Wing Survey Disappointment

Rod VanZile

Active member
I received the wing survey results from the Fish and Wildlife service a few days ago and am extremely disappointed with the survey results. I turned in 40 to 50 duck wings and about 20 goose tail feathers and wing tips. They show my harvest results as one Canada Goose shot in Elkhart County on February 1st 2020. I wonder where the other 60 envelopes ended up? I am curious to hear from others to see if their results were accurate.

RVZ
 
Hey, they told me that a set of tundra swan tail feathers belonged to a snow goose, EVEN AFTER I noted on the envelope the it was a permit bird. Sheesh![w00t]
 
george w said:
Hey, they told me that a set of tundra swan tail feathers belonged to a snow goose, EVEN AFTER I noted on the envelope the it was a permit bird. Sheesh![w00t]


Now that is funny, for all the wrong reasons.

Even science must be taken with a grain of salt, NO?

Strange days indeed.

VP
 
I turned in about 17 duck wings this past season and got the results on a letter dated 7-31-2020. They only had one unknown on a black bellied whistling duck. Last year I sent in approximately 75 duck wings and they sent me the results on all of them which I thought was pretty good. Maybe they got some new [bad] help? Whatever the case that is a pitiful result for all your effort Rod. I found it takes a fair amount of time, effort and organization skills to accurately label, maintain and send in the wings in a timely matter. They want me to do it again this year too. That would be hard to do if I had the results Rod did.
 
I hate if for you brother, that stinks! Your outcome actually adds even more validity that there is no way in the world that "mail in voting" would ever work for an election.

I received my report summary this past week and it had all my birds properly documented from what I could tell.
 
Brad,

That is a generous offer. This is the third time I have participated in their survey over the years. I used the envelopes they sent me, which arrived late, two weeks into the season. They only sent 15, so I immediately requested another 50.

My ID number is 23519033
My email address is rodvanzile@comcast.net if you need any personal information from me.

I appreciate what you and the Fish and Wildlife Service do for our sport, and look forward to participating again this year.

RVZ
 
Dale Wilcox said:
I turned in about 17 duck wings this past season and got the results on a letter dated 7-31-2020. They only had one unknown on a black bellied whistling duck. Last year I sent in approximately 75 duck wings and they sent me the results on all of them which I thought was pretty good. Maybe they got some new [bad] help? Whatever the case that is a pitiful result for all your effort Rod. I found it takes a fair amount of time, effort and organization skills to accurately label, maintain and send in the wings in a timely matter. They want me to do it again this year too. That would be hard to do if I had the results Rod did.

I'm in for another 2 years, and will be glad to participate again. Each year I keep track on paper of the species of ducks I shoot with the dates so I can track the peak migration in our area. It's not unusual to put 4 to 5 different species in the bag on one hunt.
 
P Taylor said:
I hate if for you brother, that stinks! Your outcome actually adds even more validity that there is no way in the world that "mail in voting" would ever work for an election.

I received my report summary this past week and it had all my birds properly documented from what I could tell.

Help me understand how a process that involves identifying the species via wing submissions, tabulating that information, and accurately totaling both the species and numbers within and across species via a mailing to the submitter has ANY overlap with receipt of a mail-in ballot signed by the voter that is then inserted into a scanner for tabulation of their respective electoral choices has ANY overlap with USFWS wing survey processes, other than the fact that both submissions are tabulated in whole numbers? You likely will be additionally disappointed to be informed that Michigan just held a primary this week where over 1.2 million vote submissions were cast via mail-in ballot, compared to a little over 720,000 direct votes cast physically at precincts within the state, without any major delays or fraud. Per the Secretary of State's assessment, the one thing that did differ from previous primaries? Voter turn-out increased significantly.
 

For many years I participated in the wing survey for ducks, tail feathers for geese, and also for Ruffed Grouse.

During that time, all the info that was returned to me about my submissions was very professional, informative, and satisfactory.


Also a very good friend, and hunting partner was a US Postal worker for many years. He informed me that if the wings I submitted reeked of rot & blood stains it was not good, and he left it at that.

A reply with incorrect, or no info is disturbing. Yet in these days of less hands on, and more technology replacing folks in the know, it is not all that unexpected.

Hopefully the errors and process will be addressed, and corrected.




