Factors associated with survival, recovery, and movements in the western Gulf Coast population of mottled ducks

Abstract The mottled duck ( Anas fulvigula ) is nonmigratory and a priority species for regional conservation and management because of its limited range and declining population trajectory in the western Gulf Coast (WGC) of Louisiana and Texas, USA. We developed multistate dead‐recovery models for banding and recovery data (1997–2020) to evaluate potential drivers of survival, recovery, and post‐summer movements for the WGC population of mottled ducks in Louisiana and Texas. Annual survival was most strongly associated with sex and year, with females having lower survival ( ± = 0.544 ± 0.114) than males (0.619 ± 0.062). Of the 32 environmental covariates tested, fall precipitation was the factor most strongly associated with survival. Conditional recovery probability (i.e., given mortality, the probability a bird had been shot by a hunter, retrieved, and had their band number reported) varied by sex, age, geographic state, and year, with juvenile males generally having highest conditional recovery (0.303 ± 0.072), followed by juvenile females (0.201 ± 0.100), adult males (0.156 ± 0.038), and adult females (0.095 ± 0.057). Estimates of harvest probabilities followed similar patterns as conditional recovery. Models containing effects of harvest regulations on conditional recovery were not competitive compared to models with general year effects; however, post hoc analyses suggested conditional recovery and harvest probabilities for adult and juvenile females decreased with the daily bag limit reduction in Louisiana and, for juvenile females, implementation of the 5‐day closure regulation in Texas. Post‐summer movement was substantially higher in the direction of Texas to Louisiana, decreased with distance to the Louisiana–Texas border, was higher for males than females, and varied with winter precipitation. These results contribute to a better understanding of the factors influencing demographic performance, harvest, and movement between states with differing harvest regulations and environmental pressures, which is important for mottled duck conservation planning. Wildlife managers can consider expanding banding effort throughout the full range of the WGC population and collecting and reporting live‐recapture data to allow for stronger population‐level inferences and increased power to detect differences in important demographic parameters at more refined spatial scales.