Band reporting probabilities of American black ducks in eastern North America 2017–2019

Abstract American black ducks Anas rubripes (hereafter, black ducks) are an important game species in the eastern United States and Canada that declined between the 1950s and 1990s, resulting in the implementation of restrictive hunting regulations in the United States and Canada. Black duck harvest is managed by the Black Duck International Adaptive Harvest Management (BDAHM) strategy that was developed between Canada and the United States. The strategy requires that the black duck population be maintained at a level that is commensurate with legal mandates, provides for use appropriate for the habitat carrying capacity, and is managed in a manner that maintains equitable access (between Canada and the United States) to the black duck resource. Fulfilling these mandates requires unbiased country‐specific harvest probability estimates, which in turn require estimates of band reporting probability, that is, the probability that a hunter who harvests a banded bird will report it to the North American Bird Banding Program (NABBP) through either the United States Bird Banding Lab (BBL) or the Canadian Bird Banding Office (BBO). We conducted a reporting probability study during the 2017–2018, 2018–2019, and 2019–2020 hunting seasons, using reward bands to estimate continental and country‐specific band reporting probabilities. The continental (pooled) band reporting probability was 0.80 (95% CI = 0.660–0.945). Band reporting probability was lower in Canada (0.65, 95% CI = 0.487–0.821) than in the United States (1.00, 0.978–1.022) but increased in both countries since they were last estimated in the 2000s. Increased reporting probability and the difference in reporting between the two countries should be accounted for to most effectively meet the objectives of the BDAHM strategy.