CWA Egg Salvage

April 7, 2021

California Waterfowl Association Egg Salvage Program

Photos From CWA – California Waterfowl Association, Brian Huber and Jonny Freitas

Jason (left) Brian Huber (middle) and Jonny Freitas (right) of CWA Egg Salvage with an end of day collection of duck eggs. Taken from CWA instagram.

Recently, Split Reed had the chance to talk with Jason Coslovich, a waterfowl biologist, and the coordinator of the Egg-Salvage program at California Waterfowl Association. We wanted to figure out the who, the what, and the why of these efforts to help salvage these eggs and nests for these ducks. Because ultimately, one duck saved in California in 2019, can mean 100 more ducks in the flyway in 2020. It’s efforts like these, and people like Jason, that are doing their part to help strengthen the population, and create better hunting in the California area.

“When people think of California, they think of big cities. They think of San Francisco or L.A. When in reality when you go up north of Sacramento, it’s all rice fields and marshes. It’s prime duck habitat. There are advertisements for guide services along the highway. It’s definitely booming” says Coslovich. Which likely explains the efforts he helps put into helping salvage these eggs from the dangers of harvesting season. Every year, thousands of ducks create nests and lay eggs in fields that are planted with crops soon to be harvested by farmers. The harvesting process can be merciless on ducks. For instance, if a hen mallard lays eggs in an alfalfa field, soon to be thrashed down by a swather, that machine will roll over that nest, and destroy the eggs- or even the ducklings using that field as a refuge. That’s why the egg salvage program plays such a large role in helping these ducks escape being killed by harvesting equipment. This gives sportsmen the chance to give back, and to help improve the quality of the waterfowl population in their local hunting areas.

The Who?

In 2014 the California Waterfowl Association took over the egg salvage program. Salvaging eggs hadn’t been a “new” practice. Farmers understood this threat to waterfowl and began in the mid-1900s to take precautions to try and save the ducks in their fields from being harmed by their harvesting. However, as time wore on, these habits started to take a backseat to speed and time constraints placed on the farmers. Leaving ducks vulnerable to the harvesting efforts of farmers. “We don’t blame the farmers at all. We understand that they have to get things done fast as a way to make money and feed their families, it’s their job” says Coslovich, “we just want to make sure we do our job and make sure we can get in there and save as many eggs as we can”.

This process has been going on for quite some time, however, the practice of saving eggs began to fade away as the farmers who practiced egg salvaging got older, retired, etc. That’s where the California Waterfowl Association (CWA) stepped in. By taking control of the egg salvage program, CWA gave the program the ability to have a form of funding through charitable donations and other helpful resources. It also supplied the program with willing volunteers to help donate their time to the program. This allows CWA to get youth involved, as well as long-time veterans to the sport of waterfowl hunting and waterfowl conservation. Efforts like these allow CWA to help grow the waterfowl populations in California, and in turn, create better duck hunting.

Back before CWA took over the program, it was run entirely by good-willed volunteers. Showing the determination and desire to help the local waterfowl population out of these California hunters. The hunters in California take their waterfowling very seriously. “I’ve hunted in Idaho and people are like why hunt ducks when you could hunt elk or deer?” says Coslovich. California waterfowl hunting is a crowning jewel of western duck hunting that often gets overshadowed by politics and demographics. Luckily for people like Jason, not only do they get to experience the hunting, but they also get to give back to the conservation efforts.

The What/How?

The California Waterfowl Association has two federal operations where they take the eggs back to the nest, one is Rancho Esquon in Durham, California. The other is the North Delta Conservancy in Walnut Grove. The egg salvage program takes the eggs they find to these two facilities, incubates them, hatches them, holds them for five weeks, band them, then relocate them into suitable habitat. They keep them at these facilities where they take care of them in “hatchers” or incubators, to keep them at the right temperature. The ducklings are kept out of water for around a week until they develop the proper amount of oil in their feathers that will allow them to swim. After that, they’re released into full pens that have swimming pools and food for them to begin to adapt to real-life scenarios. They try to keep the age classes separated by about a week of each other. Once they get to the point where they’re fully feathered but can’t yet fly, they’re banded, and then released within the next day or two.

