missouri had stepped ever so softly on the interstate commerce boundary. And the appeals court didn’t mind.

Sepia-toned photo taken inside a hat store, probably in the 1920s. The long narrow room has shelving, tables, and glass-front cupboards that were probably display cases. A table in the middle of the frame is stocked with a variety of hats, decorated mostly with ribbons. A group of adults are posed together, two wearing formal-appearing suits, one wearing a dark ankle-length skirt and white long-sleeved shirt, one wearing a dark ankle-length dress, and one wearing a calf-length skirt, pale shirt, a long coat, and calf-high (at least) boots. I suspect, but am far from certain, that the one wearing the daringly short skirt (calf-length) is my great aunt Birdie. In the background, a shopper wearing a pale calf-length dress is browsing.
Photo from the family archive; location unknown, c. 1920(?). Great-aunt Birdie worked in millinery. I suspect (though I am far from certain) that Birdie is on the far left, in this photo.

‘…the congress shall have power to regulate commerce among the several states…’

When a somewhat related case landed before the Kansas judiciary, in 1877, the commerce question heated up.

On November 8, 1876, an agent for the carrier Adams Express Company received a package for transport—a shipment of four prairie chickens that had recently been killed. The agent, C. A. Saunders, delivered the birds to Chicago, and received a $10 fine (plus court costs) for his efforts.

Kansas had recently adopted the kind of boilerplate “no possession, no import, no export” law that was popular at the time. In Kansas, the wording had been adjusted to prohibit all import and export of game or birds, independent of season.

During open season in Kansas, in 1876, it was legal to possess prairie chickens that had been legally killed, as long as they had been killed within the state. During closed season, it was illegal to possess them at all. And it was illegal to import or export them, ever.

No matter the season, no one could move prairie chickens across the state lines.

Legislatively, this act seemed loophole-free. During open season, prairie chickens were fair game. Hunt them, eat them, sell them anywhere within the state of Kansas. All perfectly legal. But don’t ship them out of state. Don’t buy them out of state and bring them into Kansas. And during closed seasons, prairie chickens were entirely off-limits. Don’t kill them or have them anywhere in your possession.

The single exception written into this law involved shipments of prairie chickens that happened to pass through Kansas on their way to and from other states. Carriers handling such shipments were safe during their journey through the state.

Sepia-toned photo of a wooden train depot. Stairs in the background lead up to a platform protected by an elaborately-braced awning. A set of windows (rather like a bay window) protrude from the building near the foot of the stairs. The five people in the image are wearing suits and dresses. Two are inside, leaning out through the station windows, and three are outside, leaning against the building. The woman on the far left is one of my great grandmothers, Dora. My great grandfather was an engineer on the line that ran through Elora, TN.
Photo from the family archive; L to R (per my mother’s notes) Dora Craig, Edd Strong (Elora Agent), Wilburn Craig, Mrs. Strong, Vint Hamilton; Columbia side depot, Elora, TN; c. 1901. Dora was one of my great grandmothers.

The appellate judges for Saunders’s case glided straight past a series of technicalities regarding the title and wording of the act. They didn’t need to rule on those matters, because a larger issue took precedence:

“Section 8 of article 1 of the federal constitution provides among other things that, ‘the congress shall have power * * * [sic] to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.’ Ever since the adoption of this provision, the judges of the supreme court of the United States seem to have been groping their way cautiously, but darkly, in endeavoring to ascertain its exact meaning, and the full scope of its operation. They have many times construed it, but as yet have hardly fixed its boundaries, or its limitations. They have no doubt generally construed it correctly, but some of their decisions with reference thereto seem to be conflicting and contradictory, and scarcely one of such decisions has been made without a dissenting opinion from one or more of the judges. We think however that amidst all their conflicts and wanderings they have finally settled, among other things, that no state can pass a law (whether congress has already acted upon the subject or not,) which will directly interfere with the free transportation, from one state to another, or through a state, of anything which is or may be a subject of inter-state commerce. …For instance, a law which prohibits the catching and killing of prairie chickens, may be valid, although it may indirectly prevent the transportation of such chickens from the state to any other state; but a law which allows prairie chickens to be caught and killed, and thereby to become the subject of traffic and commerce, and at the same time directly [emphasis in original] prohibits their transportation from the state to any other state, is unconstitutional and void” (Kansas v. Saunders, 1877, pp. 129–130).

This means game is commerce, right? And that the Kansas legislature had stepped a little too far over the interstate commerce boundary. Right?

It meant, at any rate, that Saunders didn’t have to pay his fine.

Photo of a Mallard hen trying to get a short rest behind the grass-and-stone border of the dragonfly pond. The hen's eye is wide and her expression is tense, despite her pre-sleep posture of tucked head and neck. They aren't visible at all in the photo, but all eleven of her ducklings were gathered beneath her, as if back in the nest. The ducklings were safe from the hungry eyes of predators, but they weren't comfortable enough to sleep soundly. Their constant fretting and shifting was keeping the hen awake.
Photo from the Mallard archive. Here, the hen has gathered her ducklings beneath her for a nap. The ducklings were squirming and fidgeting, so the hen was having trouble getting comfortable.

