Ben Pierce

February 12, 2020

Recently Splitreed had the chance to sit down with aviary owner, bird expert, and avid waterfowler Ben Pierce to get his take on some of the problems that exist with genetic pollution in waterfowl today. Ben is just one trip to Florida away from completing his complete North American waterfowl slam and has a vast knowledge of the world of waterfowl. He is also an expert when it comes to hybrid duck identification.

SR: How did you get into this field of work?

Pierce: It goes way back. I started raising ducks when I was 8 years old. I rescued a little duckling from getting trampled by cattle, and from there I found someone that already had an aviary, which led to me wanting to get an aviary of my own. So I eventually got my first pair of wood ducks, mandarins, Northern pintails and redheads, and started raising them. I loved waterfowl so much that I wanted to pursue a career in Zoology and Biology and the study of Ornithology. It just sorta went from there. I started finding interesting ways of learning about ducks. I get a lot of my information from Frank S. Todd, who has passed away. But I use a lot of his books as resources, and I started looking through one of his books called Waterfowl Identification of the World and thought ‘Woah, this would be awesome to see what hybrids looked like in between two different species’. I started putting separate species together in separate pens and tried to breed for these hybrids. Other people started noticing what I was doing and thought it would be an awesome idea to research and study. I ended up getting associated with The Burke Museum. They’re a museum run by the University of Washington and they’re currently doing a hybrid study. So I submit the right toes of all my birds and they get a DNA analysis of that bird; I know which two birds bred to make that hybrid, and I give them that information prior to me sending them the toe. They also accept donations from hunters that have shot a hybrid, and they usually just get a tissue sample if the hunter doesn’t want to give the bird up. So my part in it, is I have the controlled DNA sample that they can use when they test the donated birds. So that way they’re able to recognize the DNA markers.

SR: What’s the overall problem with genetic pollution between wild ducks and domestic breeds?

Pierce: All these domestic breeds are ducks that man has created. I mean, obviously we didn’t invent the duck, but we did create this domestic form of ducks. For eggs and meat, and all sorts of stuff. And if you go back in time, we didn’t have the technology to create an all brown Mallard duck. All domestic ducks have been created by man, and what we did is saw the expressed traits. We do it with our cats, dogs, horses, cows, everything. It’s all pretty much evolved over time with humans. We look for those express traits. Everyone thinks that domestic ducks are these big fat ducks that can’t fly. That’s not always true. Yes, there are breeds that can’t fly, but most domestic ducks are bred for meat, which means they’re just like a pig. If you feed them, they will just keep getting fatter and fatter and fatter and then it gets so heavy it can’t fly. However, there are domestic breeds that can fly; and the genes in these domestic ducks are dominant, so when they fly off and breed, the domestic duck’s express traits show up more than the wild duck’s traits. What happens with these domestic ducks, around Easter, in March or April, there’s all these feed stores that sell all these cute little baby ducks that are domestic breeds that man has created. And people are like ‘Oh I want a baby duck for Easter’ but they live in an apartment. So they buy the duck and put it in the tub for now. Well within 2 weeks that duck is too big to be in the tub, and it’s too messy. So they take that duck down to any body of water that they can find and they let it go, like ‘Ok go be with all the other ducks’. Even farm ducks that are out in the open, ducks are ducks. They’re going to breed with other ducks, and those genes are going to be expressed with those wild ducks. For example, a common name for one of these ducks is a bibbed mallard. That’s when a blue Swedish or a black Swedish domestic duck breeds with a wild mallard, and you get what people call a “bibbed mallard” or just a mallard that has domestic genes.

SR: And why is this a problem?

Pierce: That’s where the word “pollute” comes into play. I mean, they’re all mallards, but if you want to keep that wild gene pool of mallards dominant, you have to keep it clean. When you introduce domestic genes with it you get blonde mallards, manky mallards, and a few others. It makes it hard to tell what are true genetic mutations that can happen in the wild as opposed to just domestic traits being expressed. It’s becoming quite a problem because there’s more and more of them out there. It doesn’t hurt the ecosystem or anything like that, it’s just a duck, but it can have an impact on that pure wild mallard strain that people are used to.

SR: Is this something that could have an impact on the health of wild ducks?

Pierce: From the people I’ve talked to and the studies I’ve seen, no. There’s no data to prove that it would hurt the population of wild ducks. The only thing it’s going to do is hurt the wild strain of the bird. Where it’s becoming a real problem with domestic ducks is where people let them go where wild mallards congregate. That’s where you end up having ducks with health problems. They stay there year-round because there are other ducks around so they think they’re safe and they don’t need to migrate. This happens a ton with geese also. Where you get residential geese out on golf course or in parks and the other birds join in with them. And then you get people that feed them bread. That brings a whole other article that I could go on and on about, but don’t feed ducks and geese bread. There are chemicals in the bread that affects their growth, and they can get something called “angel wing”. Any duck or goose can get this if they’re fed human food

SR: You say this is happening with mallards, is it happening with any other species of duck that you know of?

Pierce: Where it happens the most is when you get these polluted mallards that hybridize with other ducks. Muscovy ducks is another issue. They get so big and so messy that people just let them go. The majority of Muscovies that people see or shoot in the wild are domestic descent or are domestic ducks. The true wild muscovy lives in Central America. Another species where you see a lot of this is wood ducks. They’re all really aggressive breeders, which leads to genetic pollution.

SR: What are some of the biggest problems you see in identifying hybrids as opposed to ducks with domestic traits?

