I’d guess there are a lot more Giant Canadas, as well as lesser and greater snow geese, the latter two due to agriculture.
In the Missouri bootheel alone there was something like 2.4 millions acres of native wetlands drained. That’s just in one small corner of one state. There no way agriculture that is only sometimes beneficial to waterfowl can replace that much native habitat.
There weren't enough ducks at Jamestown Island when the pilgrims landed to make a gumbo. Hundreds of years later...still no gumbo!
It was different back then. Market hunting was done by my relatives in Hyde County. Canada Goose capital of the world in the 30’s and 40’s. Plenty of mallards and canvasbacks were pictured as well.
Being a market hunter on the Chesapeake Bay or a member of the landed gentry in the ACE basin back in their hay days would have been a helluva time.