WATERFOWL BREEDING GROUND SURVEY IN MANITOBA, .1950 
Arthur S. Hawkins 
This report summarizes the fourth annual survey of waterfowl, including 
their breeding numbers, their success, and the conditions under which they bred in 
Manitoba. In addition, it gives the results of a late summer banding program. 
Personnel organization: Biologist J. B. Gollop (Canadian Wildlife Service) 
and E. N. Cole (Manitoba Game Branch) were the ground survey team. Flyway 
Biologists (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service) W. F. Crissey anid =. G. Wellein piloted 
the Sea-bee and Widgeon, used in the survey, with the author acting as full-time 
observer, and Charles Southwick (U. of Wisconsin and Delta Research Station) as 
part-time observer, W. H. Kiel (U. of Wisconsin and U. S, FWS) continued population 
and habitat studies in District 8, assisted briefly by Dr. R. A. McCabe and others 
(See appended report). Population and disease studies at Whitewater Lake were 
conducted by E. F. Bossenmaier (U. of Minnesota and U. S. FWS). D. G. Colls, and 
N. Neufeld (Canadian Wildlife Service), assisted by Kieth Storey (Ducks Unlimited). 
(See appended report). Conservation Officers of the Manitoba Game Branch who 
gathered the data submitted by Cole in an appended report, are named in that report. 
The staff of the Wildlife Management Institute stationed at Delta assisted in various 
phases of the survey. Operations, involving most of the above-named personnel, 
simultaneously for brief periods were the population and brood survey of the Rosneath 
study area and the banding drives at Whitewater Lake. Cole and Hawkins did the 
banding on Delta Marsh. 
Scope 
Except for minor changes caused by inaccessible roads, ground transects in 
1949 and 1950 were the same. (Routes are given on a map in the 1949 report). Aerial 
transects, however, were re-organized this year (see map). Starting three miles 
north of the international boundary in Township 1, east-west transects across the 
Province were spaced at 24 mile intervals north to Township 37, except where an 
absence of fueling facilities caused gaps in this pattern and in District 8, where the 
intervals were 12 miles between transects, East of Lake Winnipeg and in northern 
areas a rectangular pattern was used, In the Saskatchewan Delta the transect interval 
was 6 miles. Two strips across North Dakota were run for comparison with the 
Manitoba counts. " 
Exploratory work this year included the Granville Lake area (north-western 
Manitoba at 56° 30') and the Tadoule Lake area, west of Churchill (58° 30'). Granville 
_ Lake is unique in that it has many small marshy fingers fairly well utilized by sport 
ducks. Duck densities were found to be considerably lower en route from The Pas to 
Granville Lake, west to Saskatchewan and returning via Flin Flon to The Pas. The 
habitat encountered on this trip was typical pre-cambrian rock country. Aside for 
local gathering of scoters and a few Canada geese, waterfowl were scarce from 
Churchill to Tadoule Lake and return by a more southerly route. This transect 
includes tundra, tundra-muskeg transition, and muskeg. 
Methods 

Data presented in this report were obtained as follows: (1) All transects 
were censused once for breeding waterfowl, using the standard transect method. 
Many of them were re-checked later in the nesting period and again near the peak of 
the brooding season. (2) In the better pothole country 10 percent of the areas 
(selected at random) received special attention. This semi-intensive coverage involved 
added efforts to see all waterfowl presént, some nest hunting, the establishment of 
