It is a bird of freshwater habitats in fairly open country and feeds by dabbling for plant food mainly in the evening or at night.

[4] Like most other waterfowl, yellow-billed ducks undergo a molting process in which they lose all flight feathers at one time leaving them flightless for three to four weeks.

This suggests that the mobility of partially molted yellow-billed ducks is greater than other waterfowl, allowing them to effectively gather food even before the new flight feathers are fully developed.

[5] While yellow-billed ducks are protected by the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds Agreement, the species can be hunted as long as lead shot is not used.

[3] In the mid-20th century, mallards were introduced to Africa and as the invasive population size has grown, concerns over possible hybridization with the yellow-billed duck have occurred.

This fear is fueled by other examples of invasive mallards causing localized extinction of other native ducks around the world because of hybridization.

Two recent (2019 and 2020) DNA sequencing studies reached opposite conclusions on if hybridization between mallards and yellow-billed ducks is happening.

[10][8] Nevertheless, scientists agree that changes to the gene pool of yellow-billed ducks from possible hybridization, even in the long term, is likely to be negligible.