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Chesapeake Progress

Black Duck Outcome:Logic & Action Plan

Chesapeake Bay Program partners have committed to taking a series of specific actions to support the management approaches guiding this outcome. These actions directly address the factors that could impact our progress. More information about performance targets and participating partners can be found in the complete Logic & Action Plan.

Download Logic & Action Plan (.pdf)

Ongoing Actions

  • Reviewing regulations and permitting processes for wetland protection, restoration, and management to streamline the planning and implementation of conservation actions.
  • Restoring tidal wetland hydrology and key habitats, such as submerged aquatic vegetation, wetlands, marshland, and riparian buffers, on black duck wintering, migrating, and breeding grounds.
  • Supporting partner efforts to improve water level management on managed wetlands by replacing compromised water control structures and repairing leaking levees.
  • Restoring submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) or converted wetlands, managing open marshes (e.g., converting non-tidal waters back to salt marsh), and restoring and managing riparian buffers.
  • Implementing long-term protection measures, such as conservation easements, cooperative agreements, or leases, to secure key black duck habitats.
  • Monitoring predator management programs that benefit wintering or breeding black duck populations.
  • Assessing the impacts of hybridization and disease transmission from captive-bred released waterfowl.
  • Maintaining engagement and communication with local officials. 

Completed Actions

2024

  • The Black Duck Action Team merged with the Wetlands Workgroup and expanded its focus to include all marsh-related waterbirds.

2021

  • USGS created a Habitat Vulnerability Assessment tool to estimate food availability across five main wetland cover types used by overwintering American Black Ducks: subtidal, freshwater, high marsh, low marsh, and mudflat. Bioenergetics models, simplified into energetic demand and supply, informed the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP). By analyzing the difference between supply and demand, conservation planning can be directed to determine "what, where, and how much" habitat is needed to achieve the target carrying capacity.

2016

  • Developing a decision support tool to estimate habitat needs and map target habitat areas for black ducks wintering in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and across the Atlantic Flyway, using this tool to determine the best places to manage, enhance and/or restore wetlands for wintering, migrating or breeding black ducks.
  • Completing energetics models for several U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and forecasting the potential loss of habitat from sea-level rise and development in order to define food availability for black ducks and understand food availability changes.
  • Keeping local officials engaged and informed.