Saving Ducks One 'Fisher Dish' at a Time
Delta Easement Program Protecting Critical Wetlands

Al Hochbaum, the man who launched Delta Waterfowl's research program, was one of the first to recognize the critical importance of small wetlands for nesting ducks. Sixty years later Jim Fisher is carrying on the fight to protect these all-important little wet spots.

Back in the 1940s Al Hochbaum had an epiphany. Years of observing waterfowl on the breeding grounds convinced him that nesting ducks need small wetlands, not the big marshes that had been the focus of conservationists since the Dirty '30s.

Hochbaum's belief went against the grain of conventional thinking, but the evidence was too compelling to ignore: Then, as now, ducks returning to the breeding grounds keyed on the inconspicuous little wet spots that pepper the prairie landscape.

By the 1960s, Hochbaum had become an outspoken advocate of small wetlands, and he campaigned for their protection until the time of his death in the 1980s. This is the story of Delta Biologist Jim Fisher, who took up the cause where Hochbaum left off.

By Dan Nelson
Editor

Developers curse them. The courts consistently rule against them. Tractors get stuck in them. Congress is always looking for excuses to drain them.

Even the grand poobah of a prominent conservation organization dis'ed small wetlands, calling them "bathtubs".

Ouch.

Is there no one with a kind word for these little prairie puddles?

If ducks could talk they'd tell us that when it comes to wetlands, good things come in small packages. Scientists call them seasonal and temporary wetlands, and while they don't look like much to us, they're the engines that power the duck factory.

Ducks can't talk, of course, but Jim Fisher can, and for much of the last 20 years the director of Delta Waterfowl's conservation programs has been telling everyone who would listen about the need to protect small wetlands.

When Jim proposed taking perpetual easements on temporary wetlands in Manitoba, he got a healthy dose of good-natured ribbing from his buddies at the Manitoba Habitat Heritage Corporation, who mockingly dubbed them "Fisher Dishes".

They didn't understand the importance of temporary wetlands.

They do now. In fact, MHHC has become Delta's enthusiastic partner in Adopt a Pothole, also known as Potholes Plus, and together they've turned it into the largest wetland easement program in prairie Canada. Heading into 2007 the program had 180 landowner agreements that permanently protect 25,000 acres of seasonal, temporary and semi-permanent wetlands.

That's a pretty remarkable accomplishment given the fact that the program has received roughly 2 percent of money spent by the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture in Canada during that time.

Conserving small wetlands has been a priority of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since the 1960s, when it started using duck stamp dollars to permanently protect wetlands, with particular emphasis on small wetlands.

So what's all the fuss about a bunch of tiny wetlands that often occupy less than an acre and usually go dry by early summer? The quick answer is nutrition: Small wetlands are easily the best source of the high-protein invertebrates nesting hens require for egg development.

The higher the number of small wetlands, the more breeding pairs will settle in an area. Scientists say ten 10 one-acre ponds attract three times as many nesting pairs as one 10-acre pond.

But that's only part of the story. When the prairies are wet and small wetlands are plentiful, unsuccessful mallard hens are more likely to re-nest, and most will keep re-nesting until they bring off a brood or run out of time. That's important, because upwards to 90 percent of all nests are destroyed by predators.

What's more, brood survival skyrockets when small ponds are abundant.

The big marshes Canadian conservationists have spent so much money protecting, creating, restoring and managing are important at other stages in the ducks' life cycle and may benefit some later-nesting species. But most of the large marshes have little value for nesting mallards, pintails and blue-winged teal.

But we're getting ahead of our story.

Jim Fisher is fourth generation duck hunter who grew up in Portage la Prairie, a small Manitoba town not far from the Delta Marsh. His passions are hunting ducks, teaching kids to hunt ducks and saving small wetlands, in no particular order. If there's a youth hunt anywhere in Manitoba, it's a safe bet Jim will be there, teaching kids to blow a duck call and set a spread of decoys.

For him, the only thing more important than lending a hand to the next generation of hunters is conserving the habitat to produce future generations of ducks.

Jim came by his zeal for small wetlands honestly. "Being a former Delta student and now a staff member, I can't escape the incredible history that surrounds me," he says. In addition to Hochbaum and Sowls, Fisher's passion for the resource has been shaped by those who preceded him.

"Just when you think you've come up with something new, someone like Peter Ward or (the late) Art Hawkins tells you they tried that in the 1950s."

Jim got his first taste of waterfowl research when he was a teenaged student assistant in the 1980s. Later, as a Delta student working towards his master's degree at the University of Manitoba, Jim signed his first wetland-protection agreement. That was in 1991, the same year the Adopt a Pothole program was started by Charlie Potter and Crawford Jenkins.

In those days there were no perpetual easements in Canada, so Fisher was limited to offering farmers 10-year leases. Those leases did not provide permanent protection, but at the time they were about the only protection for temporary and seasonal wetlands in Canada, where PHJV scientists say wetland losses between 1971 and 2001 ranged from 2.4 to 7.6 percent, and have resulted in 4.1 to 11.4 percent drops in duck pairs.

Legislation allowing for perpetual easements was approved in Manitoba in 1998, paving the way for permanent protection under Adopt a Pothole. Saskatchewan and Alberta followed suit, paving the way for perpetual easements of the wetlands scientists say are critical for nesting ducks.

Adopt a Pothole was patterned after the Fish and Wildlife Service's program. Fisher, MHHC officials and others traveled to Devils Lake, N.D. to meet with Service biologists to learn from their experiences. Fisher was especially interested to learn that the Service includes all wetland classes, with special emphasis on small wetlands.

In August of 1999, Fisher and the MHHC signed landowner Rick Nylen to the first wetland easement in Manitoba. Fisher says that over the years he's gained tremendous respect for farmers. "Their love of the land stems from generations of farmers living on the land. The Adopt a Pothole program is a unique program that links like-minded groups—farmers and hunters—on both ends of the flyway."

Surprising as it may seem, despite critical losses of prairie potholes, perpetual easements still are a relatively new wetland conservation tool in Canada. Ducks Unlimited Canada is now signing wetland easements in targeted areas in the prairies, and Fisher hopes other non-profit groups and government agencies follow the lead and begin to make significant investments in wetland easements.

Saskatchewan Environment and the Alberta government have been slow to embark on a wetland easement program, but Ducks Unlimited Canada recently began targeting priority areas and signing easements throughout prairie Canada.

Last year Delta was voted off the PHJV board after it challenged—among other things—what it believed was PHJV's lack of focus on permanent protection for small wetlands most critical for duck production.

Says Fisher, "While there currently is some debate on how to protect wetlands, Delta and the MHHC continue to focus their efforts on perpetual wetland easements in southwestern Manitoba. This is reflected in our most recent proposal where 80 percent of North American Wetland Conservation Act dollars would be earmarked for landowner payments for wetland easements."

Now that Ducks Unlimited, the key player in the PHJV, is taking wetland easements throughout prairie Canada, no one could be happier than Jim Fisher.