Stable isotope data from American Black Duck feathers (n = 665) and associated harvest data. The first primary feather (P1) was collected from wings submitted to the Species Composition Survey in Canada and Parts Collection Survey in the United States. From available feathers, we selected individuals for stable-isotope analysis stratified by black duck conservation region, sex, age, and date of harvest, where possible. These data are those that were selected for stable-hydrogen isotope analysis. See Kusack et al. (in press) - 'Origins of harvested American black ducks: stable isotopes support the flyover hypothesis' for additional information on our use of this data.

The first primary feather (P1) was collected from wings submitted to the Species Composition Survey in Canada and Parts Collection Survey in the United States. All individuals were assigned a species identity, age, and sex, if possible, by trained waterfowl biologists. They were also assigned a date and location of harvest as provided by the hunter. Individuals were assigned to a region of harvest based on (a) the provided latitude and longitude of harvest (or the listed province when missing latitude and longitude) for feathers obtained from the Species Composition Survey, and (b) county of harvest, for feathers obtained from the Parts Collection Survey. In the few cases (n = 43) where the county spanned two conservation regions, we assigned the individual to the conservation region within which the county centroid fell. Feathers were processed for δ2H and δ13C at the University of Western Ontario’s Laboratory for Stable Isotope Science Advanced Facility for Avian Research (LSIS-AFAR) laboratory (London, ON, Canada) and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Isotope Lab (COIL; Ithaca, NY, USA). All feathers were processed for δ2H. All feathers from adults were processed for δ13C, but only a subset of samples from juveniles (n = 90 randomly selected) was processed for δ13C.