Duck populations are limited by habitat conditions on the breeding grounds. In this simple statement lies the backbone of waterfowl conservation in North America—and the key to its success. That backbone is drawn on Ducks Unlimited’s map of Level I breeding areas, a map over 80 years in the making. On the map lie four vast, interconnected landscapes: the Canadian prairies, the US prairies, the Canadian Western Boreal Forest, and, most recently, Alaska. A Level I breeding area is the highest priority that DU can award a landscape, and these four areas are included for the simple reason that they support 80 percent of all the continent’s breeding ducks. However you slice it, the number of ducks roaming North America’s skies is determined by what happens in these areas.
How that map was cobbled together is a story in itself. DU’s first attempt at cartography coincided with the organization’s birth, in 1937, when its founders drew a bright line around the Canadian prairies. They did so two years after DU’s predecessor, More Game Birds in America, conducted the first extensive waterfowl population survey of the Canadian breeding grounds. With the benefit of time, we can see that the founders got it right, and their unerring instinct would provide the foundation for all that would come.
The establishment of annual breeding-ground surveys in 1955 would confirm the primacy of the Canadian prairies, but it also opened our eyes to the importance of other areas. As the survey results were tallied, the Dakotas, Canada’s Western Boreal Forest, and Alaska emerged as duck factories in their own right. But DU was still in its infancy, and the Canadian prairies continued to demand most of its attention and resources.
That changed in 1984, when DU hung out its shingle in the Dakotas, extending the scope of Level I breeding areas into the US portion of the Prairie Pothole Region. In 2001, the Canadian Western Boreal Forest was added, and DU set out to positively impact a billion acres across all of Boreal Canada. In 2020, DU added Alaska to the map, and that’s where we now turn our attention.
Some may rightly wonder why Alaska was the last breeding area to be invited to the ball. Although DU members have a long and proud history of fundraising in the state, DU’s conservation efforts there have been modest compared to other Level I areas. Some of this is due to the vastness of Alaska’s wetlands and the protections they enjoy. Nearly two-thirds of all wetlands in the United States are found in Alaska, and nearly half the state is classified as wetlands. Fortunately, most of Alaska’s wetlands are intact—a far cry from the Lower 48, where more than half of the historic wetlands have been lost. The majority of Alaska’s best waterfowl habitat is found on federal, state, or Indigenous lands (e.g., the state’s national wildlife refuges cover nearly 77 million acres—an astounding 80 percent of all lands included in the National Wildlife Refuge System). Consequently, in general the need to restore or protect waterfowl habitats in Alaska has been less urgent than in other Level I breeding areas.
A quick glance at Alaska’s contribution to North America’s duck and goose populations reveals why it has earned its place among DU’s four most important landscapes. Ducks banded in Alaska have been recovered in nearly every state, and in some years nearly 20 percent of the continent’s surveyed ducks settle in Alaska. In fact, nearly a third of North America’s northern pintails breed in the state.
Alaska also provides crucial habitat for 14 species of sea ducks, many of which depend on the state’s tundra and coastal habitats for the bulk of their annual life cycles. These species include long-tailed ducks, all three species of scoters, and three species of eiders. For several of these species, Alaska is the only place in the United States where they nest.
On the goose front, Alaska supports six species of breeding geese, collectively totaling more than 1.5 million birds. This includes more than 90 percent of the world’s emperor geese. In addition, roughly 60 percent of the world’s Pacific brant nest in Alaska, and nearly the entire population congregates during fall on the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, where the birds fatten up on eelgrass before migrating to their wintering grounds along the Pacific coast of the United States and Mexico. Alaska also encompasses the entire breeding range of several goose subspecies, including the tule white-fronted goose, dusky Canada goose, and Aleutian cackling goose.
Although breeding snow geese were once rare in Alaska, their abundance along the Arctic coast has been growing rapidly in recent years, increasing from less than a thousand birds in the 1990s to more than 70,000 today. These geese primarily winter in central and southern California, the western Central Flyway, and the northern highlands of Mexico.
Both North American populations of greater white-fronted geese nest in Alaska. The Pacific population nests in western Alaska and winters in the Central Valley of California, while birds from the midcontinent population breed in central and northern Alaska and winter in the southern states of the Central and Mississippi Flyways. White-fronted geese that nest along the Arctic coast of Alaska increased dramatically during the early 2000s, more than doubling in abundance from less than 50,000 to upward of 100,000 birds.
While Alaska is an important breeding area for waterfowl in all four flyways, the state is the Duck Factory for the Pacific Flyway. A third of all the flyway’s ducks are produced in the state, and for some species the percentage is even higher. For example, nearly 60 percent of all the American green-winged teal in the flyway are raised there, as are half of the pintails and American wigeon. For many western hunters, these three species make up much of their bag. Hunting regulations in the Pacific Flyway are driven by mallard counts in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California. In most years, more than half of the mallards surveyed in these areas breed in Alaska.
Given the 49th state’s importance to continental waterfowl populations, DU launched its Alaska Initiative in 2025 to help ensure a bright future for ducks, geese, and their habitats across this vast, wetland-rich state. But what form should this initiative take? DU’s conservation programs in the Lower 48 and much of Canada lean heavily on habitat restoration and protection, but unlike in many other high-priority conservation areas, Alaska’s waterfowl habitat is largely intact and under some form of protection. Although DU relies on sound science everywhere it works, waterfowl research will be an especially important component of the Alaska Initiative. And there is one question that demands immediate attention—the apparent decline in breeding duck numbers in the state.