I'm staying as far away from the mail in vote "discussion" as possible. Much better for my blood pressure... [;)]
 
Yes, Vince, I also was told that MANY envelopes that arrive have to be discarded due to poor prep. or dermestid beetle infestation to the point where there are simply a mass of feathers that arrive. I always dried all my woodcock submissions on a food dehydrator prior sending.
 
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Rod, Sorry you had a bad experience, hopefully next year will be better. I just finished up my third year and each year's survey matched up with my own hunt diary. I didn't do any special prep. After cleaning the bird I cut the wing off and then into each of the two bags. I had each wing prepped and into the mail collection box same day.
 
Rod

I have passed your hunter number, name and email on to the proper person at USFWS. I expect them to investigate and get back directly to you or us both. I'll let you know what I hear but if you hear let me know the results.

Brad
 
Brad,

Thank you so much for doing this. It certainly wasn't necessary, but much appreciated. If I hear anything I will let you know.
I am looking forward to participating in the program for the next two years.

Rod V.
 
Brad why do they stop the collection before all of the waterfowl seasons are out? I noticed on the website I went to request some more envelopes for snow geese I killed in the light goose conservation order season but said it was closed for this collection season.
 
Because they have the wing bees in February. They need to process the wings then in order to get the information processed in time for the flyways. They age and sex ratio of the snow goose conservation order is of lower priority than the overall duck and goose seasons. It takes a lot of effort to sort and identify 100,000 wings and process all that data along with the data from all of the questionnaire survey forms.
 
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Regarding why parts are not collected during the light goose conservation order, there are few considerations. The major one that Brad mentioned is time constraint. For most states the conservation order runs mid-February to April 30th. The Atlantic Flyway Wing-bee is held the last week in January, the Mississippi Flyway the first week in February, Central Flyway the third week of February and the Pacific Flyway the last week of February. A condition for states to offer a light goose conservation order is that they will collect hunter activity and harvest from their respective light goose conservation order. That is why some states make you register for the light goose conservation order to enter their sampling scheme (other state use HIP or state waterfowl stamps). Age and sex determinations are based on feather wear and replacement. For waterfowl, flight feathers are replaced once a year and it is relative an abrupt process compared to the more gradual process of body feathers (ducks molt body feathers twice a year). A key indicator for geese hatched that year is the presence of a notch center tail feathers in addition to the shape and wear of the outer flight feathers. As hunting season progress, the tail feathers are replaced, and additional wear occurs on the flight feathers. Later harvested birds are more difficult to correctly assign age that early season harvested birds.


Websites
USFWS Wing-bees https://www.fws.gov/birds/news/160202wingbee.phphttps://www.fws.gov/birds/news/160202wingbee.php[/url]
USDFWS Parts Collection Survey https://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-and-data/harvest-surveys/parts-collection-surveys.phphttps://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-and-data/harvest-surveys/parts-collection-surveys.php[/url]


Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPC72Oguurs&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPC72Oguurs&feature=youtu.be[/url]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Y7-IDlPDg&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Y7-IDlPDg&feature=youtu.be[/url]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Y7-IDlPDg&feature=youtu.behttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Y7-IDlPDg&feature=youtu.be[/url]

PDF Booklets
Ducks https://fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/...dentification_of_ducks_using_wing_plumage.pdfhttps://fws.gov/migratorybirds/pdf/surveys-and-data/Species_age_and_sex_identification_of_ducks_using_wing_plumage.pdf[/url]

Geese https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/17130/charactersofages49hans.pdf?sequence=1https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/17130/charactersofages49hans.pdf?sequence=1[/url]

Central Flyway Article Download https://history.ksoutdoors.com/cont...3-3 - MJ Kansas Wildlife & Parks Magazine.pdfhttps://history.ksoutdoors.com/content/download/5245/22075/file/2016-73-3%20-%20MJ%20Kansas%20Wildlife%20&%20Parks%20Magazine.pdf[/url]

USFWS Reports
https://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-and-data/reports-and-publications/flyway-data-books.phphttps://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-and-data/reports-and-publications/flyway-data-books.php[/url]
https://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-and-data/reports-and-publications/hunting-activity-and-harvest.phphttps://www.fws.gov/birds/surveys-and-data/reports-and-publications/hunting-activity-and-harvest.php[/url]
 
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