Silent Fall - Will this be the Year that Causes Positive Change?
By John Devney Vice President Communications and Marketing

In 1962 Rachel Carson authored Silent Spring, a treatise on the state of our environment.  Some viewed Silent Spring as a wake up call to the ills of our planet, while others saw it as a knee-jerk environmentalist manifesto full of ideological gobbly goop.

But what Carson accomplished was a rebirth of the conservation movement which instilled remedial measures like the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other actions aimed at improving our natural resources.  The book defined a problem, demanded action and prompted solutions.

This winter my Delta cohorts and I have again been inundated by calls from  hunters across the flyways searching for concentrations of migrating ducks.  Hunters frequenting Internet chat rooms and outdoor writers are pondering the same question: “Where are the ducks.”

Unlike recent years, this was not just a southern duck hunter’s problem. Minnesota, home of the largest duck hunting community in the United States, is howling, as are their neighbors in Wisconsin and Iowa.  Reports from the Dakotas and prairie Canada, traditionally hotbeds of waterfowling even in the leanest of years, are only slightly better. And in the mid-latitude states—while richer in terms of ducks than other areas according to surveys—positive reports were few and far between.

In recent years much has been made of mild winters, with hunters, biologists and waterfowl managers claiming the ducks are “all up north.”  While mild winters certainly haven’t helped the situation in the recent past, deep-reaching cold fronts resulting in sub-freezing conditions, ice and snow in the southernmost reaches of the country should knock a hole in the shortstopping hypothesis.

The 2004-05 hunting season should be the one to finally jolt hunters into the awareness that we indeed have a duck problem. No longer will hunters listen blindly to assertions that the birds are simply not where you are. This silent fall may be the one to create positive change.

The difficulties in finding the silver bullet to cure the longing for birds over decoys are daunting.  Hunting pressure is emerging as an issue, with long seasons, season extensions, high bags and other elements possibly causing our flocks to be warier than the past. 

Weather patterns and local habitat conditions will impact what hunters see overhead, but all these issues and the myriad of others cited for poor seasons rank well behind the size of the fall flight in contributing to hunting success or failure.

Delta Waterfowl has repeatedly reported on the steady productivity decline on the prairie breeding grounds. Given this loss of productivity, coupled with poorer wetland conditions and largely average populations, hunters should not expect large flights and grand success.

The question is when will waterfowlers and waterfowl management acknowledge the problem and step forward boldly to intervene?  The data is more than compelling—it is a slap in the face illustrating the problem.  Despite a huge investment aimed at increasing duck production, nest success has declined and wetland and grassland losses continue in key areas like prairie Canada.

We need to do more.

We need to do better.

I think many are fearful that the status quo is all we can expect.  I am much more optimistic, but before change can occur, we need to wake up from our haze and acknowledge the problems, identify solutions and put our dollars and collective inertia to work on the ground. 

We need to leverage all organizational strengths, whether the task is wetland or grassland conservation, policy reform that can lead to improved habitat or intensive management like predator removal, Hen Houses and other tools. 

Ducks aren’t going to go extinct, but that shouldn’t be our measuring stick for success. We need to do better to ensure the only client of waterfowl management—the duck hunter—is receiving a handsome dividend for his tremendous investment. 

Here at Delta, we are ready to boldly chart a new course for waterfowl and waterfowl hunting. 

The question is, “who is willing to help us achieve that goal”?

The question is “will this fall be the one that starts us down the path”?