The Black Duck Joint Venture is a

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and manageme ...

partnership established in 1989 to stabilize and restore the population of the

American black duck The American black duck (''Anas rubripes'') is a large dabbling duck in the family Anatidae. It was described by William Brewster in 1902. It is the heaviest species in the genus ''Anas'', weighing on average and measuring in length with an ...

(''Anas rubripes''). It consists of government and non-governmental agencies and organizations in Canada and the United States. Its geographical scope is the

Canadian provinces Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...

, and

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

, and the 23

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

s in the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

and

Mississippi Flyway The Mississippi Flyway is a bird migration route that generally follows the Mississippi, Missouri, and Lower Ohio Rivers in the United States across the western Great Lakes to the Mackenzie River and Hudson Bay in Canada. The main endpoints of t ...

s. It was the first of the three species joint ventures operating within the

North American Waterfowl Management Plan The North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) is an international plan to conserve waterfowl and migratory birds in North America. It was established in 1986 by Canada and the United States, and expanded to include Mexico in 1994. In the Uni ...

to be established.

Structure and funding

The joint venture has a

management board Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

consisting of eleven members "with representation from Canadian and U.S. wildlife agencies". It is advised by a technical board composed of waterfowl biologists, which is responsible for project implementation and progress evaluation. Members are also organized into

working group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...

s representing each program in its scope. Its current coordinator is Brigitte Collins. The management board reports to the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and is responsible for "overall program coordination, and for developing funding and delivery mechanisms". The Black Duck Joint Venture receives some of its funding from research grants. From 1989 to 1994, it had an operational budget of about

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve co ...

$870,000.

Programs

The efforts of American black duck researchers in Canada and the United States is coordinated via the Black Duck Joint Venture, including research related to "monitoring, population dynamics, harvest management and ecological requirements". The current science coordinator is Patrick Devers. The joint venture has conducted banding and survey programs in cooperation with other organizations, for which data collected is used in harvest management. The program led to more restrictive harvest regulations in the 1980s, which has led to the stabilization of American black duck populations in some areas and recovery in others. In 1990, the venture began "large-scale aerial surveys of breeding populations" of all species of eastern ducks and some other species to identify trends in breeding populations of those species. This consisted of

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

surveys in southern Quebec and throughout the

Maritime Provinces The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...

. Breeding ground surveys have also been conducted. from the mid-1990s to 2002, the number of breeding pairs in Quebec had more than doubled to 396,000. It was a participant in the American Black Duck Mapping Project conducted at

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Like other liberal arts colleges in North America, Mount Allison does not parti ...

in conjunction with

Ducks Unlimited Canada Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) is a Canadian non-profit organization that works to conserve, restore and manage Canadian wetlands in order to preserve habitat for North American waterfowl, wildlife and people. They work with industry leaders, govern ...

, the

Canadian Wildlife Service The Canadian Wildlife Service or CWS (french: Service canadien de la faune), is a Branch of the Department of the Environment (Environment and Climate Change Canada), a department of the Government of Canada. November 1, 2012 marked the 65th ann ...

, and other government organizations. This research collected data about black duck populations in

Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...

to complement previous research by the

Eastern Habitat Joint Venture The Eastern Habitat Joint Venture is a partnership established on 15 November 1989 between governments, organizations, and conservation groups in eastern Canada to protect and enhance wetlands important to migratory birds, under the auspices of the ...

. Other research partners include the

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center The Patuxent Wildlife Research Center is a biological research center in Maryland. It is one of 17 research centers in the United States run by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The center is located on the grounds of the Patuxent Research R ...

. In the United States, the

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

has purchased wintering,

staging Staging may refer to: Computing * Staging (cloud computing), a process used to assemble, test, and review a new solution before it is moved into production and the existing solution is decommissioned * Staging (data), intermediately storing data ...

and breeding

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s of the American black duck (and other species), which it manages to encourage population recovery. This includes over of

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

s at

Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge is a wildlife preserve operated by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, encompassing part of the Montezuma Swamp at the north end of Cayuga Lake. The preserve is composed of swamps, pools and channels an ...

Notes

References

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External links

Black Duck Joint Venture

Black Duck Joint Venture Strategic Plan, 2008–2013

American Black Duck
at

Nature Canada Nature Canada is a member-based environmental organization headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Its supporters include more than 100,000 individuals and over 800 affiliated organizations, including local and provincial naturalist clubs. The organ ...

{{North American Waterfowl Management Plan North American Waterfowl Management Plan Nature conservation organizations based in Canada Nature conservation organizations based in the United States Environmental organizations established in 1989 1989 establishments in Canada 1989 establishments in the United States