IT WOULD be easy to believe that a lot of birds and ground animals were positively affected by the “nowinter'' of 2011-2012, but that may not be the case.

We know that the waterfowl hunters on Great Bay, especially the late season hunters, had a very light kill and it wouldn't be surprising if many of them went without ducks or geese for their efforts.

Living right on the shores of Great Bay, we have always paid attention to the amount of gunfire we would hear, from early to late waterfowl season.

This year's early season was probably normal, in the amount of shooting. But in the late season it was very evident that although we witnessed plenty of boat action and hunters on the move, the shooting was way off. In fact, on some of the weekend days during the late season, when we normally hear a steady flow of waterfowl gun volleys, some days went by with hardly a shot fired. So you had to take out of this a positive in one way — that the light waterfowl kill put a positive effect on the overall waterfowl population.

This might create a false sense of security for us waterfowl lovers. Scientists for many years have reported that the hunting of these birds has little to no effect on their populations. (Hard to figure that one out, isn't it?) They claim that it's water and water levels that have a huge effect on nesting populations in the spring that limit the duck populations and can have somewhat of an effect also on geese.

So what's the big deal? The big deal is that just about all across the waterfowl breeding areas in both the United Statea and Canada, snowfall was very light and warm weather was prevalent. Which means that many of the traditional waterfowl nesting areas that need water will have very low levels or probably plenty may not have had any flooding because there was little to no snow pack for the melt or not enough rain during the winter to keep the water levels up.

Waterfowl biologists are not too optimistic about this spring's nesting results. Nor are the biologists from the two largest waterfowl conservation non-profit organizations, Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl Foundation.

DU specializes in land purchases and easements and water management and creation and maintenance of duck nesting areas while Delta stresses scientific research as well as a new and very popular program of predator control in the nesting areas.

We are members of and support both of these organizations and have witnessed a huge positive effect that both have produced in their works.

But given the economy and the recession, both have been hurting for funding, and Congress often see cuts in conservation areas as an easy way out. One of DU's major funding sources is its Wetlands Conservation Galas.

The state's largest one is scheduled for Saturday, April 21, at the Radisson Hotel, 700 Elm St., in Manchester. There are cocktails, entertainment, raffles, games and auctions and raffles.

We've been to and hosted a bunch of DU events and never left one without a smile on our face.

You can register at wwwducks. org/new-hampshire or call 472-7350 for Frances Magie, 475-3038 for Tom Rochette, 772-1270 for Mike Nolan or 882-0577 for Mike Eckmann. Get more info online at fmagie@comcast.net We've mentioned Delta Waterfowl Foundation many times in our writings. We love their approach to do other work that will support DU's missions. Delta provides full financial support for many budding waterfowl biologists to earn college degrees and uses them as interns during the summer.

It's been disputed by many that predator control has no effect on duck nesting success but Delta has irrefutable evidence from its workings that predator control can have an enormous impact on the survival of both the hen ducks and also their broods, with some success ratios being close to 100 percent.

At our waterfowl camp in northern Maine, we do harvest quite a few ducks and geese. For every duck taken the hunter has to donate a dollar to the Duck a Buck, Goose a Deuce-coffee can.

For every goose taken the donation goes up to two dollars. Over the years we feel that we've made a nice impact on Delta's workings. Because it's like nickel and diming, it's easy to do but at the end of the season it all adds up.