Exploring sources of uncertainty in the estimate of waterfowl harvest in the United Kingdom

There is an urgent need to gather data on harvest rates of waterbirds in Europe to assess the sustainability of hunting. Estimates of total waterbird harvest in the United Kingdom (UK) and the relative harvest of different huntable species come from two separate surveys, the Value of Shooting (PACEC 2014) and National Gamebag Census (NGC), and these have been recently used to explore the likelihood of unsustainable harvests of wild waterbirds by UK hunters . The reliability of these sustainability estimates depends on how representative the original surveys are of hunter behaviour and success. There are also 1–3 million released game-farm mallard Anas platyrhynchos that takes up considerable and unquantified proportions of the UK waterbird harvest. Here we explore uncertainties in the UK winter harvest of wild waterfowl by comparing estimates from the NGC dataset with those from the Crown Estate coastal hunting clubs, and a novel approach using analysis of social-media images (2019/2020 to 2023/2024). We explore the difference in species-specific harvest with and without the uncertainties in the number of released mallard and the total number of duck harvested in the UK. Waterbird harvest estimates differ markedly depending on the input dataset and whether released mallard are included in the analysis. Confidence intervals of each estimate are inflated by uncertainties in the number of released game-farm mallard contributing to, and the size of that national bag. Estimates extrapolated from social media suggest the national harvest of several species may be considerably larger than the corresponding NGC estimates (e.g. teal 2.07× and gadwall 11.2×), while mallard harvests away from formal shoots represented by NGC are significantly lower (0.71×). Excluding released mallard reduces the statistical estimate of total wild duck harvest by 56–63%, which would have biologically significant effects if realised.