Preview of Part VII: More court cases, more decisions, and federal lawmakers patch the interstate commerce bug

The next post dives into game smuggling and game police. If you are starting to wonder if I’ve gotten game laws mixed up with prohibition laws, I haven’t, though there are certainly familiar elements.

Hold on to your feathered hats.

Sepia-toned photo of a young woman wearing a pale, short-sleeved blouse and a dark skirt. (The short sleeves, alone, are remarkable, as long sleeves are far more common in the archive.) She is holding a small bouquet of flowers, and her hat is elaborately decorated with feathers and what looks like a large tiara. She's wearing at least one necklace of beads or gemstones and several rings. Her expression, for me, is a difficult combination of stern eyes with a hint of smile.
Photo from the family archive; location unknown, c. 1890(?). There’s a lot going on with that hat, but, for me, her eyes are the real story. I can’t read that expression, and somehow she makes me feel like I should stop trying to.

Also in the next installment, the courts decide that birds and game aren’t commerce, after all.

A note about previous previews: The schedule has changed, so the previews aren’t accurate

Even the most casual readers will have noted, by now, that this project is constantly expanding. Previews included in previous posts have been preempted and put off, as my reading has taken unexpected turns (I do love a good tangent).

My notes sprawl through four full composition books.

I will likely get to all of the topics introduced in previous previews, but not in order. I’ve given myself permission to keep exploring the Mallard mine, as long as my interest holds, and to keep chasing the tangents. My challenge, now, is to convince readers to keep exploring, as well.

Image of a Mallard hen and her eleven ducklings (which are difficult to count, in this photo) swimming the in a small backyard pond. The pond is bordered by large worn river rocks, with grass and weeds behind and between the rocks. The spout of a pond filter/fountain is visible, and a few reddish-orange water lily leaves float on the surface. (The water lily leaves only turn green after emerging into sunshine.) The ducklings are fluffy with down and have brown and yellow markings. The hen's feathers range from light tan to dark brown with light edging. She is staring into the lens, keeping an eye on me in case I venture too close.
Photo from the Mallard archive. Here, a Mallard hen keeps watch as her ducklings explore the dragonfly pond.

If you’re still with me, Thank You!

Footnotes

1. This particular piece of the Mallard story, part of the pre-1800s history of North America’s colonization, is beyond both my tangent-tolerance (for these blog posts) and my philosophy/history horizon. Even so, an excerpt from a book assigned in a technical writing course resonates:

“Among the many arguments that Locke made in the Two Treatises is one that justifies appropriating lands from indigenous peoples where they are living in a state of nature. According to this argument, settlers who cultivate and improve the land—thereby rendering the ‘greatest conveniences’ from it—will have rights to the property:

“‘God gave the world to man in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit and the greatest conveniences of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational—and labour was to be his title to it (Second Treatise 137).’

“…British settlers under Locke’s rationale could claim property rights because they took resources from the land. These resources could be used to create a favorable balance of trade for England, where Board of Trade member Locke saw excessive imports as a source of unstable coinage practices” (Longo, 2000, pp. 51–52).

Mallards were one of the resources that colonists took and took and took. (Click here to return to your regularly scheduled paragraph.)

2. In 1885, while collecting in Canada, Robert Miller Christy wrote a love-note to Meadowlarks:

“I have often thought what a capital thing it would be to introduce the Meadow Lark in to England. So far as plumage and song are concerned, it would rank among our brightest-coloured and most admired songsters; while its hardy nature would allow of its remaining with us the whole year round, as indeed it often does in Ontario and other districts farther south than Manitoba. Perfectly harmless and accustomed to grassy countries, it would quickly become naturalised in our meadows, where it would find an abundance of insect-food, and would doubtless soon increase sufficiently in numbers to serve, if need be, as a game- and food-bird, as it largely does in the United States. No other songster that I ever heard equals this bird in the sweetness and mellowness of its notes” (p. 125). (Click here to return to your regularly scheduled paragraph.)

3. Ironically, Ohio’s deer rebounded. After being sentenced to local extinction, in 1860, deer found ways to survive in Ohio. And then conservation efforts across the 1900s helped deer to flourish. In the 2024–2025 hunting season, Ohio hunters bagged 238,137 white-tailed deer (Ohio Department of Natural Resources, 2025, para. 1). (Click here to return to your regularly scheduled paragraph.)

