Kentucky sources, scope and withheld records

Accepted first-release subset

Only 2025–26 regular-date observations whose numeric blind sums, printed totals and separate area logs agree on both birds and reported hunters are accepted. December 26–28 is withheld for both WMAs because weekday labels conflict with the date ranges. Special-hunt dates and missing cells are outside this release.

• Ballard WMA: 293 location-day pairs, 27 exact reported labels, 24 overlapping area days; 2025-12-10 through 2026-01-31 with gaps. Included subset totals: 802 birds and 923 reported hunter visits.
• Boatwright WMA: 636 location-day pairs, 41 exact reported labels, 29 overlapping area days; 2025-11-28 through 2026-01-31 with gaps. Included subset totals: 908 birds and 1717 reported hunter visits.

These are source-consistent subset totals, not complete-season totals. All area-day and location-day observations overlap and must never be added. The whole-season source archive retains the excluded records privately for review.

Original reports and fingerprints

Original reports were saved from the official index’s browser file controls on October 30, 2026. Original PDFs are retained privately and not redistributed. Source revision times are unknown.

Official report index. The indexed archive does not establish that older or unlisted agency records do not exist.

Checks and unresolved source disagreements

Independent geometric PDF extraction matched all 4,381 source blind cells, 90 area-day rows, 86 date columns and 86 printed totals against the original browser transcription. All 26 pages were rendered and visually reviewed for layout, headers, missing-cell placement and source-family grouping; discrepancy pages received closer inspection. Machine agreement is an extraction check, not evidence that the agency’s conflicting totals are correct.

Ballard December 7: visible numeric cells sum to 19 birds / 49 hunters; the printed blind total says 19 / 47; the area log reports 19 ducks / 48 total hunters. All values remain unchanged in the private audit and the date is excluded here.

The two blind reports print Thursday/Friday/Saturday beneath December 26–28, 2025, although the calendar dates are Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Both date ranges are withheld. There are 23 source-conflicting area dates before accounting for overlap with the six weekday issues; in total, 27 area/date combinations are held from numeric comparisons.

Boatwright’s December 7 blind-type subtable contains a genuinely blank Canada-geese cell. It remains null, not zero. All blind-type subtables are outside this release and are not added to area totals.

Definitions that constrain the experience

• Generic birds killed; not duck-only at blind level.
• Sum of source-reported hunters on observed location/date or area/date. Not unique people, parties or hours.
• Dash and blank are not numeric zero, closure or no-use observations. Missing rows never enter rate denominators.
• Exact reported labels; no alias merges, coordinates or spatial continuity claim.
• Area-day and location-day families overlap and must never be added.
• Explicit source ranges independently checked; both WMAs December 26-28 withheld because source weekdays disagree.
• November 22-23 and February 8/14 withheld from the first regular-date release.
• A source-consistent subset, not full season totals, statewide coverage or a forecast. Source agreement does not establish equal access or hunting conditions.

Unresolved alias continuity, exact blind species allocation, unique-person effort, unlisted-date meaning and current access are not inferred. Ground counts, standby details and parties turned away do not enter harvest or productivity rates. Weather associations are future enrichment only.

Release status

Limited Kentucky preview for the accepted source-consistent subset. Coverage gaps and held records remain excluded. Noindex remains.

Accepted compilation fingerprint: 8a7557198e2b57d74738ad14344ac13ec5587fe13a0dab525f8426fb0ec809a2. Return to comparisons.