The direct recovery rates from bandings in all major production 
areas (table 46) were greater for males than for females. The 
average rate for all bandings was 11.0 percent for males and 9.2 
percent for females. Hunters may tend to select the more colorful 
male, thus causing the difference in recovery rates of males and 
females, but behavioral differences may also act to increase the 
vulnerability of males. 
Summary and Conclusions 
1. Birds caught by dogs had lower recovery rates than birds 
captured in traps or other methods. 
2. The sex composition of mallard ducklings that were banded 
was slightly imbalanced in favor of males. 
3. Banding data now available permit the analysis of distri¬ 
bution of kill of ducks produced in important breeding 
areas south of 54 latitude, but are insufficient to 
permit a similar analysis for important northern breeding 
areas. 
4. Bandings of locals were not used to estimate the contri¬ 
bution of production areas to the total kill in a given 
region because of the lack of bandings and associated 
recoveries from northern areas. Furthermore, a procedure 
which would relate the size of each breeding population 
to the recoveries available was considered to be beyond 
the scope of this study. 
5. Mallards produced in Alaska, British Columbia, and States 
of the Pacific Flyway contributed only to the kill in the 
Pacific Flyway. 
6. Much of the kill in the Pacific Flyway was derived from 
the Prairie Provinces of Canada. 
7. From Alberta eastward, a gradually increasing portion of 
mallards are harvested southeastward through the Central 
Flyway to the lower Mississippi region, and the Pacific 
Flyway component disappears in southeastern Saskatchewan 
populations. 
8. The portion of the mallard kill from Canadian production 
areas that occurs in the Central Flyway is related to the 
distance birds must move across the flyway to reach the 
lower Mississippi region. This relation results in a 
decreasing portion of birds that contribute to the kill 
in the Central Flyway relative to that of the Mississippi 
Flyway as their origin shifts eastward across the Prairie 
Provinces. 
23 