References

Anderson, J. M. (1953). Duck clubs furnish living space. In J. B. Trefethen (Ed.), Transactions of the eighteenth North American wildlife conference (pp. 122–129). Wildlife Management Institute. https://wildlifemanagement.institute/conference/transactions/1953

Arkansas General Assembly (1889). Acts and resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas: passed at the session held at the capital, which began on Monday, January 13th, and adjourned on Wednesday, April 3rd, 1889. Press Printing Co. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433009076492&seq=193

Christy, R. M. (1885). Notes on the birds of Manitoba. In J.E. Harting (Ed.), The Zoologist, 3rd series, Vol. IX. No. 100 (pp. 121-133). John van Voorst, Paternoster Row. https://ia801303.us.archive.org/27/items/Zoologist85lond/zoologist85lond.pdf

Collins, W. O. (1860). Report of Senate Select Committee, upon Senate Bill No. 12, ‘For the protection of birds and game.’ In Fifteenth annual report of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture with an abstract of the proceedings of the county Agricultural Societies to the General Assembly of Ohio for the year 1860 (pp. 381-390). Richard Nevins, State Printer. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015038792258&seq=549

Edward, Second Duke of York (1909). The master of game: The oldest English book on hunting. (W. A. Baillie-Grohman & F. Baillie-Grohman, Eds.). Duffield and Company. https://archive.org/details/TheMasterOfGame/page/n7/mode/2up (Original work published 1406–1413).

General Court of Massachusetts (1848). Acts and resolves passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the years 1846, 1847, 1848; Together with the rolls and messages. Dutton & Wentworth, Printers to the Commonwealth. https://archive.org/details/actsresolvespass184648mass/page/n5/mode/2up

Kansas v. Saunders, 19 Kan. 127 (1877). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7934084/state-v-saunders/pdf/

Lacey, J. (1900). Enlarging the powers of the Department of Agriculture. In Congressional Record, House of Representatives, Monday, April 30, 1900 (pp. 4858–4980). The Government Printing Office. https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1900/04/30/33/house-section/article/4858–4980

Longo, B. (2000). Spurious coin: A history of science, management, and technical writing. State University of New York Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.18254358

Mershon, W. B. (1923). Recollections of My Fifty-years Hunting and Fishing. The Stratford Co., Boston. https://archive.org/details/recollectionsofm00mers_0

Missouri v. Randolph, 1 Mo. App. 15 (1876). https://www.plainsite.org/opinions/279xdv9rm/state-v-randolph/

Ohio Department of Natural Resources (February 4, 2025). Ohio’s final 2024–25 deer harvest report. Ohio Department of Natural Resources. https://ohiodnr.gov/discover-and-learn/safety-conservation/about-ODNR/news/ohios-final-2024-25-deer-harvest-report

Ohio General Assembly (1857). Acts of a general nature and local laws and joint resolutions passed by the Fifty-second General Assembly of the State of Ohio: At its second session begun and held in the city of Columbus, January 5, 1857 and in the fifty-fifth year of said state: Volume LIV. Richard Nevins, State Printer. https://books.google.com/books?id=S1lOAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA107#v=onepage&q&f=false

Organ, J. F., Mahoney, S. P., & Geist, V. (2010). Born in the hands of hunters: The North American model of wildlife conservation. The Wildlife Professional, 4(3), 22–27. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267749137_Born_in_the_hands_of_hunters_the_North_American_Model_of_Wildlife_Conservation

Peables v. Hannaford, 18 Me. 106 (1841). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/5108727/peables-v-hannaford.pdf

Pospahala, R. S., Anderson, D. R., & Henney, C. J. (1974). Resource Publication 115: Population ecology of the Mallard II. Breeding habitat conditions, size of the breeding populations, and production indices. U. S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. https://nwrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16473coll29/id/10213/rec/1

Wisconsin General Assembly (1899). The laws of Wisconsin, joint resolutions and memorials passed at the biennial session of the Legislature, 1899. Democratic Printing Co., State Printer. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89096040076&seq=7

Focusing on Mallards Part V: Hunting by the Numbers

Rae SpencerLeave a comment

Content Warning: This multi-part blog post contains references to hunting, agriculture, and research practices of killing birds. This installment contains a photograph of a duck hunter with his kills—a pair of dead Mallards. If you choose not to read on, I respect and admire your choice.

Photograph of a brood of Mallard ducklings huddled for a nap in the sunshine. The downy ducklings are yellow and brown with prominent eye stripes. Their mother is sleeping behind them, beak tucked under her wing feathers. Her feathers are shades of tan and gray, and she also has a prominent eye stripe. All are gathered on the stone border surrounding our dragonfly pond.
Photograph of a huddle of Mallard ducklings resting in the sunshine on the stone border of our dragonfly pond. Their mother is just behind them (right of frame).

Like most of my blog journeys, this long perseveration on Mallards started with questions about a visitor in the yard: What happens to a Mallard hen’s flight muscles while she is nesting? If she spends a flightless month on the nest, then two more flightless months escorting her flightless ducklings, how does she keep her muscles in flying condition?

A Mallard hen stretches her wings after a splashy bath in a small backyard dragonfly pond. She is standing tall in the water, facing the camera, wings extended behind her. Her feathers are mostly speckled and striped shades of brown with bright white coloration on the underside of her wing feathers. A round, floating solar-powered fountain is spending up a small spray of water (left). An array of water plants are growing in the pond, including water lilies. Tall irises and grasses grow around the pond's river-stone border, filling the background with greenery.
Photo of the Mallard hen who inspired this blog series. In this photo, she is standing tall in the dragonfly pond, facing the camera as she flaps vigorously after a splashy bath.

A prolonged literature search produced partial answers. And raised more questions.