Pierce: I’ve been called the “Duck Prodigy” from a lot of people just because I have this ability to tell what type of ducks are which. And it’s because I look at the whole bird. I look at it from every angle. For instance, a lot of people only look at the head, and a lot of people think that a lot of immature mallards are a hybrid because they look similar to a black duck hybrid. Or they just look things up on Google. There’s a lot of mis-identified things on Google. There are some that are correct, but there’s a whole lot that aren’t. When I’m trying to identify a bird, I look at everything. I look at the whole entire bird. The wing I.D. is usually the most correct I.D. that you can look at in order to identify a hybrid. Because a lot of their facial patterns will vary. So going off of the head or facial patterns can lead to mis-identifying birds. I always go by the wing, then I go by the feet to see if they’re a little bigger or if they’re normal, then I look at their facial pattern. I’ll look at their bill. There’s just so many characteristics that will pop out, you just have to kind of memorize them. I grew up doing 4-H and FFA, where I judged pigs and cattle and horses and sheep, and when you judge an animal you look for the characteristics that are pleasing to the eye. So my eyes have been trained to look for certain things when people send me pictures of what they think is a hybrid, and I love it when people send me pictures, but I always wish I could have it in my hands, because I’m always like “could you send it at this angle? Or that angle?” because the lighting and the angle that you take a picture in for a hybrid can totally change the whole bird’s characteristics.

SR: How often would you say people shoot a duck with domestic traits and confuse it with a hybrid? How many times do people shoot a hybrid and not realize it?

Pierce: Well I don’t know if it’s because of my group or the study that I’m doing, but hybrids are becoming quite popular. Anything that’s different to people- they’ve been noticing and sending me pictures of it. It’s anything as small as white patches on the back of a female Red Head’s head that I’ve gotten pictures of because people have noticed that. I’m glad about that, and I’m glad people are noticing all these little differences and want to know and want to learn. It’s awesome because then they learn their ID of the regular species as well when they’re trying to see if they shoot something different or weird. Opposed to people who are just like ‘Oh I shot a Mallard’ and just chuck it in their bag; I’m sure there’s a lot of people that end up eating an awesome hybrid that they shot instead of putting it on the wall. Or you know, there’s a lot of people who end up confusing domestic ducks with true, wild species combinations. Another thing people will do is confuse breeds with certain species, for example in dogs, you don’t call a Poodle crossed with a Lab a hybrid. It’s a crossbreed. Ducks are the same way. A Pintail crossed with a Mallard is a hybrid. But a Mallard crossed with a Blue Swedish duck is still just a Mallard, because they’re both Mallards. They’re both the same species of duck. They’re basically just a “mutt mallard”. It’s in their species that they’re breeding.

SR: What would you say are more common? Hybrid species, or ducks with domestic traits?

Pierce: Well what’s rare? If you’ve only ever seen one of it, and you’ve only ever shot one, then it’s rare, right? (laughs) I would definitely say there are more ducks that are crosses between domestic and wild species than actual true hybrids out there

SR: What are some of the most common mistakes that people make in identifying farm ducks as hybrids as vice versa?

Pierce: I think a lot of people only focus on one characteristic on the bird that they shot and they don’t check out the entire bird. For example, Brewer’s ducks or a Gadwall crossed with a Mallard, the wing stays true in every F1 generation. That’s the offspring after the Gadwall and the Mallard breed together. The wing is always true. It has a green speculum, ordered with black, sometimes a little white, and sometimes a little brown up in the upper right. Sometimes they have black on the bottom trailing edge of the speculum. A lot of people will shoot a female Mallard that is taking on male traits because of hormonal issues, whether it’s a damaged ovary or old age, and people automatically think they’ve shot a hybrid. It will have a green crown on its head, but the key there is the bill. Orange with a black saddle over it. Some people might even think it’s a Wigeon cross, but the key there is the wing, again. It will be a Mallard hen wing. A hybrid will have the green speculum and the black and white surrounding edge. That’s the main mistake people make, they just look at the head and not the rest of the characteristics of the bird. They’re just like “oh this is just a female mallard” where if they looked at the entire bird they would end up going “wow, I did shoot a Gadwall crossed with Mallard. The speculum’s green”. I’ve actually done a study where I bred a Pintail with a Mallard and proved that they’re not what everyone calls them, a “Mule Duck”. I proved that a hybrid can breed with a hybrid. I’m on the fourth generation so far without much variation. Just a few slight characteristic differences. Their wing patterns are pretty awesome and stay pretty true also.

SR: So in the 11 years that you’ve been doing this, what’s the coolest bird you’ve had to ID or you’ve had in your aviary?

Pierce: Any of the wood duck hybrid combinations have been really cool. One of my favorites was a wood duck crossed with a shoveler. I also really like wood ducks crossed with green-wing teal. Just because there’s so much color going on and they’re so pretty. I’ve had some really cool birds come into my aviary. Like a mallard crossed with a common eider. Any of the eider crosses are really cool. I’ve also seen a goose crossed with a mute swan, that was pretty interesting looking. I think one of my favorites that I like to create is one of the ones that a lot of people like, and that’s the mallard-pintail cross. I also love the Hooded Merganser crossed with a Wood Duck. They’re just really gorgeous. I really like cinnamon teal crossed with green-wing teal. I think my favorite species just in general would have to be king eiders. I have them in my aviary. My favorite duck out of those is Elvis. He’ll come up and eat out of your hand. All the eiders have really cool personalities and make really cool sounds.