Fish & Game officers have made an urgent appeal for game bird hunters to send in any duck band information they have - after a "disappointingly slow" response to the annual call for returns.
Senior Fish & Game Officer Matthew McDougall said the return of band details has been unusually poor for this time of year.
Mallard ducks are trapped and banded at various locations in summer and hunters are asked to send in details of any banded birds they bag, including the band number and where it was harvested.
"Normally by this time we would have received details on 10 to 18 per cent of those birds we banded in January, and about three per cent of the bands from the previous year [January 2014].
"But this year only nine per cent of birds banded in January have been recovered and reported, so we're not sure what's going on.