In the end, a research paper out of North Dakota (Krapu, 1981) confirmed that wild Mallard hens lose significant body weight during nesting, including most of their fat reserves. But the researchers did not measure or comment on flight muscles.

Beyond that 1981 anchor point, my flight muscle question lies abandoned, waiting for another researcher or reader to pick it up. Until then, I’m content with Part III‘s conclusion: Only the Mallards know.

Photo of a Mallard hen standing in a shallow spot in the dragonfly pond. Her brood of ducklings are gathered beside her. The hen's feathers are shiny and sleek, speckled brown and tan. The ducklings are downy with brown and yellow markings. Both hen and ducklings have the prominent dark eye stripe common to Mallards. In the background, large smooth river stones are stacked loosely around the pond's border. A pair of conch shells are visible, incorporated into the border.
Photo of a different Mallard hen, one who visited in the spring of this year (2025), resting in the dragonfly pond with her ducklings. She was wary of me and my camera and taught her ducklings to be wary as well. This is how wild Mallard ducklings learn to be wild Mallards. Usually. Later in this series I will introduce some exceptions.

Caught in tangles of tangents

I can’t resist tangents. They are how my world expands. And how my mind works, OCD and all. So here I am, more than a year later, still exploring this labyrinthine idea web of Mallards and Mallard literature.

But this particular perseveration, my Mallard fixation, runs deeper than most of my blog ideas. In fact, it runs straight into a mire of social and psychological issues that I am poorly equipped to navigate. So here I remain. Grappling for words and wisdom in the Mallard archives. Because much of what motivates me to care about this world, much of what motivates me to read and write, is also in the Mallard archives.

Sharp black-and-white image scanned from a slide. The image dates to the 1970s, and shows me as a pre-adolescent. I am squatting behind a smallish round wire cage, which has a leather carrying strap. I am holding onto the wires of the cage and peering into the distance. My body language and facial expression suggest that I am misbehaving and trying not to get caught. Inside the cage, a speckled white and gray duck is panting or vocalizing, beak open. The duck is too large for the cramped cage.
Photograph of me in some awkward childhood era, caught coveting a duck at some fair or other event. I was attempting to stay small and inconspicuous behind the big fancy duck, so that Mother wouldn’t catch me coveting.

In all of the decades between the anxious moment captured, above, and my present seat at the blog table, I’ve lived in the tensions between mine and not-mine. Between the coop and the wetlands. Between the self-protective urge to stay small and inconspicuous and the inescapable longing for expansive connections.

I expect most readers live in the same tensions. It’s part of being human. It is, perhaps, part of being Mallard, as well.

Photo of five Mallard ducklings climbing onto the border of the dragonfly pond while their mother watches from the water. Four of the ducklings are immediately visible, center frame, but the fifth is partially hidden behind a clump of short grass. The ducklings are downy with yellow and brown markings. One has tiny water droplets clinging to its head and neck.
Photo of five ducklings climbing out of the dragonfly pond while their mother keeps watch from her position in the water. The fifth duckling is small and inconspicuous, hidden behind a tuft of grass on the right.

Out of my comfort zone

These Mallard posts have turned into foundation work for a policy argument.

(Spoiler alert: I am not crafting an argument against hunting.)

Policy arguments are not my norm and most definitely are not my creative strength. But I’m wading in.

I’m wading in without a map or floatation device, hoping for the kind of synergy that sometimes makes words more wise than their author. Hoping for fewer small and inconspicuous silences.

Photo of a Mallard duckling peering over the stone border of the dragonfly pond. This photo was taken at ground level, so the duckling's head is only partially visible over the stones, concentrating focus on the duckling's eye. A second duckling's rounded back, fluffy with down, appears to the far right of the frame.
Photo of a duckling peeking over the border of the dragonfly pond. The duckling has downy markings of yellow and brown and has the exaggerated forehead and eye proportions of infant cuteness.

I grew up around poultry, both wild and domestic. I also grew up around guns and hunting. Through all my many long years, I have accepted, unquestioning, most of the arguments in favor of hunting as both a sport and a science-backed approach to wildlife management and conservation.

I still accept some of these arguments. But I’m developing deep resistance to others. Resistance based on all of this reading about the history and practices of Mallard hunting and conservation.

(Let me repeat that spoiler: I am not crafting an argument against hunting.)

Blurry sepia-toned photo of a man standing beside two dead Mallards, which are hanging from a string or wire so that they are at head-height. The man is wearing a brimmed hat, a buttoned-up shirt with a rumpled collar, and a padded coat that appears to be made of canvas or similar material. The Mallards are male and female, judging by their plumage, and one of the female's wings hangs in way that suggests the wing was broken when she was shot. The outdoor scene shows trees that have lost their leaves for winter and a very small wooden outbuilding with a tin roof. The outbuilding looks to me like an outhouse or smoke shed.
Photo of an unknown man posing with two dead Mallards. One of the Mallards is in male plumage, the other in female plumage. I found this photo, which likely dates from the 1920s or 30s, in an album belonging to a great aunt. Based on labelling of a companion photo, the man’s name was Harry Kenyon. I don’t know how or why he ended up in Aunt Birdie’s album.

