From left, Ray Greenwood, John Lokemoen, Alan Sargeant and Arnold Kruse

A Candid Conversation with Legendary Researchers - Scientists Who Wrote the Book on the Breeding Grounds
Say Predators Play Key Role in Prairie Ecosystem

By Dan Nelson Editor

JAMESTOWN, N.D.—If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ever establishes a hall of fame for waterfowl researchers, don’t be surprised if they build it in Jamestown, North Dakota.  After all, many of the shoo-ins for induction already live here.

Their names are synonymous with waterfowl science: Ray Greenwood, John Lokemoen, Alan Sargeant, Arnold Kruse, Lewis Cowardin, Hal Kantrud and Forrest Lee.  From the mid-1960s to the late 1990s, they and their distinguished colleagues wrote the book—literally—on the prairie breeding grounds.  Pick up virtually any research paper on the duck factory and you’ll find their parenthesized names sprinkled liberally throughout the text and literature citations.  

They spent most of their careers in Jamestown—population 16,000—where they were members an elite team of researchers at the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, a then-Fish and Wildlife Service facility.  Northern Prairie was established in 1965 by Harvey Nelson, who hand-picked the staff and served as its first director.

Northern Prairie quickly became one of the premier waterfowl research facilities on the continent.   In addition to the retirees still living in Jamestown, Nelson’s all-star team included prolific researchers like George Swanson (now deceased), Harold Duebbert, Bob Stewart Sr. (deceased), Tom Klett (deceased), Leo Kirsch (deceased), Kenneth Higgins, Hal Doty, Charles Dane, Harvey Miller and others who worked at Northern Prairie just a few years.  Nelson and Duebbert were previously featured in this space.

When I learned the Jamestown members of the Northern Prairie gang still get together once a month, I finagled an invitation to join them for coffee, rolls and several hours of spirited conversation.  In attendance that morning were Sargeant, Kruse, Lokemoen and Greenwood.

It was not my intention to discuss the impact of predators, only to share with our readers the stories and insights of four trailblazing breeding grounds researchers.  It didn’t take long, however, to realize there was no side-stepping the predator issue. 

Greenwood set the tone for what proved to be a remarkably candid discussion when he told me the Northern Prairie team, “identified not only the need for habitat management, but the role predators play in the unstable prairie ecosystem.”

I suspect not everyone will agree with everything they told me, but none can deny they’ve earned the right to say it.

Delta:  What was it like working at Northern Prairie?

Kruse:  It was great. Everyone was focused on waterfowl and what its problems were and how we could find solutions.  Northern Prairie was “the” place for waterfowl science in the nation.

Sargeant:  We were as close to having academic freedom as you could find in any government agency.  We were blessed with a series of directors that let us do our work. We didn’t have to fight for our money, and that meant the biologists could do their jobs. I don’t know where you could find a better place.  Everyone was so dedicated.  It was outstanding.

Lokemoen:  We all learned from each other.  I learned about predators from Ray and Al, I learned about invertebrates from George, I learned about cover from Duebbert.  We talked it and talked it, and at night sometimes we’d have a beer and talk it some more.  We’d go over these things again and again. It was a great experience.

Greenwood:  It was a real stimulating place to work.  The conversations ranged across the gamut of waterfowl.  The coffee breaks sometimes went from 10 until noon talking about research.  That’s what kept the group so cohesive—the feeling of family.  I think the guys at this table, along with a few others who aren’t here, cracked our understanding of the prairie ecosystem.

Delta:  In listening to you talk, I sense a little frustration about where management has gone.  Are you frustrated that some of your research hasn’t been put to work raising ducks?

Sargeant:  If there’s one thing that’s frustrated all of us, it’s the impact of predator management.  Unless you have a bunch of scientists out there keeping it (predator management) on the table and talking about it, it isn’t going to get done.  When we were at Northern Prairie, we were giving papers, attending meetings and talking about it, so the issue was there all the time.  There’s nobody talking about the issue today.  If we were still out there, you’d still hear about predators.   

Kruse: And that’s a sorry state of affairs, because it’s a research center in the Prairie Pothole Region.

Sargeant:  Northern Prairie went from a waterfowl research center to the U.S. Geological Survey.  No longer is it the place that does the waterfowl research, so where are your voices?  We had a lot of credibility as scientists on these subjects.  We knew we had to have pretty good data to lay on the table.  People would argue and fight, but they’d listen. 

Lokemoen:  We published professionally and a lot of us put out semi-technical publications and we went to public meetings, but we weren’t in management, we were in research.  I always had this wild idea that if nest structures work, why don’t we get a machine that drills holes in the ice and put up 10,000 of the things?  If they’re a good deal—do it.  If an electric fence works, let’s get a machine and figure out a way we can put in 20 miles a day. Figure the cost and the things that are the cheapest to produce ducks, and let’s do them in a big way.  But I don’t know if people think that way today. 

