Charting a New Course for Waterfowl Management – Part II

A Plan of Action To Achieve our Goals

By Rob Olson - President Delta Waterfowl

As I write this piece I’m looking out a window of Delta’s Canadian office in Manitoba’s Delta Marsh, a magical place known in waterfowl circles simply as “the marsh”.

Just 20 feet away, mallards are playing out the age-old breeding ritual.  Half a dozen drake pintails, dressed in their Sunday-go-a-courting plumage, chase a lone hen over the marsh.  The grounds are over-run with fuzzy yellow goslings and the noisy parents.

Watching these scenes unfold, I can almost imagine Al Hochbaum, Delta’s first scientific director, consulting with his mentor Aldo Leopold; or legendary writer Jimmy Robinson, who had a hunting camp near here, talking about ducks and duck hunting with Clark Gable or one of his other famous guests.

I can’t help but wonder what Hochbaum, Leopold, Robinson and the other pioneers in the world of waterfowling might say if they could see the challenges facing ducks today.

I have to think they’d roll up their sleeves and say, “Folks, we have a lot of work to do.  We better get started.”

And that’s exactly what those of us walking in the long shadows of those giants plan to do.  We’re rolling up our sleeves and going to work for ducks and duck hunters. 

Here’s some of what we’re up against: We have too little grass and wetland habitat for our breeding waterfowl; too many egg- and hen-eating predators, and too little money coming to the breeding grounds to address those problems.

And if that’s not daunting enough, we need to change how the money that does get to the breeding grounds is spent.

Whew. That’s a tall order.

Delta described its vision for the future of waterfowl management in the last issue of the magazine, but a vision can’t become reality without a plan of action.

Here’s our plan:

Getting More Money to the Prairie Pothole Region

According to a study by Steven Hoekman, 80 percent of the annual variation in the duck production is explained by factors on the breeding ground—nest success (43 percent), hen survival (19) percent and duckling survival (14 percent) are the most significant.

The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) is the funding tool for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP). NAWCA is one of the few funding sources for ducks.

Unfortunately, only 8.5 percent of all NAWCA dollars spent in the US have gotten to the Dakotas and Montana, the three states where the last of the great US waterfowl habitat exists, and where over half the duck production on the U.S. side of the border occurs. Add Minnesota and Iowa into the equation the figure increases to a little over 14 percent. Any way you slice it, if we want more ducks we must find ways to get more money to the prairies.

But how?

It’s your Plan--Get Involved

Ratified in 1986, NAWMP was an unprecedented collaboration of waterfowl interests.  Its goal was to restore the productivity of the prairies to 1970s levels.

It’s important to understand that you, the duck hunter, were the principal client of the plan. It is your plan.

Delta doesn’t believe that NAWMP has yet achieved its ambitious goals, and needs to be re-directed to ensure a high chance of success in the future.

Make no mistake: NAWMP is our best chance for success in waterfowl conservation on this continent. The plan provides the only structured forum and process allowing Delta, Ducks Unlimited and other non-government organizations to work with state and federal agencies to discuss the future for waterfowl management with a common goal of doing the best things for the ducks.

One change everyone should endorse is finding a way to get more of the NAWCA dollars to the prairies, and duck hunters can help achieve that goal.

NAWCA works by providing one federal dollar for every non-federal dollar duck hunters raise for conservation.  Imagine what might happen if duck hunters decided to direct their contributions to the prairies.

That’s what we’re hoping hunters will do—ask the conservation organizations they support to send their money to the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) where it can be put to work raising ducks. 

It’s human nature for people to want their fund-raising efforts to benefit habitat in their own backyard, but the best duck club or backyard marsh in the world doesn’t provide quality hunting opportunities unless we produce the ducks at this end of the flyways.

That’s why we need to re-focus our dollars and energies on the breeding grounds. Duck hunters can lead this change by speaking with their dollars and time.

Building a Bigger Haystack

In the 1990s Ron Reynolds of the US Fish and Wildlife Service identified the “habitat threshold”.  What Reynolds found was that for nest success to increase above the 15 percent necessary to maintain the existing population, 40 percent of the landscape must contain grass nesting cover.  Large blocks of nesting cover buffers hens and nests from predators.

In other words, a nesting hen must be a “needle in a haystack” for marauding predators.

We’ve made some significant progress in our efforts to build a bigger haystack. The 500,000 acres of habitat protected by the USFWS through the federal duck stamp program is an incredible accomplishment. 

But we still have a long, long way to go.

Farmers Are Talking, Is Anybody Listening?

Over the last 10 years farmers and ranchers across the PPR duck factory have becoming increasingly disillusioned with traditional habitat-conservation practices. Land purchases by wildlife conservation groups have fallen from favor with many producers.

