Wildlife biologists complete annual duck banding work

CONCORD — New Hampshire Fish and Game wildlife biologists have completed the annual effort of attaching hundreds of metal bands to ducks throughout the state. This pre-season banding effort is conducted in the U.S. and Canadian provinces throughout the Atlantic Flyway in August and September. This huge undertaking provides survival-rate data that are used in combination with breeding-plot data and National Migratory Bird Harvest Information Program survey data to develop the model used to determine annual season regulations in the spring.

Each metal band has a unique sequence of numbers, and biologists record the species, age, and sex of each duck before it is released. At the end of the season, all the data is submitted to the Bird Banding Lab at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md. When a hunter harvests a duck with a metal band, or a wildlife viewer reads the band through a spotting scope, they are asked to report the information to reportband.gov. It takes just a few minutes to report the encounter. You may see a phone number inscribed on the band also, but the call center supporting the toll-free phone number has been discontinued. Please report band recoveries online at reportband.gov or by sending your information to Bird Banding Lab, 12100 Beach Forest Road, Laurel, MD 20708.