Courtesy of Trey Reid and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Arkansas Sportsman: Duck enthusiasts go right to the source

By Trey Reid

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan — The rain falls steadily as we load our suitcases into a van outside the Saskatoon International Airport on a Saturday afternoon.

It’s a cool, gray day — not exactly ideal weather for touring waterfowl habitat conservation projects in the Saskatchewan countryside — but no one is complaining.

After three years of drought, this area needs all the wet stuff it can get.

So do the ducks we’ve come here to see.

"You guys can come here anytime you like," Keith LePoudre, manager of field operations in Ducks Unlimited Canada’s office in Saskatoon, tells a group of visitors. "It’s been raining like this ever since we heard you guys were coming a few weeks ago."

Our group includes five representatives from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission: commissioners Mike Freeze, Sonny Varnell and Brett Morgan, along with AGFC deputy director David Goad and state waterfowl biologist Andrew James.

They’ve come to check on the commission’s investment in Ducks Unlimited habitat projects in the area, where DU has spent the lion’s share of the commission’s $200,000 to $250,000 annual contribution to the waterfowl conservation group over the past few years.

For two days before their arrival in Canada, the group toured the Drift Prairie of north-central North Dakota with Rob Olson of Delta Waterfowl, which for the past two years has received money from the Game and Fish Commission for its predator-control programs in the area.

I tagged along to learn more about Delta Waterfowl’s predator programs in North Dakota and DU’s habitat work in Saskatchewan, the point of origin for the biggest portion of ducks killed by Arkansas hunters.

In preparation for a series on the recent decline of duck hunting in Arkansas, I also wanted to gain a better understanding of the entire Prairie Pothole Region, which has been called the North American "duck factory" because of its ability to produce as much as half of the continent’s duck population in years with good water and nesting conditions.

So despite the minor inconvenience of the persistent rainfall, which forced us to twice cancel scheduled aerial tours of the Saskatchewan landscape and also prevented us from visiting a couple of habitat projects that became inaccessible because of muddy roads, nobody complained about the water.

I’ll save a detailed discussion of the big-picture habitat issues for next month’s duck series, when we’ll explore some of the threats to waterfowl production on the prairies as well as the challenges that conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl are facing as they try to enhance habitat and increase duck production.

Suffice it to say that it sure looks like the money the Game and Fish Commission is sending to Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl is being used wisely.

"I’ve been very impressed with what we’ve seen in North Dakota and Saskatchewan," Freeze said. "It was good to see how our money is being spent up here."

Perhaps the most pleasing sight was the sheer volume of water that has been hitting the prairie landscape in recent weeks.

Conditions are looking good for ducks, which hopefully will translate into a strong fall flight and a fruitful season for Arkansas hunters.

The water situation looked particularly good in North Dakota, with small ponds brimming with water and pairs of ducks.

Farther north in Saskatchewan, water conditions were less encouraging, but persistent rainfall over the past few weeks has started to fill some of the temporary and seasonal wetlands that had been dry earlier in the spring.

Of course, the recent infusion of water onto the prairie landscape doesn’t guarantee anything in the way of the fall flight. But it was pleasing to see the rain, especially considering the area has been under drought conditions for about three years.

Since I tend to be an optimist about these things, I must qualify this discussion of good water conditions by adding that the timing of the water wasn’t the best. When ducks started arriving on the breeding grounds earlier in the spring, much of the water wasn’t there. Nor was it on the ground in such quantities when aerial surveys were conducted to count ponds and breeding pairs in May.

That means we likely won’t see the benefits of the recent rainfall in the regulatory frameworks for setting the 2004-2005 duck season.

But even though the water came a little late for the initial arrival of breeding and nesting ducks, it will be extremely beneficial for late-nesting ducks and those hens that failed in their earlier attempts to nest. It also will provide critical habitat for hens to raise their broods in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately, our group didn’t see too many broods in the areas we toured in North Dakota and Saskatchewan. It’s likely many ducks were sitting on nests, according to biologists, who added that ducks seem to be about two weeks behind their average timetable for nesting.

During the course of the four day trip to North Dakota and Saskatchewan, our group covered hundreds of miles of ground to see a variety of prairie landscapes.

(Despite perceived similarities, there actually are numerous different types of habitat scattered across the Prairie Pothole Region. Some produce more ducks than others, and each has its own management challenges.)

In North Dakota, we looked at the Missouri Coteau, a ridge of rolling hills dotted with potholes and good nesting cover that runs along a northwest-southeast line from central North Dakota up into southern Saskatchewan.

