A Louisiana Senator just injected himself into one of duck hunting’s biggest debates. In a January 6 letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Republican John Kennedy disparaged the practice of waterfowl managers flooding corn, calling it “legal baiting” and claiming it is unfairly impacting southern states in the Mississippi River Flyway.
“Unlike rice, which requires flooding as part of its natural growth cycle, there is no agronomical justification for flooding corn. Put simply, the intentional flooding of standing crops has enabled an unsportsmanlike practice,” he wrote. Kennedy also worried about flooded ag fields concentrating birds and increasing the spread of avian influenza.
Sportsmanship and bird flu aside, however, Kennedy’s main concern is his allegation that the practice is short-stopping birds, particularly mallards, from reaching southern states, such as Louisiana. To make his case, he points to a 1999 USFWS rule change that allowed migratory waterfowl hunters to hunt “over grains that are inadvertently scattered from standing or flooded standing crops.”
Since then, Kennedy argues, Louisiana’s mallard harvest dropped 95-percent from 1999 to 2021, while Missouri’s mallard count nearly doubled from 1999 to 2016. “This discrepancy is not the result of a growing overall population shifting away from their traditional wintering grounds in the southern portions of the Mississippi Flyway. Instead, the data indicate that mallards are concentrating and stopping in regions where the manual flooding of corn has become widespread,” he wrote.
For a recent article, Split Reed interviewed Mississippi State University Extension Waterfowl & Upland Gamebird Specialist James Calicutt, who said that the current science shows that the main drivers for changing migration patterns are weather patterns and habitat conditions—not flooded corn. That said, Calicutt did note that the impact of flooded hot crops on waterfowl is complex and is an area of interest that deserves further research—which is what Kennedy ultimately called for in his recent letter.
“I urge the USFWS to initiate a formal study to evaluate the impact of flooded corn on migratory waterfowl behavior, wintering distributions, and associated economic outcomes in the Mississippi Flyway,” he wrote. “Ensuring fair access to waterfowl hunting for current and future generations of Americans is a shared priority, and I appreciate your attention to this important matter.”