RELOADED EP209 - Waterfowl Harvest Management Series, Part 5: Conventional Wisdom Gives Way to Data
Ducks Unlimited Podcast
Ducks Unlimited Inc.
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
With growing band recoveries and a newly implemented Breeding Population and Habitat Survey, waterfowl managers in the 1950s sought a more science-based understanding of population dynamics and harvest regulations. The 1960s brought plummeting waterfowl populations, reductions in harvest limits, declining hunter numbers, and shifts in waterfowl distribution. On this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher discusses these important changes and concerning times with Dale Humburg and Ken Babcock.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, Reloaded, but we bring you the best of our past episodes. |
| 0:09.4 | Whether you're a seasoned waterfowler or curious about conservation, this series is for you. |
| 0:14.5 | Over the years, we've had incredible guests and discussions about everything from wetland |
| 0:18.6 | conservation to the latest waterfowl research and hunting |
| 0:22.0 | strategies. And reloaded, we're revisiting those conversations to keep the passion alive and the |
| 0:27.6 | mission strong. So sit back, relax, and enjoy this reload. |
| 0:35.3 | We are here in episode five of our discussion on the history and evolution of waterfowl harvest |
| 0:41.0 | management in North America. |
| 0:42.2 | And admittedly, most of this conversation is related to how harvest management has unfolded |
| 0:46.8 | in the U.S. I do want to clarify that. |
| 0:48.8 | We are again rejoined by Dale Humberg and Ken Babcock, both of whom spent much of their career in waterfowl management |
| 0:59.8 | at the state agency level and thus were active participants in a lot of these discussions and |
| 1:04.9 | decisions regarding waterfowl harvest management in their case in the Mississippi Flyway. |
| 1:11.5 | And so we, on our previous episodes, we had, or previous episode, we had made it to the 1950s, |
| 1:18.4 | and that becomes a very important decade in itself. |
| 1:21.2 | We can actually, as we go through time, look at each of these decades and say, well, this |
| 1:25.2 | was a very significant occurrence in that decade, and this was a significant occurrence in this decade. |
| 1:29.3 | And so we're going to touch on some of that here in the 1950s. |
| 1:32.3 | And Dale, I want to start with you, where we talked on the previous episode about the |
| 1:36.3 | creativity of our early pioneers in waterfowl harvest management, doing the best they could with the information they had available. |
| 1:45.1 | And as a reminder, this oftentimes helps us to get in the frame of mind of what those people |
| 1:49.2 | might have been dealing with back in those days. |
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