It’s Time to Focus Our Dollars On the Breeding Grounds
Most NAWCA Dollars Spent Outside the PPR

Duck hunters who’d like to see more mallards circling their decoys should ponder the following facts:

Fact No. 1: More than half of all the ducks on the continent originate in the prairie pothole region (PPR).

Fact No.2: Of all the dollars provided by the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) for conservation work in the United States, less than 10 percent has gone to the prairie breeding grounds.

You read that right. Less than ten percent of the dollars provided by NAWCA have been spent in the region that produces half the ducks.

Hunters who responded to the second fact with gulps, gasps or groans aren’t alone. A number of waterfowl managers across the pothole region reacted the same way. Harvey Nelson, the author of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP), was at a loss for words.

Let’s take a closer look at the numbers. Each spring the two Dakotas and eastern Montana attract upwards to 60 percent of the ducks that nest in the lower 48 states.

Of all the ducks killed in Arkansas and Louisiana in the ‘90s, close to 30 percent came from the US side of the pothole region.

Here’s another interesting fact: According to study conducted by Steven Hoekman, variations in the mallard population growth rate are determined by nest success (43 percent), survival of adult females (19 percent) and duckling survival (14 percent). In other words, when mallard numbers go up or down, 90 percent of that swing is a direct response to what happened or didn’t happen on the prairies during the breeding season.

The birds aren’t dying in great numbers on the molting waters, they aren’t falling out of the sky along the migration route and they aren’t starving on the wintering grounds. The bottleneck exists on the breeding grounds.

Yet according to the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, of the $349 million in NAWCA funds approved through January of 2004, only $29.6 million—a mere 8.5 percent—was spent in the Dakotas and Montana.

That figure goes to 8.8 percent if a project on the Minnesota-South Dakota border is included in the pothole region totals. The rest of those dollars have been spent outside the breeding grounds, increasingly on projects that have little or no impact on ducks or duck production.

By contrast, 70 percent of all NAWCA dollars spent in Canada are invested in the three prairie provinces, and 50 percent of all duck stamp dollars in the US go directly to the PPR.

“It’s good to be conserving habitat continent-wide,” says Delta President Rob Olson, “but the Dakotas and eastern Montana have some of the best duck breeding habitat left on the continent. The pothole region should be a high priority for NAWCA and all of waterfowl management.”

What Is NAWCA?

In 1986 the governments of the United States and Canada ratified NAWMP, an exhaustive blueprint for increasing waterfowl populations (see profile of Nelson in Bulletin Board section).

One of the most ambitious wildlife management plans ever devised, NAWMP had everything—except funding.

Thanks in part to Nelson’s efforts, NAWMP received funding in 1989 when Congress approved NAWCA. That’s the good news. The bad news—at least for ducks and duck hunters—is that NAWCA dollars must be matched 50-50 by dollars from non-government sources.

Matching Funds Tough to Find

The problem, Olson says, is that non-government match is hard to find in the sparsely populated Dakotas.

“I’m constantly beating on the NAWCA guys for more money on the prairies,” says Lloyd Jones of the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Bismarck, ND. “They always tell me that every project ever proposed for the pothole region has been funded, that we have a 100 percent approval record, and they’re right. We just can’t come up with enough match.”

As a result, most NAWCA dollars wind up in states that can produce the matching dollars. Maryland ($12 million), New Jersey ($7.5 million) and Virginia ($8.6 million) have received more NAWCA dollars than the $5.9 million approved for South Dakota.

North Dakota’s $17.6 million is a little more than half the $33.3 million approved for California and similar to what’s been spent in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“The pothole region isn’t getting a very big piece of the pie,” admits Ken Sambor, who sits on the North American Wetlands Conservations Council’s Coordinator Staff. “On the other hand, the pie has been getting increasingly bigger, and part of the reason is that we have a lot of other interests lobbying Congress for more money.

“If it weren’t for that broad base of support, NAWCA might not be funded at its current levels. So while the Dakotas are still getting a small percentage of the pie, the slices are getting bigger.”

Despite this catch-22, Sambor—who works for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department—agrees the breeding grounds deserve a higher level of funding. “I think 25 to 33 percent should be coming here,” he says. “Anything beyond that and there could be a political backlash from other regions and other interests, but if you consider the original goals of the North American Plan, 25 to 33 percent doesn’t seem unreasonable.”

NAWCA grants are not funded with duck hunters’ dollars, but in many cases the non-government match is provided by “duck dollars”.

Most hunters would probably agree that spending a third of all NAWCA dollars in an area accounts for half the US mallard production would be very reasonable.

The question is “how do we get it done?”

Possible Solutions

Sambor says there are several possible approaches to raising the necessary match to fund projects on the pothole region. “One is for the harvest states to help out with breeding habitat by sending some cash to the pothole region,” he says. “But having said that, you can understand why state agencies might not want to spend their money in other states (when there’s so much to do at home).

“Another possibility is for other states to use expenditures for projects in their states as in-kind match for projects on the breeding grounds.” In other words, a piece of property purchased in another state could be used as match for a grassland easement in the Dakotas.

“The other opportunity,” says Sambor, “would require conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited, Delta and The Nature Conservancy to shift their resources to provide the necessary match by spending more money here—to bring their money to the problem.

“But I won’t presume to tell anyone in the conservation community how to do business,” Sambor adds. “I’m just a state employee I don’t know what it takes to survive out there in the competitive world of fund-raising.”

South Dakota’s John Cooper, vice-chair of the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (the body that makes funding decisions), says, “If there’s a handy source of match out there, we haven’t found it. I’d like to see DU work with the various state agencies to try to educate sportsmen as to the importance of the prairie pothole region. There’s no more worthy cause than the Dakotas and Montana.”

Cooper and Sambor agree that convincing state agencies, hunters, major donors and corporations to contribute money for projects outside their borders will require a lot of education.

“We have to convince a lot of knowledgeable people that’s we’re not getting enough money on the prairies,” says Sambor.

Put Our Money Where the Ducks Are

“The original intent of NAWCA was to provide funding to help us achieve the waterfowl population goals established by NAWMP,” says Olson, “and the best place to significantly impact duck production is the prairie breeding grounds.

“Habitat is important everywhere, but don’t duck hunters have a right to expect that at least a third of the dollars they provide are being used to actually increase duck production?

“Unless hunters are content to experience great hunting only when we get the prolonged wet cycles that come along every other decade, those are the questions hunters need to be asking themselves.

“I hope sportsmen will go to bat for the prairies by telling their state agencies to send some money up here for match, or to use projects in their own state as match.”