I’m not comfortable arguing policy, which means there will be throat clearing and wandering off-topic. I am, after all, a blogger. Not a lobbyist. A poet, not a lawmaker. I seldom demand rhetorical precision of myself, in my creative work. Which is part of why I enjoy blogging. Rhetorical precision is for the classroom and office, not the blog.

But there are upsides to making this argument in blog form. There’s freedom from structure and stricture. My hybrid interweaving of literature review and memoir is choice, not style guide. More importantly, there’s no peer review. I am my own editor and publisher, so I’m allowed to make overt appeals to emotion. Including photos and videos of ducklings.

These photo and videos are my unsubtle attempt to convince readers that ducks are stakeholders in policy discussions about waterfowl hunting.

Photo of a Mallard hen leading her ducklings out of the dragonfly pond. All are standing on a section of flagstone set level into the yard. In the background are a coiled green hose and an orange, plastic, five-gallon bucket stamped with white lettering reading "Let's do this" in all-caps. The Mallard hen is maybe a foot tall and has mostly brown feathers edged with tan, except for a patch of blue edged with black and white on her wing. The ducklings are maybe three or four inches tall and have downy feathers with yellow and brown markings. There are seven ducklings readily visible, though they are difficult to count due to how they are crowded together. (In all, this hen had eleven ducklings.)
Photo of a Mallard hen and her ducklings exiting the dragonfly pond in spring, 2025. In the background, a bright orange bucket is stamped with the big-box slogan “Let’s do this”.

Sport hunting is a profitable mine, and Mallards are a form of ore

Unlike many of my blog topics, Mallard hunting isn’t a rabbit hole. It’s a multi-level, vastly profitable mine regulated by international treaties and cooperative relationships between state and federal agencies.

Everything in the Mallard mine is complicated by tradition and money and land.

This isn’t about the flight muscles

I introduced a few ideas about the capitalism behind the science curtain in Part II. And where Mallards are concerned, science isn’t the only interested party. Mallard hunting (and farming) is not an independent storefront on the town square. This is big business and big money, so big policy questions come into play.

Who owns wildlife, on public and private lands? Who gets to decide how wildlife is exploited, on public and private lands? When is wildlife no longer wild? (Keep inserting “on public and private lands”, as the questions roll on…) What are the roles and aims of conservation work? Who gets to own and discharge firearms? Why and how are tradition and research guiding individual and community decision making, when it comes to hunting?

This isn’t about flight muscles.

Except, isn’t it?

Mallards are poultry. And once Mallards are defined as poultry, once flight muscles are defined as breast meat, Mallard hunting is only about the flight muscles. Wild Mallards are protein harvested by shotgun.

Photo of a Mallard hen grazing through a helping of wild bird seed that I scattered into the grass (and weeds) just beside the dragonfly pond. Her eleven ducklings are either watching her eat or beginning to wander back toward the pond. They sampled the seed but didn't eat much.
Photo of a Mallard hen eating bird seed. She is surrounded by her eleven ducklings. The ducklings sampled the seed but were unimpressed.

Just how big is this business?

A 2006 survey from the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) found that “…waterfowl hunters represented 10 percent of all hunters, 7 percent of all hunting-related expenditures, and 6 percent of all hunting equipment expenditures” (Carver, 2008, pg. 3).

Here’s the waterfowl hunting numbers for 2006 (derived from Carver, 2008, Table 1, p. 4):

Number of US hunters (ducks)1,147,000
Number of US hunters (geese)700,000
Number of US hunters (all waterfowl)1,306,000
Reported US trip expenditures (waterfowl)$493,987,000
Reported US equipment expenditures (waterfowl)$406,298,000
Total US spending (waterfowl)$900,285,000

Those zeros are not a typo. That’s over nine hundred million dollars spent, in 2006, on hunting ducks, geese, and other waterfowl. While more than half of those dollars went to the travel industry, some four hundred million dollars were non-travel purchases, including “rifles, shotguns, other firearms, ammunition, telescopic sights, decoys, hunting dogs and associated costs. Also included are auxiliary equipment such as camping equipments, binoculars, special hunting clothing, processing and taxidermy costs. Due to small sample sizes, special equipment purchases such as boats, campers, trucks, and cabins are excluded…” (Carver, 2008, Table 1, pg. 4).

The author of this report adjusted the economic impact of waterfowl hunting through input–output modeling, to estimate how this spending radiates through the economy: “The trip expenditures of $494 million by waterfowl hunters generated $1.2 billion in total output while equipment expenditures of $406 million generated $1.1 billion in total output in the United States” (Carver, 2008, pg. 10).

So it’s fair to say that waterfowl hunting is a multi-billion dollar industry, in the US. That’s multi-billion per year. And Mallard hunting is a massive chunk of that industry. “Hunter reports indicate that mallards made up about 43% (5.5 million annually) of the ducks taken before 1960, when mallard regulations were less restrictive; the Duck Wing Survey indicates that mallards have made up 33% of the harvest (3.6 million annually) since 1960″ (Martin & Carney, 1977, p. IX).

