You’ve got to admit there is something a bit tragically comical in all the high-tech equipment, camouflage, duck calls, decoys, robo ducks etc, that duck hunters use to outsmart the humble, peaceful duck.
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Aside from all the gadgets available to duck hunters, of all the species hunted, ducks are probably one of the easiest to find because they congregate on water — a fact that helped hunters to decimate U.S. waterfowl populations in the past.
And yet, Colorado Department of Wildlife has devised a way to make it even easier for hunters to find ducks. I call it the “Duck Nark” system.
Here is how the DOW describes it:
“To help hunters determine locations of waterfowl in the southeast region, waterfowl counts will be posted once-a-month until the end of the waterfowl hunting seasons in March ’09. Keep in mind these counts are a general indicator of where the birds are and that they move often depending on local weather conditions and migration patterns.”
Of course, shooting birds raises serious welfare concerns. Studies show that the frequency of wounding and crippling and the mathematical probability of wounding free flying birds is high. Wounding inevitably generates pain, and crippling might generate excruciating and prolonged agony. Due to the cruelty and negative impact on duck populations, duck hunting was banned in Western Australia in 1990.
Thankfully, most Colorado residents don’t like killing ducks anyway.
According to the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 40% of Colorado residents participated in activities where wildlife-watching was the primary purpose while only 4% of Colorado residents participated in hunting activities.
So, given that the majority of Colorado residents do not hunt, you would think that the time, money, and energy required to nark on ducks could be better spent protecting habitat and endangered species or promoting activities that a majority of Colorado residents and visitors enjoy — particularly at a time when state and national trends demonstrate that hunting is on the decline and the vast majority of citizens prefer to watch wild animals, not kill them.
Blogging off,
Monica