# Pintail banded in Japan recovered in MS



## DukTruk (Jan 10, 2008)

Found this on the Refuge forums....pretty cool

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break and I trust everyone made it back to work in good spirits. I have an interesting story to share with you about a remarkable event that happened to me yesterday. I received a phone call from a duck hunter who lives in LaGrange, GA and has a duck lease near Ruleville, MS. On January 3, 2008, this hunter killed a pintail on his lease. The duck had a band and the hunter wanted information about the bird. The band had kankyocho-Tokyo
Japan-10A75422 inscribed on it. I wrote the band info down and told him I would do some research and call him back.

I called Randy Wilson (USFWS) in Jackson and asked him for help. Randy thought the bird was not banded in the U.S. or Canada, but he wasn't sure. He gave me a biologist's name and number at the National Banding Lab in Patuxent. I called and didn't get an answer. I called Dr.
Kaminski and sought his help. He thought it was possible that the duck was banded in the orient or Russia, but wasn't sure. Doc gave me the name of the person who was the head of the Banding Lab. I e-mailed him the story and band info. Shortly after, he and another biologist from the Banding Lab e-mailed me back contact info for the Japan Bird Migration Research Center. They were very interested in this bird. I e-mailed the band recovery info to Japan and got a response this morning.

The pintail was banded in Niigata Japan on February 16, 2000. The biologists at Putuxent told me that occasionally pintails that are banded in Japan show up in the Pacific flyway and pintails banded on the west coast occasionally end up in Japan. However, to their knowledge, this is the first Japanese banded pintail that has been harvested in the Mississippi flyway. I sent an e-mail to the folks in Japan asking them if this was a first. I should have a response tomorrow. If they confirm that this is a first, I think the hunter should buy a ticket for the Georgia Lotto! His friends laughed when he told them he thought the duck came from Japan. I guess he's having the last laugh now.

Jeffrey M. Lee
Area Two Wildlife Biologist
USDA/NRCS
311 Airport Road
Pearl, MS 39208


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## Nitro (Jan 10, 2008)

The lucky hunter is duckman31822 's Buddy. 

One heck of a long migration. I am really interested in the predicted migration route and how many miles.  Awesome.


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## dawg2 (Jan 10, 2008)

Wow.  Neat info.


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## Booner Killa (Jan 11, 2008)

that is awesome right there. That is incredible!!!


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## potsticker (Jan 11, 2008)

sianorah! Im sure rice comes with that also kemchee.


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## hevishot (Jan 11, 2008)

wow. Now that is cool.Congrats to the hunter.


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## ebb tide (Jan 11, 2008)

was the bird checked for "the flu"? It wouldn't be a good thing for waterfowl in the U.S. if that one or its flying partners has it.


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## Nitro (Jan 11, 2008)

There is a USFWS shooting contingent that shot thousands (Thousands) of birds in the Northern regions of the Arctic this summer........... they did not find a single bird with Avian Flu.......

It's a non issue.


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## Tombuster (Jan 11, 2008)

I heard that bird smelled like saki......


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## Limb Walker (Jan 14, 2008)

*Possibilities*

Interesting story for two reasons

1.  Just the plan fact that he got a Banded Pintail. 
2.  The fact that the Banded Pintail was from Japan.  Makes you think twice about our accessibility to Asian Bird Flu.


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## DukTruk (Jan 21, 2008)

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080120/COL0503/801200335/1127/SPORTS08

Banded in Japan, killed in the Delta
Pintail duck an amazing story
JANUARY 20, 2008

When Freddie Scott's retriever brought him the duck he shot Jan. 2 near Ruleville, the hunter was happy to find a band on one of its legs.

...

Scott, of LaGrange, Ga., had recovered a goose band, but had none from a duck before spotting the one wrapped around the pintail's dangling appendage that day in the Delta.

...

"Then I moved over to the corner of the blind where was some light coming in so I could read it, and that's when I saw it."

The first word he saw - JAPAN.

"There was no phone number like you usually see on a band," Scott said. "There was just a series of numbers and the words 'Kankyocho-Tokyo Japan,' " he said. "I said out loud 'this ain't right,' and I started thinking somebody was playing a trick."

...

FREQUENT FLYER MILES
Unsuccessful, Scott got in touch with biologist Jeffrey Lee at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Pearl.

"I figured I killed it in Mississippi, I'd be best to start there,"Scott said.

Good idea. Lee took over the research.

"I contacted several other biologists and finally the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center's Bird Banding Laboratory (in Maryland)," Lee said. "Patuxent referred me to the Yamashina Institute of Ornithology Bird Migration Research Center in Konoyama, Japan."

Lee fired off an e-mail and within 24 hours, he had his answer. Indeed the bird had been banded in Japan, by Ryuhei Honma, a member of the Japanese Bird Banding Association, on Hyoko Lake near the country's northwestern coast.

Furthermore, Honma had banded the bird on Feb. 16 - in the year 2000.

Lee said wild pintails average 2 to 3 years.

"Because the bird was said to have been at least a year old when banded, that means it had to be at least 8 years old," Lee said. "They also said that prior to this, Utah was the farthest a Japan band had been collected."

By GPS, Hyoko Lake is more than 6,700 miles from Ruleville, Miss., as the, uh, duck flies.

"I immediately went to all the people who'd been kidding me about it and proved to them it was real," Scott said.

Thoughts of birds being able to carry the Asian-based avian bird flu did occur to Scott, but he quickly brushed it aside.

"We had a bunch of people at our camp near Ruleville that week and we divvied up the birds so nobody knows who ate it," Scott said. "But I told them, 'hey, any bird that has flown that many miles darn sure ain't sick."

Makes sense.


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