Photo of a Mallard hen settling for a rest beside the dragonfly pond. In this phot0, most of her ducklings were hidden beneath her, tucked into the feathers of her chest and abdomen. One duckling has not settled, yet, and is standing just under her neck, looking around. Another duckling is barely visible to the right of frame, mostly hidden by a tuft of short, cut grass.
Photo of a Mallard hen settling for a nap with her ducklings beside the dragonfly pond in spring, 2025. Tucked beneath her chest, one duckling has raised its head to look around.

Given the money spent on hunting ducks, geese, and other waterfowl, it’s not a surprise that “…waterfowl hunting is positively correlated with income. That is, as household income increases, the percentage of waterfowl hunters for each group also increases. Income is also positively correlated with the participation rate of all hunters. However, all hunters do not tend to be as affluent as waterfowl hunters” (Carver, 2008, pg. 6).

This is not subsistence hunting. For the majority of duck hunters in the US, suspension of duck season would not equate to food insecurity. Yes, many hunters eat the ducks they kill. But they would still be able to eat, even if they killed no ducks.

How many Mallards are there, anyway?

Efforts to count the continent’s ducks began as early as the 1940s, when researchers tramped out into the marshes for hand counts. Then pilots joined the work, providing population estimates (and species distributions) for flocks spotted during aerial flyovers. Hunter surveys, requesting that hunters report how many and what kinds of ducks have been killed in the season, add a final dimension of data. At the confluence of these ongoing data streams, USFWS calculates Mallard “abundance”, which isn’t exactly a population count but is close enough for my purposes.

As of 1974, “The estimated size of the continental mallard population in May has ranged from a high of 14.4 million in 1958 to a low of 7.1 million in 1965. Generally, the mallard population began to decline after the 1958 peak until 1962, and remained below 10 million birds until 1970. The decline and consequent low level of the mallard population between 1959 and 1969 generally coincides with a period of poor habitat conditions on the major breeding grounds” (Pospahala, Anderson, & Henney, p. 49).

Over more recent decades (from 1992–2024) the “mid-continent” stock of US Mallards has ranged between 6.2 million and 11.9 million (USFWS, 2024, p. 12). (There are management purposes at work, in this focus on “mid-continent” Mallards, which I will get to later.)

Photo of a Mallard hen standing in a shallow place in the dragonfly pond. Her ducklings are gathered in the water, beside her. Her head is tipped slightly to her left, right eye angled toward the sky in search of aerial predators. Anthropomorphized, her head angle and expression look questioning.
Photo of a Mallard hen and her ducklings in the dragonfly pond, taking a brief break from their wanderings in the spring of 2025.

In 2024, Mallard abundance in the US registered some 6.6 million. In 2023, about 6.1 million (USFWS, 2024, p. iii).

With recent numbers hovering near the low end of the 1992–2024 Mallard abundance range, and below the lowest 1960s numbers, it seems that the Mallard glass is currently half-empty. But if accounts from the late 1800s and early 1900s are accurate, the North American Mallard glass has been half-empty for over a century. (Drop a pin in this claim. There will be evidence later.)

Where do North American Mallards come from, and where do they go?

Continental Mallard production can vary wildly over a very short span of years. For example, 1957 produced a count of 22.1 million Mallard “young”, but 1961 saw only 5.9 million (Anderson, 1975, p. 33). Granted, it’s difficult to count Mallard young, but there was undoubtedly a major decline between 1957 and 1961.

By the 1970s, it was clear that Mallard production was related to the number of ponds in Mallards’ breeding grounds. (Here is where that focus on mid-continent Mallards starts to become important, as the largest and most productive breeding grounds are in the north and central portions of North America, in “prairie pothole” country.) And, prior to 1960, the number of ponds steadily declined everywhere. But habitat was never the only factor.

Nesting season and shooting season

The existence of a “long-term average” population number for Mallards, of around 7.9 million (USFWS, 2024, p. iii), flattens into stasis a seasonally dynamic population. Spring and summer are boom and winnow seasons. Some 75% of Mallard mortality occurs in first-year ducks, either in the nest or during the weeks immediately after hatching, before young birds learn to fly (Anderson, 1975, p. IX). Then fall and winter bring the hunter’s guns.

“…it may be predicted that about 60 out of every 100 mallards flying south along the Mississippi Flyway will be hit by shot” (Bellrose, 1953, p. 358-359).

Photo of a Mallard hen just stepping up onto the stone border of the dragonfly pond. In the background, splashes and sprays of water fill the air, churned up by her recent splashy bath and the excited actions of her ducklings.
Photo of a Mallard hen getting ready to climb out of the dragonfly pond. Behind her, ducklings are splashing and playing in the water.

After Mallards survive their first summer, death by shotgun accounts for a significant percentage of overall Mallard mortality. Of the adult males that die each year, about 50% die by shotgun (Anderson, 1975, p. 24). The percentages are slightly lower for females (40%) and first-year Mallards (45%) (Anderson, 1975, p. 24).