Between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s, the number of breeding ducks surveyed in Alaska ranged between 2 and 2.5 million birds. However, that number began to grow, and by the late 1990s and early 2000s, some 5 to 6 million ducks were being routinely tallied in the state. Unfortunately, those numbers have declined, and only once in the past decade have they exceeded 4 million birds. Why these populations have fallen has yet to be determined.
One thing we do know is that Alaska has gotten warmer. In fact, no other place in the United States has seen a greater rise in average annual temperatures since the 1970s. Ducks in Alaska may have initially benefited from this warming, as it likely increased the length of their breeding season. The increase in duck numbers from the late 1970s through the early 2000s certainly tracks the onset of higher temperatures. But too much of anything can be a bad thing. Scientists in Alaska have discovered that some wetlands are shrinking as the state has continued to warm, perhaps because of higher evaporation rates or the loss of permafrost, a phenomenon that allows water to drain into the soil instead of pooling on the surface.
But a possible relationship between wetland changes and declining duck numbers is only one theory. Survey transects of breeding waterfowl in Alaska cover only a tiny fraction of the landscape. Although these transects are based on our past understanding of waterfowl distribution in the state, that distribution may have changed, and birds that were once counted may now be missed. Such a possibility could produce an apparent duck decline when in fact no such decline exists. Finally, events outside of the breeding grounds, such as a reduction in the quantity and quality of staging and wintering habitat—especially in the Pacific Flyway—may also be negatively impacting Alaska’s duck populations.
To better understand these population trends, DU is working with its state partners on the Pacific Flyway Council to mark several hundred wintering mallards in Washington and Oregon with GPS transmitters. These transmitters will provide researchers with multiple daily locations, and they expect that many of these birds will return to Alaska in spring. When Alaska’s breeding ground surveys are flown each spring, we’ll discover how many of these birds are located along survey transects and how many are not. This will provide some insights into how changes in duck distribution may or may not be affecting survey results.
In addition, DU now has the technology and staff capacity to document wetland changes in Alaska over the past 40 years and to detect within-year changes in wetland conditions at two-week intervals. We’ll combine this technology with location data provided by mallard GPS transmitters to better understand how long- and short-term changes in Alaska’s wetlands may relate to the duck population trends we are seeing.
Having these marked birds roaming the Alaska landscape from spring through early fall may allow us to tackle another problem. Harvest regulations in the Pacific Flyway are strongly tied to Alaska’s mallard numbers, and properly managing this population requires us to band a large number of birds each year. Unfortunately, many of Alaska’s traditional banding sites appear to be holding fewer birds. Tracking birds marked with GPS transmitters may allow us to locate currently unknown concentrations of mallards and establish new banding stations at these sites.
Equally important is the need to band more pintails. The harvest management model for pintails relies on band returns to estimate survival and harvest rates. The recent increase to a three-bird limit for pintails places even more importance on banding as we seek to understand what impact, if any, this interim harvest management strategy has on the population. Finding additional banding locations in Alaska can help with this challenge.
DU is also supporting a study of red and arctic foxes on the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge in western Alaska. Historically, waterfowl species such as black brant, emperor geese, northern pintails, Pacific common eiders, and threatened spectacled eiders have had good breeding success on the Yukon Delta. Unfortunately, nest success for these and other waterfowl species is declining in the region, possibly due to growing numbers of foxes. The study is being led by Dr. David Koons of Colorado State University. Koons and his students will explore the connection between lower nest success and fox populations, and why fox numbers have increased in recent years.
Although research and monitoring will be a key component of the Alaska Initiative, findings need to be applied in a practical way. Alaska’s economy has been built on the wise stewardship of its natural resources, and DU is eager to continue this tradition by helping inform decisions that benefit Alaska’s waterfowl and the habitats they depend on. Providing sound waterfowl science will be critical to this process.
Doing so will require DU to engage with multiple partners, including public agencies, Indigenous communities, and pillars of Alaska’s economy like the energy sector. Last August, DU CEO Adam Putnam gave a keynote address at the Alaska Oil and Gas Association’s annual meeting in Anchorage, where he announced the launch of DU’s new Alaska Initiative. He emphasized DU’s long history of working with Indigenous communities and industry in Canada’s Western Boreal Forest, and how our success in Alaska will ultimately depend on forming the same kinds of partnerships there. As one example, DU is working with the Kijik Corporation, an Alaska Native Village Corporation, to document the waterfowl and aquatic resources found on their lands in southwest Alaska.
Although the “dirt-moving” projects that characterize much of DU’s conservation work in the Lower 48 may play a smaller role in Alaska, DU will pursue these opportunities where there is a need. One example of this will help ensure that Alaska’s waterfowl hunters continue to enjoy the places where they now pursue their sport. DU is working with Alaskan hunters and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to design and replace a water-control structure on Swan Lake, which lies within the Susitna Flats State Game Refuge. Without this new structure, water levels in the lake will fall and hunter access will be greatly reduced in a place with a long history of waterfowling activity.
Alaska lies shoulder to shoulder with the most important waterfowl areas in North America, and the Alaska Initiative represents DU’s commitment to the state’s waterfowl and the habitats they depend on. In December 2025, DU hired Brandt Meixell, the first full-time DU conservation staffer in Alaska. In the years ahead, Meixell will work closely with volunteers and conservation partners to make the Alaska Initiative a success and bring this remarkably waterfowl-rich state the attention it so richly deserves.
Dr. Mark Petrie is director of science and planning and Dr. Patrick Donnelly is a research scientist in DU’s Western Region. Brandt Meixell is DU’s Alaska Initiative coordinator.
