‘Roboducks’ Pose Dilemma in the Wild

Mike McLuckie blows his duck call a lot less these days. He relies instead on his favorite decoy to seduce ducks into shotgun range over the camouflaged blinds at Banner Marsh.

And seduce it does. His motorized “roboduck” has wings that twirl at 470 to 520 revolutions per minute, the exact speed of a real duck’s wings as it takes off or lands. The natural motion has proven highly effective at lulling ducks into dropping some of their natural caution.

“It gets their attention,” McLuckie says. “It’s telling that duck that there’s some real ducks down there. It creates a more natural situation.”

Roboduck is the generic name for the battery-operated decoys that have swept the waterfowling world in the last two years.

Purists loathe them because they allow hunters to bag birds without learning to read the wind, spread decoys and blow a call well enough to fool ducks--an apprenticeship waterfowl hunters have served for ages.

Fans say the decoys are a boon to hunters who don’t have the time to learn such skills or can’t afford private memberships to the best hunting grounds.

But some waterfowl experts have a bigger worry--that the decoys make hunting too easy and too deadly. They say their effectiveness rivals that of live decoys and baiting--methods outlawed in the 1930s out of fear duck populations would be decimated.

“It becomes an ethical question. It’s not something that requires a great deal of skill on the hunter’s part,” says Ray Marshalla, a waterfowl biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Roboducks were introduced in California about three years ago, and their popularity quickly spread eastward. Mounted on poles inches or feet above water or land, the roboducks’ twirling wings--dark on top, white on bottom--are so realistic that they have fooled aerial observers who help monitor duck migrations.

The decoys go by many brand names--RoboDuk, Perfection Deception, RotoDuck and Hovering 2000 are just a few--and range in price from $100 to $250 apiece. In comparison, a dozen premium floating decoys usually cost less than $80. Hunters typically combine one or two roboducks with a number of nonmoving decoys.

The decoys’ sudden success prompted the Mississippi Flyway Council, which supervises management of migratory waterfowl in 14 states, to consider a three-year moratorium so the council could study their impact.

Scott Yaich, assistant director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and that state’s representative on the council, says a ban was rejected partly because members felt it was already too late.

“There’s a sense that the horse is already out of the barn,” he says. “There are literally tens of thousands of these that have already been purchased.”

Marshalla, one of the waterfowl biologists who advises the council, says it also doesn’t make sense to ban the devices in one state when they aren’t banned in others.

Marshalla and others fear that roboducks could undo results of the last several decades of waterfowl management, which emphasized preserving habitat to increase the number of ducks. That in turn has allowed states to lengthen duck seasons and raise limits. This year, many Mississippi Flyway states are holding 60-day seasons with six-duck daily limits.

Although anecdotal information indicates roboducks are increasing duck kills, no hard figures back up the experts’ suspicions.

John Eadie, a biologist and professor at UC Davis, participated in a short check on roboduck effectiveness last season--the only scientific study to date. Observers joined hunters on about 40 trips and used the motorized decoys half the time they were in the blinds.

Initial results seemed to indicate that ducks became a little more wary of the motorized movement as the season progressed, Eadie says.

“The bottom line is we found a very strong effect from the device early in the year. By the end of the season, that effect had declined,” he explains.

Marshalla said biologists eagerly await next July’s federal harvest statistics because this is the first season to see widespread use of roboducks.

“If we do see our harvest rate increased, we are faced with a fundamental question,” Yaich says. “We can either outlaw them and make them illegal like we did live decoys, or the alternative would be to have shorter seasons and smaller bag limits.”

Marshalla says surveys by his agency indicate hunters would rather keep longer seasons. McLuckie agrees, saying he would willingly forgo his roboduck--and the full limits it often helps him bag.

“I don’t have to get six ducks every day,” he says.

Marshalla, who has hunted with roboducks for pleasure and for research, says he is torn.

“On the one hand, I’ve hunted enough to truly love it when the ducks come in like they do to this decoy,” he says. “But I hate the fact it’s getting to the point where it seems too easy.”