In the Alexandria Town Talk on July 15, 2007 an article said that the duck populations and the pond count in the all-important breeding grounds were up. The total duck breeding population climbed 14 percent to 41 million birds and mallards rose 10 percent to slightly over 8 million. May ponds across the surveyed area were at 7 million, a 15 percent increase from 2006 and 44 percent higher than the long-term average.

Of the surveyed species, gadwall rose 19 percent to 3.4 million breeding birds, wigeon jumped 29 percent to 2.8 million, green-winged teal rose 13 percent to 2.9 million, blue-winged teal continue to rocket upwards at 14 percent and 6.7 million, shovelers (we like to call them smiling mallards) rose 24 percent to 4.5 million, redheads climbed 10 percent to just over 1 million and canvasback jumped by a surprising 25 percent to 865,000.