In MD all raised wildfowl are supposed to be distinguished from wild birds by having one rear toe removed and should also be banded so they can track where they were raised in case of disease outbreak. At least those were the rules several years ago when I had a RSA.
I had impounded about thirty acres, flooded it and was trying to grow both catfish and Crawfish as a cash crop. Then in the Fall we were going to release several hundred Mallards with the plan to harvest them and many other which were being released in the area. What I got was a lot of well fed oseprey and eagles eating my catfish. Then the ratcoons and mink feasted on the crawfish. An early freeze did not help shooting ducks until we put out ice eaters. Then that worked out well for us. The Game wardens checked every bird we shot to see if the bands were ours and not state bands which would count as "wild" birds in the bag limit. The down side was constant state supervision in the RSA meant you did not dare shoot a single bird you were not suspend. Hard thing when we had Black Ducks constantly landing in the decoys after we had our limit of them. And feeding our birds to keep them coming back such that we did not bait wild birds was a nightmare. Glad I got out of that mess. By the way we only used nontoxic shot because we would also shoot wild birds in season. I guess if I were going to use a Punt gun I'd yes Bismuth shot but there better not be any Bkack Ducks in those Mallards.
. MD is a pain to hunt in regulation wise.