Given all these shotguns, and all of the other Mallard hazards out there, the majority of Mallards that survive their first summer do not live more than two adult winters (Anderson, 1975, p. IX). That doesn’t mean that a three-year-old Mallard is an old Mallard, only that it is a lucky Mallard. Even luckier Mallards have lived as long as 13 years in the wild (a few female Mallards), and one particularly charmed male Mallard survived 18 years (Anderson, 1975, p. 26).

Harvest by shotgun

In the US, prior to 1960 hunters bagged some 5.5 million Mallards every year (Martin & Carney, 1977, p. IX). It’s worth repeating that number: 5.5 million Mallards. Every year.

After hunting regulations were tightened in 1960, the Mallard kill dropped to about 3.6 million per year (Martin & Carney, 1977, p. IX). Such numbers fluctuate, of course, and have dropped somewhat further since the 1970s. But hunting still claims millions of Mallards, each year. USFWS estimated a Mallard harvest of 2,042,668 birds, in 2022 (USFWS, 2023, Table 1E, p. 25).

Up through the 1970s, close to a quarter of the entire North American Mallard population was killed by hunters, every year (Anderson & Burnham, 1976, p. 40).

Based on the numbers previously cited for 2022 (2,042,668 Mallards killed by hunters) and 2023 (estimated population of 6.1 million), it seems that perhaps one-third of the US Mallard population continues to die by shotgun every year.

Overkill?

Only a few paragraphs ago, the USFWS estimated a 2024 Mallard population of 6.6 million. In 2024, a pre-1960 harvest (during years when harvests averaged 5.5 million ducks per year) would have obliterated the US population of Mallards.

In fact, the pre-1960s binges, on top of widespread habitat destruction, dealt multiple near-obliteration blows to North American Mallards. Starting early in the 1900s, hunters and researchers agreed that something needed to be done to save the Mallards. At least, they agreed that something needed to be done to save Mallard hunting.

The first (documented) North American Mallard bottleneck, circa 1920

Prior to the 1900s, hunters spoke of North America’s duck populations in awe-tinged phrases.

“It is about the finest country you could imagine in the wildest flights of fancy; Ducks getting up under your feet at every yard; Hawks, Goatsuckers, Prairie Chickens, and small birds in all directions… I shot a Teal and a splendid Shoveller drake for the pot. I can fancy I hear you exclaiming against the barbarism of eating such a bird; but I am getting daily accustomed to birds which are considered rare in England, and regard them now from a more utilitarian point of view” (Wood, 1885, p. 225).

“During this autumnal movement the number of ducks frequenting the lakes and ponds throughout Manitoba is prodigious. I shall not soon forget the hundreds I saw on the innumerable ponds between Rapid City and the Oak River, whilst on an excursion towards Fort Ellice, in the middle of October, 1883. Yet those I saw must have been as nothing compared with the abundance to be seen in some other places. A friend who had several days’ shooting at Totogon, near the south end of Lake Manitoba, about the end of September, describes the ducks as being so numerous that only the terms ‘acres’ and ‘millions’ could adequately express their abundance. The majority were Mallards, Anas boscas…” (Christy, 1885, p. 133).

By the 1920s, Mallards populations had declined to a notable low:

“The duck marshes on the Saginaw River no longer teem with water fowl. In early September and before the first frost the cackle of the Carolina rail is on every hand. These little birds—the Sora, seem as plentiful as ever, so I have not given up the marshes of the Saginaw entirely, but once or twice in the early part of September I get out the old canoe and with Alphonse to paddle or push, I take the trip through several miles of the Cheboyganning rice beds and usually get what the law allows of rail shooting, but in making all of this distance through acres and acres of rice, one or two ducks is all I see in place of the thousands of old” (Mershon, 1923, p. 73).

And this is where I leave the Mallards, for now. A poor remnant of a once thriving species, scarce and growing scarcer into the 1920s. In the next post, help arrives.

Photo of a Mallard hen and her ducklings in the dragonfly pond. Taken along ground level, the photo shows the hen's head and neck and back, with a blurred foreground of stone blocking the rest of her. Framed under the arch of her neck and chin, one of her ducklings is in sharp focus, facing the camera.
Photo of a Mallard hen and her ducklings exploring the dragonfly pond in spring, 2025. Here the hen is in the foreground and one of her ducklings is framed by her silhouette.

A housekeeping note (or, rather, a territory-keeping note)

Throughout this post, I’ve switched back and forth between talking about North American Mallards and US Mallards without much fanfare. Doesn’t it sound presumptuous? It’s almost as if I have forgotten that there are other countries on the continent. (Doesn’t it sound familiar?)

But from here on out, I’ll need to take more care. Because, starting in the early 1900s, lawmakers and researchers divvied up North America’s Mallards. There were, and still are, jurisdictions and flyways. More importantly, genetic work has identified two discreet and rarely-intermixing populations of Mallards, an eastern gene group and a western gene group (Lavretsky, Janzen, & McCracken, 2019). And my particular policy argument involves eastern Mallards, alone.

Preview of Part VI: The US judicial branch decides who owns the Mallards that visit US lands, and funding arrives for conservation

As long as there were plenty of Mallards, everywhere, distinctions between North American and US Mallards were moot. But as Mallard populations dwindled, hunters came into conflict over who got to shoot the Mallards that remained. And with increasing scarcity came increasing value, along with politicians to squabble over resource ownership.

