The agreement between reported and ob¬ 
served time of kill indicates that the duck 
wing collection survey provides reliable 
information on the distribution of the kill 
within the day. 
Spy-blind observers reported seeing 
1, 770 ducks bagged. Of the hunter groups 
given envelopes, 70 percent submitted 
wings from all or part of their bag. This 
represented 59 percent of the birds bag¬ 
ged. The reasons for nonresponse were 
examined but did not appear to be associ¬ 
ated with hunting success or party size 
(table D-3). Although wings were not ob¬ 
tained from all birds known to have been 
bagged, we saw no evidence that the wings 
received were not a representative sam¬ 
ple of the total bagged. 
Before field work, the following terms 
were defined in order to maintain uni¬ 
formity among the observers: 
"Knocked down, " those birds that fell 
immediately when shot. 
"Sailers, " birds obviously hit as evi¬ 
denced by the fact that their normal flight 
characteristics were altered. This cate¬ 
gory did not include birds that merely lost 
feathers (some of which may have been 
cripples). 
"Hits, " the sum of those birds which 
were either knocked down or sailers. 
"Bagged, " only those birds hit and 
retrieved. 
"Cripples, " the difference between 
birds hit and birds bagged. 
Field observers recorded a ratio of 
0. 47 cripples per bird bagged (table D-4). 
Hunters interviewed immediately following 
the hunt, however, reported only 55 per¬ 
cent of these cripples or 0. 26 cripples 
per bird bagged (table D-5). A review of 
crippling losses reported by hunters for 
a 3 year period (1961-62, 1962-63, and 
1963-64) through the mail questionnaire 
survey indicated that 0.25 birds were lost 
for every bird bagged. Despite the differ¬ 
ences in the methods used to sample 
"cripples, " the fact that hunters contacted 
during studies reported similar ratio of 
cripples to birds bagged suggests that 
cripples may be underreported on the 
questionnaire survey also. 
Field observations indicated that 
10, 272 shots were fired to bag 1, 770 
birds. The relation between shots fired 
and birds bagged throughout the day has 
been summarized by hour of the day in 
relation to either sunrise or sunset 
(table D-6). These data suggest that 
fewer shots may be required to kill a 
bird before sunrise and more shots near 
midday and that the ratio of cripples 
lost to birds bagged may be highest near 
midday. There was great variation 
among individual observations of crip¬ 
ples lost and shots fired to bird bagged, 
and the sample sizes associated with 
hours of the day were small. For these 
reasons differences among the ratios 
could have been by chance and no con¬ 
clusions should be drawn at this time. 
Future spy-blind needs 
In the 3 years' data we have seen no 
pattern of hunter response that might 
cause the sample of wings obtained not to 
be representative of the total kill of these 
hunters. Because this report indicates 
that the duck wing collection is now pro¬ 
viding reliable information on the distri¬ 
bution of the kill within the day, future 
spy-blind studies need not include the 
distribution of the envelopes. 
The largest unknown quantity remaining 
is the magnitude of crippling loss. Future 
spy-blind studies should concentrate upon 
gathering information that would lead to a 
better understanding of crippling loss. 
Field cooperators can also obtain informa¬ 
tion relating to hunters' abilities to recog¬ 
nize bonus birds and species that are 
partially or completely protected. 
WATERFOWL KILL SURVEY 
Data supplied by M. Edwin Rosasco and Elwood M. Martin, 
Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife 
28 
