The California Waterfowl Association (CWA) has published a California Season Review in their Summer 2019 magazine issue. Some interesting numbers were revealed by the review.
The CWA published numbers for all refuges and wildlife areas in the state with comparisons to years past and to other refuges and wildlife areas. I’ll just concentrate on the three areas that SoCalHunt regularly reports on, San Jacinto, Wister and Kern along with some general numbers of interest to us from throughout the state.
Starting with San Jacinto Wildlife Area CWA reported that the number of Cinnamon Teal bagged at SJ was #2 for the state with 967 birds. Wister did really well in the state numbers race with Wister showing up #1 for Cinnamon Teal with 1,357 birds, #2 for Green Wing Teal with 2,287 birds and #2 for Pintail (despite a 2 bird limit this season past) with 1,893 sprig taken. Kern didn’t make the top three for any bird species for the state.
For the Southern California Area, which includes the three areas SoCalHunt reports on, some of what CWA calls “notables” were Pintail were up 40%, Green Wing Teal were up 34% and Shovelers were up an incredible 100%! CWA also noted that only Southern California had an increased harvest and an increase in average harvest per hunter for the 2018/2019 season.
As for geese statewide it was a dismal year. White geese were down 70% with 2,650 harvested statewide, Specks were down 48% with 2,762 bagged statewide, and Canadas were down 38% with only 649 taken statewide. This was a big hit in our part of the state for Wister as they usually do pretty good on the snows at Wister most years.
CWA also provided a graph of the last five seasons reflecting the weekly take of waterfowl for all wildlife areas and refuges in the state. Not surprisingly it shows a spike the first week of the season then a nosedive the next week that gradually improves, for the most part (with slight exceptions here and there) as the season progresses, until it gets close to the take for opening week on the last week of the season.
The CWA also show a graph for the last five seasons showing the percentages for the top seven species throughout the state. On that chart the take for the state for this past season was the second lowest of the five years, with the 2016/2017 season showing lower total numbers (by only 985 birds total) then this past season. Both those seasons (16/17 & 18/19) had substantially lower numbers then the other three years on the graph.
So, the takeaway from all this is that Southern California did somewhat better this past season than the rest of the state, especially with the good old spoonies, which had a 100% increase. Although, statewide, this past season was slower than others in the last five years.
If you’d like to see the entire report on the 2018/2019 season stats from CWA you have to get a copy of their Summer 2019 magazine. As far as I can find this information is not online. You can get a copy of the CWA magazine by joining the California Waterfowl Association by clicking on the link below. It’s $35 for an annual membership and $15 for a Junior Member (12 and under) and includes four quarterly issues of the CWA magazine. Money well spent IMHO.
SoCalHunt 