The reason they do it is because they are a migratory bird. The fish and wildlife service or the feds as some people call them, grant states the ability to open "early and late" seasons based on the population status. They do not open for a straight season so they can better regulate harvest. Here in the pot hole region we have early goose but other than that duck is a sraight season. The reason for this is that we raise the ducks (through nesting). Thus we need to manage them so they do not get overpopulated. On the mississippi an Atlantic flyways waterfowl numbers are down, so the states in that flyway have more strict regs. Those regs however have very little effect on populations. So to answer your question it is hard to know why they make it so difficult. The flyway committes often do not have the power or authority to help the feds make changes.