Kruse:  I think one of the problems is that CRP has kind of lulled everybody a little bit…

Lokemoen: Yeah.

Kruse:  A lot.  The predator thing’s really going to stare us in the face again if we lose this CRP.  That’s not the whole answer, but it lulled people.

Greenwood: CRP and the return of water in 1993, I’d say those two things coincided and blew ducks right over the top. 

Sargeant:  And fox disappeared at the same time (mange and expanding coyote populations).    You say this research hasn’t been used, but the information has been used.  The work that Delta’s doing—a strong basis for that came out of Northern Prairie, and that is ongoing.  The emphasis on secure nesting cover, it never used to be talked about much, but it’s recognized now.  It’s still out there. I see in California they’re incorporating red fox into their management plan.             

The fact is, if you want to make the habitat work, you better think about some teeth. 

Delta:  It sounds like you guys were promoting predator management long before Delta. Was the concept any more popular back then?

Greenwood: Predator management was kind of on the “outs” before us too.  Before we came along, it was believed predators only took the sick and incompetent birds.  We found that wasn’t the case, that predators are a very important part of the ecosystem, preying on vulnerable breeding hens and ducklings.  We kept the pot stirred with new findings and new research.  It’s not really in vogue to kill, so I think the emphasis on predators has slid.  Predators are very difficult to manage. 

Lokemoen:  It’s always difficult when you want to kill one animal to defend another.  In a large agency like the Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies, it’s easier to take the easy way out.  Predator control may be a very powerful tool, but it’s better (safer) to do something else like buy potholes and plant cover, which are good things, but maybe we have to take the next step. 

Paul Harrington (a researcher from Iowa) really influenced our field for many years.  He never had any data, but he wrote against predator control right up to the very end.  Our whole philosophy was influenced by Harrington and a few people like him. 

Delta:  In your opinion, how important is it to control predator numbers during the breeding season?

Greenwood:  How many ducks do you want?  Do you just want to see them, or do you want some to shoot?   If you just want to see them, you don’t have to do anything.

Lokemoen:  Years ago Harvey Nelson participated in a study and learned that if you manage predators, you can produce ducks at a pretty high rate.  But I don’t think they ever did anything with that.  You guys are doing some work now on 10 or 12 sites.  You can’t change the whole world in a day, but you gotta do what you can do.

Delta: Why do you think predator control became so politically incorrect?

Sargeant:  I think bounties had a major impact on shaping the rhetoric that came out in the 1940s and ‘50s and up to the time I came to the center.  Bounties were a very sensitive issue and managers didn’t’ want them.  In an effort to squelch the bounties, they tended to make predators look a little better than they were—without data.  Fortuitously, fur prices came up at that time and that opened the door for us to start putting our data on the table.  What the data showed is there’s a big problem with predators out here.  That’s when we got into the issue of what to do about it. 

The problem has not gone away. Some of the players have changed—you go out and look for a fox track now and all you’ll find is coyotes—but there are still lots of things eating lots of other things out here.  The way I look at this is that you’ve gotta have the habitat, no question about that, but you gotta get down to the basics of “ducks out for the dollars in”.  John did some early work on this, and when you throw predator management in there, the dollars get cheaper.

Predator management works.  If you do a good job, nests will hatch.   You get rid of predators and things start to happen. Yes, it costs money to manage predators, but it costs money to pay taxes, it costs money to burn, it costs money just to start your truck and drive out to see if your habitat is in place and your fences are up.   If you’re gonna pump money in to do something with that habitat, crank it against what you’re gonna get out of it (in terms of ducks). 

Lokemoen:  With waterfowl, there are 30 or so days where the birds are vulnerable to the predators. If we can just release the pressure for those 30 or 40 days, it makes a big difference.

Kruse:  And all the predators, you can’t just concentrate on one.           

Sargeant: I think where the hackles go up, is where someone says, “Hey, if we put an electric fence we can raise more ducks than we can on 10 WPAs or a whole refuge.”  Then what happens is someone says, “Whoa, this means we don’t need all this habitat”, and then you get into a fight.  And that’s why the predator issue gets buried.   

Delta: I’d like to invite you all to tour one of our predator blocks next spring.  You’d be amazed by…

Sargeant: I don’t think we’d be amazed.

Delta: You might be amazed by the density of nests…

Lokemoen:  We know what will happen, yeah.  We know the birds will home strongly and the young will come back to the same areas. As soon as you’ve got a successful place…those birds are attracted to secure nesting sites…they’ll come from 100 square miles.  Maybe they cue on other birds coming and going.  Like some of our nesting islands, they had six or seven hundred nests on an acre. 

