American Pheasant and Waterfowl Society

Important! Please Partcipate!

APWS Population Sustainability Survey 2026

I’m sure many of you have wondered about the committee name change from “Studbooks” to “Population Sustainability” and truthfully this was done out of necessity. Many past studbooks have not been maintained by breeders, or things have been lost in paper trails. A studbook also does not paint the entire picture of the species in captivity; it only includes the ones of documented and traceable genetics. While we are huge supporters of studbooks and responsible recordkeeping, it does leave out a large majority of the species population and doesn’t give us accurate data on the numbers of each species kept across aviculture as a whole. In other words, sometimes we don’t realize a population is crashing until it is too late.

In an effort to address this, as an organization, we made the call to first change the focus of the committee. Behind the scenes we have been building a user-friendly survey for each breeder/keeper/zoological facility/exhibitor/hobbyist to input their species holdings. This will help all of us understand which species are at peak sustainability in human care, and which desperately need our attention in increasing the population. This can be used as a great tool to provide direction for an individual’s collection and forward management of each species as well as future acquisitions. At the end of this excerpt, you will find a link to be able to participate in the survey and help us help each other. This is fully ANONYMOUS; no information will be public or published other than entire species data. Zero individual holdings will be available to look at, to encourage further participation and collection security.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: This survey will be open to any aviculture facility, zoological, hobby, or private breeder. No individual information will be accessible to anyone besides the committee chairman (T.J. Pluid) to input data into a total population assessment which will then be available. Non-members of APWS are welcome and ENCOURAGED to participate to give us a clearer picture of population statuses. PLEASE read the instructions at the beginning of the survey to allow clear data to be used in examining population totals. If you find any species in your care are not included, please refer to the option at the end of the survey to write in said species along with your holdings of it.

If you are reading this in the magazine and do not have access to the internet, please call or write in to T.J. Pluid to have your numbers included in the population totals. You can find contact information inside the cover of the magazine. If you are writing in, simply include which species you are working with in the numerical fashion of 4.6.9 (4 males, 6 females, 9 unsexed/juveniles). Note, this survey is only including wild forms of Pheasants, Quail, Partridge, Tinamou, Grouse/Ptarmigan, Francolin, Cracids, Guineafowl, Turkeys, Peafowl, and Cranes.

 Survey Link: https://forms.gle/Z41VrwGkrwa312gF6

We are an Association of individuals who have an interest in pursuing and promoting the avocation of conservation of different types of birds such as pheasants, peafowl, quail, partridge, grouse, and other upland game birds as well as, cranes, junglefowl, curassows, and wild waterfowl which includes ducks, geese, and swans.

The goal of APWS is to disseminate information, guidance, assistance, and promotion of the avocation of raising wild species of birds through our official publication, the APWS magazine and at our annual convention.