Chairman's Message:
Taking and Putting Back

One of the reasons I live in North Dakota is to enjoy both of our duck seasons. The fall, with all of its sights, sounds and memories of harvest, dominates our psyche as hunters

In spring, as the breeding pairs return and the three-bird territorial flights begin on the prairies, there is another time of excitement and anticipation. As I head out to my favorite piece of the pothole country, my thoughts are full of planting, moving water and the physical work involved in fostering another year of duck nesting, rearing and fledging broods

I never thought much about how these two seasons are so intertwined until I became involved in Delta Waterfowl. I took it for granted, as many hunters do, that with the privilege of harvest comes the responsibility and the reward of putting something back for the ducks.

You don’t need spend much time at Delta’s headquarters on the Delta Marsh before you sense this ingrained cycle of taking and putting back. The gearing up of the spring research teams, the readying of quads last seen during the fall youth hunts, the excited conversations about duck biology in the hunting lodge that now serves as lodging.

Delta’s origins lie in James Ford Bell’s stated goal of putting back two birds into the marsh for every one harvested, and his experimentation with a hatchery that began the Delta journey.

The hatchery did not achieve its goal of restoring birds to the marsh, but it did serve a greater purpose of beginning a search for management tools that allow duck hunters to directly contribute to the fall flight. The strategy underlying Delta’s Duck Production Program reflects our current state of knowledge based on that long history of research.

In the many areas of the breeding grounds where we are unable to reach the habitat threshold through policy efforts, the use of Hen Houses and predator management is the best way to raise ducks. Further, it is appropriate and important that financial support from duck hunters is directed to these efforts.

There is a value to these direct management practices that transcends their effect on the fall flight. Allowing hunters to contribute directly to management efforts that produce ducks is an important part of our fulfillment. When a hunter puts out a wood duck box, there is a connection being made to the fall mornings over the blocks, a sense of repaying a debt of gratitude for the privilege of harvest. As my friend (and Delta’s Vice President) Bob Bailey says, it is also a way in which hunters resolve the dissonance of taking.

In a broader sense, participating in waterfowl management is something that all hunters need to take seriously, since it is this association with stewardship that gives rise to much of the public support for hunting within the silent majority. Hunters are known for putting back—we are justifiably proud of it—and in doing so contribute to the perpetuation of the lifestyle we enjoy.

There will always be those who disparage this work as simple self-interest. Many of the messages we hear from animal-rights activists are aimed at discrediting this connection, denying this linkage of life and death. They don’t get it because they don’t care to understand what hunters intuitively know: That we shoulder a much greater responsibility the moment we head out into the field or marsh.

I hope you enjoy putting back as much as I do, and take pride in contributing in some way to the flights we all enjoy in the fall. It is important, for the future of both ducks and duck hunting.

Thomas P. Hutchens, MD
Chairman, DWF