Conservation Status
Although a species of least concern, the Mexican Duck is undergoing a slow but marked decline due to destruction of habitat and overhunting. It hybridizes with Mallards which are better-adapted to utilizing habitat altered by human activity and thus are spreading throughout this range. Concern has been expressed that this combination of factors may ultimately lead to the disappearance of the Mexican Duck as a recognizable taxonomic entity (Rhymer & Simberloff 1996, McCracken et al. 2001, Rhymer 2006), but fairly limited measures such as wetland preservation and preferential hunting of drake mallards would prevent this. The Mexican Duck was listed as endangered species at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1967 but was removed in 1978.
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