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Human Disturbances to Waterfowl

Annotated Bibliography


189. Thompson, J. D. 1969. Feeding behavior of diving ducks on Keokuk Pool, Mississippi River. Masters of Science Thesis, Iowa State University, Ames. 79 pp.

Most hunting on Keokuk Pool (Pool 19) was done on back-waters, but about 25 blinds were built over open water in 1967. In addition to disturbance from shooting, flocks of diving ducks were flushed when hunters moved between blinds and landing areas. The Keokuk Pool sustains a commercial fishery. Much fishing occurs during summer, but also occurs in late spring and throughout fall when trot-lines and trammel nets are fatal to diving waterfowl which become entangled in them. Fishing activities disturb large flocks of diving ducks and flush them from one section to another. The upper section of the pool had the highest disturbance ranking of all sections in fall, and the lowest numbers of birds occurred there. Many birds would feed until disturbed by hunters, fishermen, or barges. If disturbance continued throughout the day, waterfowl concentrated on the lower section of the pool where disturbance was the least. The lower section would become food-depleted if large flocks fed there, particularly the area which held the greatest percentage of diving ducks during day. The following table is constructed from Thompson's work.

Waterfowl days on sections of the Keokuk Pool for fall 1966 and 1967, average relative rankings of disturbance (1=little and 5=frequent), benthos (mean pounds/acre), and acres of emergent and submergent aquatic vegetation.


Pool Rel dist. Waterfowl Aquatic veg. Wtfwl. days sect. rank Benthos days(000) Emer. Subm. per acre
Lower 2.8 1,026 12,273 38 26.8 10,383 Middle 4.0 675 6,569 100 18.6 2,508 Upper 4.2 1,841 1,853 13 26.7 2,155

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