“Abundant and resilient waterfowl populations to support hunting and other uses without imperiling habitat.” (NAWMP 2012)
"Maintain long-term average populations of breeding ducks [1955–2014 in traditional survey area (TSA) and 1990–2014 in eastern survey area (ESA)]." (NAWMP 2014)
The Challenge
Landscapes, Habitat Loss, and Conservation Pace
Waterfowl populations are a product of the landscapes within which they exist, as are other ecosystem benefits important to people. Many complex and interacting factors diminish the ability of landscapes to sustain waterfowl populations. These factors include wetland loss and degradation, loss of wetland-associated uplands that provide nesting habitat, and water quantity and quality issues that impact habitats in important migration and wintering areas. Many of these factors also affect people and their communities, including reduced water quantity and quality, loss of biodiversity and increased flooding. NAWMP efforts over the past 38 years have positively affected millions of acres of priority waterfowl habitats in North America, yet the scale and rate of habitat loss remains high. This means the NAWMP must increase the pace of conservation work to sustain waterfowl populations at desired levels.
The Benchmark
Objectives as a Foundation
Quantitative population objectives have been the foundation of the Plan since its inception. These objectives provide common benchmarks to assess conservation needs and guide habitat and population management decisions, and they rely on the maintenance of robust operational monitoring programs. Foundational population objectives should not be changed without compelling reasons for doing so, but each Plan Update offers an opportunity to ensure that objectives are still based on the best information available.
Staying Current
Reviewing and Updating Objectives
In keeping with the 2018 Update recommendation to review population objectives every 10 years, a thorough review of the 2014 Addendum was completed for 2024. Information, including updates to the Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey (WBPHS) estimates for the Traditional Survey Area (TSA) and Eastern Survey Area (ESA), was evaluated, and new information from the Sea Duck and Arctic Goose Joint Ventures was used to assess whether adjustments to existing objectives or development of new objectives was warranted (see Appendix B in the 2024 Update Technical Report). NAWMP Habitat Joint Ventures were surveyed to assess their current approaches to linking habitat objectives to NAWMP population goals and their frequency of conservation planning iterations, among other questions (see Appendix A in the 2024 Update Technical Report).
Setting Priorities
Species Prioritization and Management Need
Additionally, recent efforts to review and revise NAWMP species prioritization based on perceived management needs (Appendix G and Roberts et al. 2023) were incorporated into this 2024 Update. The NAWMP first prioritized waterfowl species in terms of perceived management need given habitat conditions and importance in harvest (NAWMP 2004). The latest revision builds on earlier iterations by considering additional biological and social data that are now available, along with the broadened goals of the 2012 Plan (Roberts et al. 2023).