The problem was (and still is, to a certain extent) that Mallards have always migrated according to their own maps, which existed long before humans decided that land could be owned. Given that the North American Mallard mine spans three (or more) countries, including most of the states in each country, and that Mallards are valuable ore, who owns the profit? Who gets to harvest this particular protein, and how should they be allowed to market it?

North American Mallards as a species have continued breeding and migrating, and US Mallards as a resource have continued falling into hunters’ bags, but the species and resource exist on two seemingly separate planes.

Oliver Wendell Holmes summed it up succinctly, in a landmark case that upheld the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty: “The whole foundation of the State’s rights is the presence within their jurisdiction of birds that yesterday had not arrived, tomorrow may be in another State and in a week a thousand miles away” (Missouri v. Holland, 1920, para. 6).

Photo of a Mallard hen drifting off to sleep while still standing. She is perched on the sunlit, stony border of our dragonfly pond. Her brood of ducklings are scattered under and in front of her, most in different sleep poses. One duckling is still awake, though visibly drowsy with half-closed eyes. Another duckling is barely balanced on the edge of a rounded, smooth stone, and appears on the verge of falling off backwards. Yet another duckling has nodded off with its neck bent and the tip of its beak just touching the sun-warmed rock.
Photo of a Mallard hen resting (asleep while standing up) on the stone border of the dragonfly pond in spring, 2025. Her ducklings are napping in a loose cuddle-heap, sprawled from just under her chest to almost a foot away. Some of the ducklings are slumped awkwardly in sleep, exhausted from their first hours off the nest, while others are fidgeting for a more comfortable position.

References

Anderson, D.R. (1975). Population ecology of the Mallard: V. Temporal and geographic estimates of survival, recovery, and harvest rates. Resource Publication 125. U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. https://nwrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16473coll29/id/4786

Anderson, D. R., & Burnham, K. P. (1976). Population ecology of the Mallard. VI: The effect of exploitation on survival. Resource Publication 128. U. S. Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. https://nwrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16473coll29/id/4899

Bellrose, F. C. (1953). A preliminary evaluation of cripple losses in waterfowl. In James B. Trefethen (Ed.) Transactions of the Eighteenth North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference (pp. 337-360). The Wildlife Management Institute. https://wildlifemanagement.institute/conference/transactions/1953

Carver, E. (2008). Economic impact of waterfowl hunting in the United States: Addendum to the 2006 national survey of fishing, hunting, and wildlife-associated recreation. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Services. https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024-04/1153.pdf

Christy, R. M. (1885). Notes on the birds of Manitoba. The Zoologist: A Monthly Journal of Natural History, 3rd Series, IX(100). https://ia801303.us.archive.org/27/items/zoologist85lond/zoologist85lond.pdf

Gillham, C. E. (1947). Wildfowling can be saved. In Ethel M. Quee (Ed.), Transactions of the Twelfth North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference (pp. 47-52). The Wildlife Management Institute. https://wildlifemanagement.institute/conference/transactions/1947

Krapu, G. L. (1981) The role of nutrient reserves in Mallard reproduction. The Auk 98, 29-38. doi: 10.1093/auk/98.1.29

Lavretsky, P., Janzen, T., & McCracken, K. G. (2019). Identifying hybrids and the genomics of hybridization: Mallards and American Black Ducks of Eastern North America. Ecology and Evolution (9), 3470–3490. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.4981 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.4981

Martin, E.M., & Carney, S.M. (1977). Population ecology of the Mallard: IV. A review of duck hunting regulations, activity, and success with special reference to the Mallard. Resource Publication 130. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/5230112/report.pdf

Mershon, W. B. (1923). Recollections of My Fifty Years Hunting and Fishing. The Stratford Company. https://archive.org/details/recollectionsofm00mers_0

Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416. (1920). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/252/416

Organ, J. F., Mahoney, S. P., & Geist, V. (2010). Born in the hands of hunters: The North American model of wildlife conservation. The Wildlife Professional 4(3), 22-27. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267749137_Born_in_the_hands_of_hunters_the_North_American_Model_of_Wildlife_Conservation

Pospahala, R. S., Anderson, D. R., & Henney, C. J. (1974). Population ecology of the mallard. II: Breeding and habitat conditions, size of the breeding populations, and production indices. Resource Publication 115. U.S. Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. https://nwrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16473coll29/id/10213/rec/1

USFWS (2023). Migratory Bird Hunting Activity and Harvest during the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 Hunting Seasons. USFWS. https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/migratory-bird-hunting-activity-and-harvest-report-2021-to-2022-and-2022-to-2023.pdf

USFWS (2024). Waterfowl Population Status, 2024. US Department of the Interior. https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024-08/waterfowl-population-status-report-2024.pdf

Wood, T. B. (1885). Notes on the zoology of Manitoba. The Zoologist: A Monthly Journal of Natural History, 3rd Series, IX(100). https://ia801303.us.archive.org/27/items/zoologist85lond/zoologist85lond.pdf