The data collected is transmitted via a third-party data service to a database that stores location data as well as information about the quality of location data, activity sensor data, battery information, and temperature. Analyzing activity sensor data can determine if a PTT is still active. PTT inactivity can mean the bird has died or the bird is no longer wearing the unit. Store Contact Us Careers.
Search ArcUser. Where Are All the Ducks? By Hanna Ford, R. Brian Culpepper, and R. More efficient—and lighter—GPS equipment is changing the waterfowl tracking game for biologists. Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Want more hunting and fishing stories? The WRP provides landowners with technical and financial support for restoring and maintaining wetland areas that have conservation benefits.
Sanctuaries on public areas such as state wildlife management areas and the National Wildlife Refuge System are also extensively used by migratory ducks. The National Wildlife Refuge System is the largest protected area network in North America specifically designated for wildlife conservation and includes more than million acres stretching from Alaska to the Caribbean.
The program is designed to maintain wetlands and other wildlife habitat in areas where surrounding lands have been converted to golf courses, cities and agriculture. Identifying ways to support duck populations is important because more than 50 percent of American wetlands have been lost since , said Dylan Kesler, co-investigator and MU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife.
This loss has affected migratory bird populations and migration timing and routes, he said. The project attached small solar-powered tracking devices to the ducks, which transmitted their locations every 4 hours. It's easy to imagine a scenario in which the migration might last a few months, beginning in mid-October and ending in mid-January.
Instead, satellite-marked mallards completed fall migration in less than a month on average, with the majority of the birds starting their southward journey almost a month before freeze-up. While fall migration is of greatest interest to hunters, waterfowl habitat conditions during spring migration may be more important to duck populations.
The observation of satellite-marked birds during our study revealed that mallard migration strategies are more flexible in spring than in fall. The average length of spring migration varied by year, ranging from 18 days to 48 days, with an average stopover time of about 12 days while en route. More than 75 percent of satellite-marked mallards from Arkansas either nested in the Prairie Pothole Region or migrated through the region en route to their eventual nesting destination.
This research has helped to fill in missing pieces of the puzzle of mallard movements and how the birds use habitat, including newly restored habitats. Since , the NRCS has worked with over 11, private landowners to protect more than 2. The precision of GPS satellite telemetry units has enabled University of Missouri researchers to confirm that mallards use WRP wetlands frequently during migration and winter.
Researchers have also documented that areas with large wetland complexes—especially those along the Mississippi and Missouri river corridors—are used more frequently than are more isolated wetlands.
On a daily basis, local movements of satellite-marked mallards averaged only about two miles, and most were less than eight miles.
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