Duck poop study

[BilletHead]

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fish-eggs-can-hatch-after-being-eaten-pooped-out-ducks

 

[FishnDave]

Long suspected, and now proven.  Good study.

[Johnsfolly]

What a crappy way to travel😉!

[Jerry Rapp]

money well spent👇

[fishinwrench]

6 hours ago, FishnDave said:

Long suspected, and now proven.  Good study.

Actually I think the assumption was that the eggs would cling to the feet and belly of the ducks, which I think is more likely.   Ducks usually do most of their pooping over land....I think.

[FishnDave]

24 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Actually I think the assumption was that the eggs would cling to the feet and belly of the ducks, which I think is more likely.   Ducks usually do most of their pooping over land....I think.

Yes, exactly.  Feet, Feathers...and now Feces...  This ability to spread fish to other waters hasn't always been a bad thing....but with the invasives brought by HUMANS, now we want to blame ducks for doing what they've always done.  Or maybe we are just trying to figure out how some species have gotten to places where they weren't stocked by us?  Not sure about MO, but here in Iowa (and also MN) some lakes have massive issues with invasive Curly Leaf Pondweed.  DNR blames boaters, and requires them to drain livewells and steam or pressure wash their boats before leaving the ramp area, at lakes that are known to be infested.  But then it was showing up at remote ponds that there are no road accesses...no boats have ever been on them.  Turns out ducks were spreading that as well..as they could also likely be doing with zebra mussels by transporting the veligers (larval stage of mussels).

So, with the spread of the Bighead and Silver asian carps, before a bunch of money is spent on some sort of electric barrier at new locations, maybe they want to see if its going to do any good, or if waterfowl are just going to spread them beyond such barriers anyway.  This study give evidence to support a position.

 

[JUNGLE JIM 1]

I think some fish species like the green sunfish eggs survive at a much higher rate. One city park lake that I've fished for over 50 years suffered two fish kills and wiped out the entire fish population. The conservation department only stocked it with redear sunfish in the fall and nothing since due to Covid 19. I fished it once this year and their are thousands of green sunfish and some bluegill in it even though they weren't stocked. The lake needs some predators like bass or catfish in it to start eating some or the lake will be full of them. Great lake for catfish bait right now.

[FishnDave]

2 hours ago, JUNGLE JIM 1 said:

I think some fish species like the green sunfish eggs survive at a much higher rate. One city park lake that I've fished for over 50 years suffered two fish kills and wiped out the entire fish population. The conservation department only stocked it with redear sunfish in the fall and nothing since due to Covid 19. I fished it once this year and their are thousands of green sunfish and some bluegill in it even though they weren't stocked. The lake needs some predators like bass or catfish in it to start eating some or the lake will be full of them. Great lake for catfish bait right now.

You may be right, and that is a good observation.  I've seen that before...ponds that suffered fish kills, then there is a boom in the Green Sunfish population.  They are almost always the first thing to show up.  Once the other species finally start to show up again and rebound, the Green Sunfish populations drop off considerably.