Saskatchewan farmers have imposed an informal moratorium on the purchase of land by waterfowl conservation groups. Counties in North Dakota have placed caps on the acreages of easements they will allow. Counties in north-central North Dakota are currently discussing the enactment of no-net-gain local bylaws to freeze the purchase of wildlife habitat.

Fortunately, there are some areas—the Missouri Coteau is a good example—where producers are supportive of conservation easements, but these areas are becoming increasingly rare.

This resentment is a social and political reality wildlife managers can no longer afford to ignore.

Farmers are understandably concerned about the profitability of their own farms. To survive they must get bigger, but when land in their area is purchased by wildlife groups, farmers see them as competitors.

Farmers also are concerned about the viability of their towns and communities, and believe that if too much land is idled for habitat there won’t be enough farm families left to support local businesses.

Although waterfowl conservationists are quite knowledgeable about waterfowl ecology, many seem largely uninformed about the attitudes of farmers. But we cannot achieve our waterfowl production goals without the support of rural America.  Why?  Because 90 percent of the ducks breeding in the pothole region are produced on private  land.

Delta believes it’s time to seriously investigate farmers’ motivations and perceptions of conservation. To that end, we are committed to focusing our research program on surveying farmers to fully understand their concerns and provide solutions that producers will accept. Conserving habitat conservation through the creation of favorable agricultural policy is our best chance of building a big enough haystack.

For example, we’re currently working on a CRP-like program for Canada called Alternative Land Use Services (ALUS).  ALUS is a unique program in that a waterfowl group (Delta Waterfowl) is working with a farm group (Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers) to develop a landscape conservation plan together. Because of this up-front partnership, ALUS is gaining momentum with other Canadian farm groups and with Canadian federal and provincial governments.

For many duck hunters, ag policy may seem like some abstract concept. But consider this: An act of Congress—the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)—put more grass on the ground than 70 years of work by all conservation groups combined.  In fact, CRP is the biggest reason we had the strong fall flights of the late ‘90s. 

CRP is set to be renewed in 2007, and Delta plans to make its renewal a top priority for the next two years. (To understand the threats to CRP, see related article in this issue.)

Once again, we need duck hunters’ help to get the job done.

Significant habitat gains have been made by wildlife groups, particularly in the US.  Over 30 percent of the vulnerable wetlands in the Dakotas have already been permanently protected by the Federal Small Wetlands Acquisition Program, paid for by federal duck stamps. However, we fear that much of the low-hanging fruit has already been captured.

Across much of the PPR (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, eastern ND), permanently protecting habitat in agricultural areas is becoming increasingly difficult. Fish and Wildlife, Pheasants Forever, Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation and Ducks Unlimited are working hard on the habitat front, but we still have a long way to go.

We predict that agricultural policy initiatives such as CRP in the US and ALUS in Canada will emerge as principal habitat conservation tools for the new millennium. Likewise, we feel that intensive management tools such as predator management, Hen Houses and others will emerge as important programs in the waterfowl manager’s toolbox.

Because fewer groups are focused on agricultural policy and intensive management, Delta will focus its resources in these arenas.

You, The Waterfowl Fund Manager

Imagine that you were chosen to decide how the collective waterfowl management dollars on this continent were to be spent. How much would you allocate to direct habitat securement by conservation groups and government? How much would you spend working with government to achieve and maintain landscape level habitat programs like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)? How much would you direct towards intensive management techniques such as Predator Management and Hen Houses?

The answer is not simple by any means. The answer will only come from a very open discussion among waterfowl management interests – the USFWS, the flyway councils, the states, and organizations such as Delta and DU.

Delta believes the current mix of waterfowl investments should be reconfigured.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Delta Waterfowl will embark on an unprecedented campaign over the next three years to achieve positive change within waterfowl management. We believe new challenges are facing waterfowl conservation and must be met with creativity and passion.

In summary, Delta believes we must:

>Focus spending on the prairies where the problems are;

>Reduce reliance on direct habitat securement by wildlife groups and spend more resources on farmer-friendly agricultural programs such as CRP and ALUS;

>Increase our focus on intensive management techniques in areas where we can’t get enough habitat secured in the short-term.

Delta is committed to working intensively with all levels of government and other conservation groups over the next 36 months to discuss our views and vision. Change will not come easy and leadership is often painful. However, our legacy at Delta Waterfowl is to embrace challenges and to take on tough issues.

To be effective in our work we need duck hunters’ help. We need you to answer the call for action that will be coming in the next 36 months.

We need you to sign up your friends as members so they can read our publication and become informed about the issues. We need you to organize local chapters to raise funds, and provide us with opportunities to speak to waterfowlers in your area. We are committed to doing the best thing for ducks and for duck hunters no matter what it takes.

We really do need you and you need us.