higher rate of kill and by affecting a 
slightly higher proportionate kill in the 
South where low relative recovery rates 
are characteristic. 
PRESEASON BANDING AND RECOVERY RATES 
FOR BLUE-WINGED TEAL, 1962 AND 1963 
Data supplied by R. Kahler Martinson 
Division by Wildlife Research 
Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife 
The banding of blue-winged teal before 
the hunting season was stressed during 
1962 and 1963, in Canada and in the Cen¬ 
tral and Mississippi Flyways because of 
interest in an experimental early hunting 
season designed to increase the harvest 
of this species. Pre-hunting-season 
bandings are necessary to measure the 
effects of such a hunting season on the 
rate of kill and to interpret the age and 
sex composition of the hunting kill. A few 
adult and immature blue-winged teal were 
banded during the pre-hunting-season per¬ 
iod in 1962. In 1963 this banding program 
was expanded in the northern parts of the 
Central and Mississippi Flyways (table 
C-10). The bandings by many cooperators 
were lumped and show as regional or 
State totals. 
The data show that direct (first hunting 
season) recovery rates for blue-winged 
teal are very low. Geis, Smith, and 
Goddard (1963, Administrative Report 18) 
noted that recovery rates for blue-winged 
teal were the lowest among the more com¬ 
mon ducks in the bag. They found that 
direct recovery rates for blue-winged teal 
banded in the United States were higher 
than those for birds banded in Canada and, 
among Canadian bandings, blue-winged 
teal banded in Manitoba showed the high¬ 
est recovery rates. The 1963 pre-hunt¬ 
ing-season banding data for blue-winged 
teal seem to agree with those findings. 
In 1963, immature blue-winged teal band¬ 
ed in Minnesota and Iowa exhibited the 
highest recovery rates among all the ade¬ 
quate samples. The recovery rates for 
blue-winged teal banded in Manitoba were 
higher than the rates for teal banded in 
either Alberta or Saskatchewan. 
Table C-ll contains a comparison of 
the direct recovery rates of blue-winged 
teal banded during 1963 with those avail¬ 
able for 1961 and 1962. The data for 
1963 do not show a definite trend from 
1962. The unweighted mean direct re¬ 
covery rate for adults in 1962 was 0. 74 
compared to 0. 86 in 1963. The average 
recovery rate for immature blue-winged 
teal was 2.42 in 1962 and 2.14 in 1963. 
Thus it appeared that the kill rate for 
adults increased 16 percent in 1963, and 
that for immature blue-winged teal de¬ 
creased 12 percent. However, these 
are rather fragmentary data from which 
to estimate kill rates and should be con¬ 
sidered merely as a starting point for 
future banding of blue-winged teal during 
the pre-hunting-season period. 
The low recovery rates of pre-hunt¬ 
ing-season bandings of adult and imma¬ 
ture blue-winged teal clearly demon¬ 
strate the need for relatively large band¬ 
ed samples to provide data for measuring 
rates of kill. This is particularly evi¬ 
dent for adult birds which exhibit direct 
recovery rates of less than 1 percent 
from most bandings. The importance of 
large bandings of adults is accentuated 
when the migratory (and hence, kill) 
characteristics of adult males and fe¬ 
males are considered. The fact that 
adult male blue-winged teal leave the 
breeding grounds earlier and appear to 
travel farther south than adult females 
seems to result in lower rates for hunt¬ 
ing kill for the males. Hence, it is im¬ 
portant to measure kill rates for both 
sexes among adults. These preliminary 
findings suggest that annual bandings of 
1,000 each of adult males, adult females, 
25 
