Daffy to Get a Break on the Bay

Hunting season, bag limits for migratory Canada geese, mallards to be reduced next year - unexplained drop in populations spurs regulators to act

Concerned by a sharp drop seen last year in the Atlantic population of Canada geese, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ordered a shortening of the 2019–2020 hunting season for the migratory birds and a cutback in the number that hunters may take daily.

Federal wildlife regulators also have tightened next season’s limits on hunting for mallards, one of the most abundant ducks in the world, as they seek the cause of a long-term decline in their numbers across eastern North America.

That’s unhappy news for waterfowl hunters in the Bay watershed, who have already seen a falloff in this migratory goose season, which ends Saturday in Maryland and ended Jan. 27 in Virginia. Mild weather through the fall and most of this winter brought fewer Canadas to the region from north of the U.S. border. There have also been few if any juvenile birds— which are less wary of hunters’ decoys than their elders — in the visiting gaggles.

The hunting season for migratory Canada geese, which for several years has run 50 days in two stretches from November through January, is slated to be reduced next season to 30 days. For hunters in Pennsylvania and New York, the daily “bag limit” will drop from three to two. But around the Chesapeake Bay — in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia — the limit will go from two to just one a day.
Duck hunters will see their daily quota of mallards reduced from four to two all along the Atlantic Flyway, which stretches from Canada to Florida.

I haven't seen a lot of sea ducks locally either. I wonder what's going on?