The idea of walking through a 100-acre rice field trying to find duck nests sounds rather; tedious, for lack of a better word. That’s why the method used by those at the egg salvage program consists of (though this is not the only method) getting 2 side-by-sides or four-wheelers, tying a 150 ft. rope between them and hanging cans from the rope, then “dragging” the field until they flush a hen. “When a farmer calls us and says he thinks he has a field with a lot of birds in it, we get everything set up, then we drag the field until we flush a hen, then at that point stop, and go look for where she was and salvage the eggs. Other times farmers will have grain or another type of crop that’s pretty valuable, and we can’t drag it. At that point the farmer will just stop if he sees any eggs or jumps a hen and pick up the eggs then call me at the end of the day” says Coslovich. This process allows near 3,000 ducks to replenish the flyway each year. “We handle about 1500-2000 eggs or birds each year, and end up releasing around 3,000 ducklings after we’ve gathered eggs, and some people bring eggs or ducklings straight to the hatchery”

Coslovich continues; “we primarily work with mallards, but we also sometimes get gadwall and cinnamon teal. We occasionally get other ducks, but those are the main three we work with”.

A chain between two quads or four-wheelers is run to flush birds up, letting the salvagers know where to look for a nest. The nests are then collected and transported to CWA incubating facilities where they will hatch and the young ducklings will be reared before being banded and released into the wild.

CWA makes sure they go to all needed efforts to get the proper licensing and registration, permits, and meets all the legal necessities, and then uses the resources they have at their disposal, and call on some help from volunteers to help them salvage these eggs from the damages that can be done from crop harvesting. Then, by banding the birds and using the harvest reports, they’re able to see what their efforts have done for the waterfowl hunting in California. Most of the waterfowl hunted in California, winter, and breed in California, making the need to save the eggs even more important to the success of the local hunting. Then, legally they’re allowed to drag these fields 24 hours before they’re about to be harvested. Not leaving a lot of time to orchestrate an event like this. So one can imagine how well taught and how much communication is required for a program like this to be successful.

“We have one big dinner set up each year to help with the funding. That’s the Annual Colusa dinner. We also get quite a few donations from mainly duck hunters who care about ducks and conservation, so that’s pretty cool” says Coslovich when asked about the funding for the egg salvage program.

These efforts allow CWA and the California Division of Fish and Wildlife to know what to expect for the upcoming hatch as well. They give an idea of what to plan for as data is collected from the eggs collected and the ducklings banded and released. “We’re not saving the entire waterfowl population of California, but what we’re proving is that there’s a conflict in the agricultural industry and waterfowl nesting and hopefully it sheds some light on ways to solve these conflicts,” says Coslovich. “Duck clubs are offering excellent wintering habitat, but are drying up their water to manage their property, there are a few things that people are doing that hurt summer habitat. If people want more ducks around here, they need to provide more summer habitat for them. It’s especially hurting the mallards around here. Most of the mallards shot in California were born and raised here. They’re all hurting when people take away their summer habitat. 70% of the mallards shot in California, were born in California, so if people want more mallards, we need to create more summer habitat” Coslovich says in regards to solving some of the current problems surrounding duck habitat.”We have people at the capital lobbying, trying to create bills, or push for different legislature to help with the local waterfowl. There’s always something that we’re trying to do to help the local duck population”. Currently, CWA is doing analysis to see how much it would cost to delay a farmer to cut their wheat by two weeks to allow the ducks in their field to hatch and raise their ducklings properly. It’s constant study and effort like this that make programs like this, and people like Jason have the influence they do on their local waterfowl population.

The Why?

When asked about why they created the egg salvage program, and why people take time out of their day and money out of their wallets to help this project, Coslovich emphatically responded with, “Because it’s the right thing to do”. It takes a lot to want to volunteer your time and efforts to help when you have a job and a family to support, but yet we see it happening with this egg salvage program. Coslovich continues on by saying, “we aren’t creating enough ducks in the flyway that you’re going to notice an increase. I’ve been hunting California for 15 years and have only shot one egg salvage bird, but there’s no way that we could let this kind of stuff happen without putting our foot in the door and getting our hands dirty and trying to help the cause”

Coslovich says “It’s not the farmer’s fault, and it sometimes gets misconstrued that way. We understand that this is their business and they’re on a time crunch, and that’s why the number one threat to the ducks when it comes to farming is the equipment and the crops that the ducks sometimes choose to nest in. That’s why we do what we do”. It’s true. Unfortunately, you can’t control where wild animals choose to nest, and it’s hard when that sometimes gets in the way of someone’s business. It makes efforts like the egg salvage program that much more invaluable to helping create more ducks.

Efforts like this are commendable in all aspects. People like Jason and those that are helping with the egg salvage program who are doing their best to make a difference are the sportsmen and women that make waterfowl hunting the great sport it is.