Kruse: Corn’s gone up a dollar a bushel over last year.  The ethanol plants are contracting out nine months in advance.  That means we’re going to be losing a lot of nesting cover…

Sargeant:  And that means is that not many years down the road we’re back to the situation of very limited habitat.  We’ve been blessed with CRP for quite a few years, but now what are we going to do for ducks?  You’re back to the isolated WPAs and the isolated…

Kruse: Little islands of nesting cover. 

Sargeant: But that’s the reality, so you’re either going to do intensive management or ducks are going to take it in the shorts.    

Delta: How has hunting changed over the years?

Greenwood: We used to hunt pretty much the whole state.  We could go up to the northwest part of the state and find a couple big flocks of mallards in every township.  The last few times I hunted up there we were driving a couple hundred miles a day and we weren’t finding the numbers.  I think bird numbers are way, way down.  Their composition has changed too.  We used to shoot a lot of mallards and pintails, but now the late-nesting birds like gadwalls are more prevalent. 

Lokemoen:  I remember seeing a lot of birds in the ‘60s, more than I’ve seen since.  I don’t see many pintails around at all.  But Al’s the duck hunter.

Sargeant:  Ducks are my passion.  I grew up in Minnesota, and ducks were scarce there even when I was a kid.  Coming here in 1967, it was like I’d died and gone to heaven.  I’d never seen anything like this.  There have been some real ups and downs since then.

The peak hunting I’ve personally run into was the early ‘90s when the water came back. I’ve got records of my hunts that go back to when I started, and that would have been the best. It’s really changed, though, in the last few years. There are people (hunters) everywhere out there now.  With more people comes the posting and the harassment of birds, and it’s getting severe.

The last couple of years I haven’t seen the mallards.  I don’t believe they’re here, and when I say here, I mean I don’t believe they’re in the flyway.

Greenwood: I don’t either.

Sargeant: You just can’t find the concentrations…you just don’t see the fall flight when the snow comes, and I’m out there to the last day.  They just haven’t been here. And you’re still allowed to shoot a whole bunch.  We’ve heard about large concentrations of mallards in northern Saskatchewan—well that used to be real common everywhere. You could find that real regular here during the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s—you could go out and find a group of five to ten thousand mallards on a marsh.  Now you rarely see that.  I never saw it this fall. 

Greenwood:  Take that robo duck and all those things.  They’re increasing the take and they’re wonderful, but they create an artificial edge.  There are some communities here in North Dakota, and around the country building their economies around duck hunting.  If you’re going to do that, you have to do something serious (to produce more ducks) or you aren’t going to have any income. 

I think promoting hunting that way is a disservice.  I don’t hunt ducks anymore—my body just can’t take it—but I wouldn’t hunt them even if I could.

Sargeant:  One thing I think gets forgotten in this whole thing is the recreation.   There’s really no reason to have a very large bag limit. There’s nothing wrong with not shooting the last duck it might be possible to shoot and maintain a population.  If a guy likes the robo duck—fine—but to use the robo duck to shoot five mallards every day, maybe that’s getting a little bit excessive.

As I get a little bit older, I get a bit cynical about the sport.  It looks to me like it’s becoming a sport of the rich at the expense of the average guy and the kid who can have some fun learning to do it.  And I ask myself, why are we subsidizing a sport of the rich?  Who’s really getting the benefit of it?  The land gets locked up and the rich people get it.  The birds go south where they get shot by the folks with lots of money, while everybody else gets a poor experience so they don’t go and you start losing your hunters.  Somehow we have to get our youth back in it by making it a fun experience.  I don’t see that many kids any more, it’s really rare now. We’re losing them.             

Kruse: The writing is on the wall.  You’ve got a lot of people who don’t come from a duck hunting tradition, you’ve got a lot of single-parent households, so the hunting tradition—I think—is falling by the wayside. And as more people move to big cities, we get more states that vote against hunting anything.  The public getting away from the hunting tradition—that one of the big problems we have.

Lokemoen:  We hunt 4,000 acres right in the heart of the best duck country, and I don’t see that many mallards any more.   (To Sargeant:) Do you shoot many mallards?

Sargeant:  I shoot all I want, but what I want is about 20 a year.  I want to hunt every day I can.  Lots of days I’ll sit all day for one shot at a mallard.  I’m real content with that now. 

Kruse:   When I first came here we had some excellent hunting.  We could go out and target a limit of drake canvasbacks or drake redheads or drake mallards, and you could do that. You can’t do that much anymore.

Sargeant:  Ducks are here forever.  Hunting is probably here forever.  But having a bag limit of three mallards or four mallards as opposed to one mallard or two mallards; how much of that surplus do you want to harvest?