"The strategy for the Coteau is protection, because what’s there is extremely good habitat," Olson said. "In other areas, we’re looking at restoration and intensive management."

Intensive management includes Delta Waterfowl’s program to control predators by trapping on selected blocks of duck habitat.

In the Drift Prairie area of northern North Dakota, Delta has two 6-square-mile sites that are funded by contributions from the Game and Fish Commission.

Freeze said he was particularly impressed by the Delta sites where Arkansas money is being spent. Freeze had been somewhat skeptical about the effectiveness of predator-control programs, which have stirred controversy in waterfowl management circles for several years.

Delta Waterfowl selects critical nesting areas and then implements an intensive trapping program to control predators such as foxes and skunks that can drastically reduce waterfowl nest success.

Some, including the Mississippi Flyway Council, haven’t taken a favorable position on predator management, arguing that the programs don’t have a significant impact on overall duck populations.

Though the jury is still out on that, I’ll say without hesitation that Delta’s predator management was working quite well on a Game and Fish Commission funded trapping block north of Cando, N.D.

Joining Delta’s scientific director Frank Rowher, a waterfowl biologist and professor at LSU, our group took part in a nest dragging survey on about 60 acres of one site.

Biologists attached a 50-foot length of chain to two all-terrain vehicles, driving the four wheelers parallel to each other and allowing the chain to drag in an arc behind them. The tinkling sound of the chain disturbs nesting hens and usually flushes them off their nests. The biologists then locate the nest and mark it with a global positioning system receiver and visual markers so they can go back later in the summer and gauge nest success.

In the heavily trapped area we surveyed June 12, we located close to 40 nests on roughly 60 acres, an extremely high nest density.

"You can’t tell me predator management isn’t working on that site," Freeze said.

But back to the debate over predator management: Can it have a significant impact on continental duck populations?

Olson equates waterfowl management to financial fund management.

"You want to put most of your money in habitat," he said. "That’s like the blue-chip stocks in your portfolio. But you also need to diversify your approach by putting some money in intensive management strategies such as predator control."

The habitat segment of the Game and Fish Commission’s waterfowl investment strategy was the focus of the Canadian portion of last week’s tour.

After two days in North Dakota, our group traveled north to Saskatoon, where we met with officials from Ducks Unlimited and toured more areas where Game and Fish Commission contributions have been put into habitat work.

The first day of the tour included stops at numerous DU projects in the Thickwood Hills Priority Area in west-central Saskatchewan.

Biologists and agrologists from DU showed us the many approaches they’re using to increase wetland habitat and the equally important upland habitats adjacent to them, which provide the dense nesting cover necessary for successful brood production.

The Canadian portion of the journey was enlightening in that it showed a diversity of approach on the part of DU conservation work on the breeding grounds.

Buying land to protect habitat is just a small part of how DU is conserving waterfowl habitat in the Prairie Pothole Region. In recent years, the group has turned increasingly to purchasing conservation easements, which are much less expensive than outright land purchasing while still affording protections to critical habitat.

"We’re looking for the most cost-effective ways to implement habitat programs on the landscape," LePoudre said. "We have a variety of ways of doing that."

Other DU programs include a program to protect wetlands by erecting fences around them and installing solar-powered stock water systems, thereby giving cattle ranchers cleaner water for their livestock while also keeping cattle from trampling riparian habitat around small potholes.

DU also is encouraging ranchers to rotate haying and grazing pastures for the benefit of waterfowl, and also urging farmers to plant winter wheat, which provides good nesting cover for ducks and a cash crop for farmers.

During our tour of the Thickwood Hills area, we attended a dedication ceremony for DU’s Kurysh Project, a 480-acre block with more than 400 acres of dense nesting cover and more than 70 acres of wetlands.

LePoudre and Bill Chappell, leader of wetland restoration in DU’s Saskatchewan Parkland Field Office, unveiled a stone and concrete monument with a plaque recognizing the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission for its financial contributions that helped fund the project.

On Monday, the final day of our whirlwind tour of the Prairie Pothole Region, we visited DU’s Allan Hills Priority Area, which features some of the highest densities of breeding duck pairs found in North America.

It was good to hear the perspectives of both Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl and see the very important work that both are doing in order to increase the number of ducks throughout North America.

We’ve had three consecutive poor seasons in Arkansas, but after seeing the amount of work that is being put into the breeding grounds, I’m forced to wonder how bad it might be without the work of DU and Delta Waterfowl.

It’s good to know there are groups out there that are working hard for ducks, and that our Game and Fish Commission’s contributions are making a difference.

But by far the best part of last week’s tour was all that water.

Here’s hoping we’ll notice its effects come duck season.