Our Columbia Basin wildlife biologists recently conducted aerial waterfowl surveys of large water bodies in Grant, Douglas, and Adams counties. They counted over 268,000 waterfowl, including just under 200,000 mallards, close to 30,000 diving ducks (78% scaup), nearly 9,000 common mergansers (most at Moses Lake and Potholes Reservoir), and about 10,000 Canada geese (though this survey misses most geese which field-feed during the day). Most of the waterfowl on the Desert and Potholes units of the Columbia Basin Wildlife Area were concentrated in Winchester Reserve, which had nearly 23,000 mallards. Frenchmen and Potholes Reserves had about 4-5,000 mallards each. The recent warming trend should result in good to excellent waterfowl hunting as these concentrations of birds disperse when iced-over water re-opens. Learn more about what all our wildlife staff across the state have been doing at wdfw.wa.gov/about/wildlife_weekly/ .
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 23:37:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015