Grass: Going...Going...Gone?

Hundreds of thousands of acres of CRP and native prairie are being plowed across the Prairie Pothole Region. Wildlife officials say that’s bad news for ducks and duck hunters

By Tori J. McCormick
Associate Editor

George Vandel has an old saying: When you lose habitat, there are consequences.

Vandel uttered those prophetic words again recently as he talked about the importance of grasslands conservation in North and South Dakota, where the bulk of the ducks in the U.S. portion of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) are produced each year.

“Right now ducks are facing a double whammy,” said Vandel, the longtime assistant wildlife director for the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks and current member and former chairman of the Central Flyway Council. “The Dakotas have lost thousands of acres of CRP and thousands of acres of native prairie. You can’t lose that much grass and not eventually pay a price.”

In what some are calling the Golden Age of agriculture, hundreds of thousands of Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) acres in the PPR have been converted back to cropland since October, and hundreds of thousands of additional acres will be lost in the near future, wildlife officials say. Similarly, native prairie continues to be broken at an alarmingly high rate across the critical duck-breeding portions of the Dakotas. Much of the conversion has occurred in the Missouri Coteau, one the most important duck-nesting regions on the continent. In fact, during wet cycles, the region, replete with small, seasonal wetlands, attracts up to 100 pairs or more of breeding ducks per square mile.

The grassland losses, wildlife officials say, are being driven by soaring commodity prices and land values and growing demand for biofuels, particularly corn-based ethanol.

“My sense, based on conversations with hunters, is that a lot of them have no idea what’s coming, and the fallout with such massive CRP losses in the prairies could be devastating for ducks and duck hunters,” said Delta President Rob Olson. “For the last several years, hunters have enjoyed liberal seasons and liberal bag limits. Factoring in native prairie losses, and the fact that prairie Canada is broken, our long-standing liberal frameworks could soon be a thing of the past.”

Consider the staggering numbers: In 2007 alone, roughly 820,000 CRP acres were lost in the Dakotas and Montana. In addition, new numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that contracts on roughly 5.6 million CRP acres will expire by October 2012. That’s roughly two-thirds of the current CRP acreage in the Dakotas and Montana.

In addition, in the last several years, South Dakota has lost an average of 50,000 acres of native prairie each year. In North Dakota, native prairie conversion to cropland continues unabated, although at slightly lower annual rates than those in South Dakota. “Given current crop prices, and without a program like Sodsaver, we expect those numbers to shoot up significantly,” said Kevin Willis, private lands coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in North Dakota.

CRP and Duck Production

Ron Reynolds is the project leader for the Habitat and Population Evaluation Team for the USFWS in Bismarck. He understands the critical link between CRP and duck production perhaps better than other waterfowl biologist in North America.

From 1992-1997, Reynolds studied more than 30,000 CRP acres in North and South Dakota and northeastern Montana, collecting information on more than 10,000 duck nests. The result: nest success in CRP was 23 percent higher than other cover types, and that nesting hens preferred CRP over other cover types.

More importantly, the research showed that CRP acreage from the three states added 2.1 million ducks to the fall flight each year over the study period. What’s more, additional research a few years later by Reynolds confirmed his original CRP findings.

“The bottom line is that CRP on the breeding grounds produces a lot of ducks for waterfowl hunters, particularly those in Mississippi and Central flyways,” said Reynolds. “But keep in mind that the research doesn’t account for the compounding effect that happens over time. It also doesn’t account for supplanting duck populations in other places, like when we’re dry in the Dakotas.”

Reynolds’ research also found that “wetlands embedded in CRP tracts” attracted more breeding pairs on average than wetlands in crop fields—a critical finding in this new era break-neck agricultural production.

“So not only has CRP improved the rate of productivity, we’re also found it increases the carrying capacity of the landscape for our breeding ducks,” he said. “It’s a double benefit.”

In addition, the presence of CRP in the PPR, particularly in North and South Dakota, has increased the productivity of other cover types, including native prairie, hay lands and waterfowl production areas, Reynolds said.

“CRP increases the amount of grass that’s in an area, and nest success goes up everywhere when grass is added to the landscape,” he said. As a result, other cover types, even marginal areas, are more productive.”

Additional CRP Worries

With a white-hot farm economy expected for the foreseeable future, Vandel and other wildlife managers are worried that the federal government will allow landowners early releases from existing CRP contracts. Last September, USDA officials said there would be no “penalty-free” early releases but that the issue would likely be revisited in 2008.

“There’s no question that the USDA is feeling pressure to allow early-outs,” said Olson. “Right now it’s more lucrative for farmers to rent or crop their lands than keep it in CRP. We know farmers love CRP. But if the federal government can’t provide a competitive CRP price structure, we’re going to see more acres converted to row crops, and that doesn’t bode well for waterfowl hunters.”

Vandel said the loss of CRP on the prairie breeding grounds should not be mistaken for a “regional” problem. “Ducks produced in the Prairie Pothole Region are harvested across the U.S.,” he said. “The loss of CRP will definitely be felt by duck hunters outside the breeding grounds.”

Vandel’s words trailed off before he spoke again. “Here we sit in 2008. CRP has been around for more than two decades, and we know precisely what it’s done for ducks, pheasants, deer and other wildlife. Now we’re turning back the clock. Haven’t we learned anything from the past?”