Waterfowl Beyond 2000
By Matt Young, Senior Writer
The future holds both promise and peril for North America's wetlands and waterfowl
From its earliest beginnings, Ducks Unlimited has been a farsighted organization, dedicated to providing a secure future for North America's waterfowl.
Having conserved 9 million acres of wetlands and waterfowl habitat across the continent, DU has made great strides toward accomplishing its mission.
In the years ahead, however, the ecosystems that support migratory birds will face many serious threats, making DU's efforts more important than ever before.
Guided by science-based strategic planning and sound business practices, DU is moving forward on several fronts to meet the conservation challenges of tomorrow.
As we approach the new century, many waterfowl populations are flourishing, following several consecutive years of wet weather on their prairie breeding grounds and the success of conservation programs supported by DU and its partners in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.
"The record fall flight of 1999 is proof positive that favorable climatic conditions complemented by efforts to protect and restore habitat are contributing to healthy and abundant waterfowl populations," says DU Executive Vice President Don Young.
"Amid this great news, conservationists should not become complacent. We continue to lose hundreds of thousands of wetland acres every year in North America. If this trend continues, every additional acre of habitat that is lost, as well as every acre that is conserved by DU and its partners, will have greater significance."
Among the most formidable challenges facing waterfowl and other wildlife in North America and abroad is human population growth.
Between 2000 and 2025, the U.S. population is projected to grow from 277.8 million to 332.5 million-a 20 percent increase.
World demand for commodities is expected to increase dramatically as the global population also grows to an expected peak of 8 billion people, and developing nations, especially China, acquire more economic power.
Rising crop prices will inevitably result, encouraging farmers to press additional acreage into production, which could accelerate the loss of wetlands and associated uplands in many regions.
As demands for living space escalate, urban sprawl will also become a greater threat to waterfowl habitat, and rapidly growing cities will place heavy demands on the continent's limited freshwater supplies, making water availability and quality critical health issues for both people and wildlife.
Big Challenges, Hi-Tech Solutions
Few wildlife species present the management challenges of waterfowl, which often fly thousands of miles and cross international boundaries while migrating between their breeding and wintering areas.
With affiliates in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, DU conserves the great diversity of habitats that waterfowl use throughout their vast, continental range-from the tundra of northern Alaska to the coasts of southern Mexico and beyond.
Working with a wide variety of partners-including government agencies, foundations, corporations, other organizations, and private landowners-DU conserves wetlands and associated uplands across vast landscapes to restore the health of entire ecosystems and watersheds.
These efforts not only provide habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife, they also help create a healthier environment for people by reducing erosion, improving water quality, recharging groundwater supplies, and retaining floodwaters.
"The success of our habitat joint ventures has distinguished DU and its partners as the unequaled leaders in ecosystem management and the conservation of the continent's biodiversity," says Dr. Alan Wentz, DU's group manager of conservation programs.
"During the next century, however, we must expand the scope of our conservation programs and extend our influence via new partnerships with both the public and the private sectors."
The ecosystems that support waterfowl and other wildlife are constantly evolving in concert with climatic conditions and land-use practices.
To meet the needs of waterfowl on ever-changing landscapes, DU will rely heavily in the future on cutting-edge research to plan and evaluate its conservation programs.
By assessing the success of current management techniques and developing new conservation strategies guided by research, DU will continue to refine its habitat programs to be more efficient and effective.
DU's Institute for Wetland and Waterfowl Research (IWWR) recently completed the seventh year of its landmark study of waterfowl breeding success on DU conservation sites on the Canadian prairies, where DU invests the largest percentage of its conservation dollars.
Researchers use radiotelemetry equipment to monitor where and when hens nest, which habitats they prefer, whether they successfully produce a brood, and how many of the ducklings survive to fledge.
These efforts have revealed that waterfowl nest success is strongly influenced by the abundance of undisturbed nesting cover on the landscape.
As a result, DU has redoubled its efforts to protect extensive tracts of remaining grasslands and restore additional upland cover on wetland-rich landscapes on the prairies.
Other current DU research is examining key predator-prey relationships in prairie ecosystems, the migration habits of pintails in the Pacific Flyway, the breeding ecology of eastern mallards, waterfowl population dynamics in the Great Lakes region, the origins of Maritime Provinces Canada geese, and possible factors influencing the continental decline of scaup and sea duck populations.
The results of these studies, as well as other research, will help DU implement long-term solutions to the ecological problems facing waterfowl across the continent.
With more than 60 years of hands-on experience, DU has helped to pioneer methods of restoring many types of waterfowl habitats, from prairie grasslands to coastal marshes to bottomland hardwood forests. DU biologists and engineers employ the latest technology and tools to conserve habitat more effectively than ever before.
For example, recently developed geographic information systems (GIS) have enabled DU to display layers of landscape data, such as the locations of wetlands, grasslands, and croplands, in a user-friendly map format.
GIS technology has proved to be an invaluable tool for DU biologists in targeting habitat conservation programs in the most important areas for waterfowl.
In the Prairie Pothole Region, DU and government agencies have developed extensive landscape maps that predict how many breeding ducks are attracted to an area, as well as the productivity of breeding birds, based upon the availability of upland nesting cover.
This information enables DU to focus its programs in areas with the greatest waterfowl production potential and tailor habitat restoration efforts to improve duck nesting success on specific landscapes.
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Working with Landowners, Protecting Habitat
Because more than three-quarters of North America's waterfowl habitat is found on private lands-primarily owned by farmers and ranchers-the manner in which agricultural lands are managed will have a profound impact on the future of waterfowl and other wildlife.
DU has long recognized that cooperation with private landowners is essential to meeting its conservation objectives, and the organization will continue to work closely with farmers and ranchers to develop and promote sustainable agricultural practices that conserve wildlife habitat, reduce soil erosion, and improve water quality.
On the Canadian prairies, a farming practice that holds great promise for breeding waterfowl is the planting of fall-seeded cereal grains, specifically winter wheat and fall rye.
These wildlife-friendly crops, which are planted directly into standing stubble left from the previous year, provide upland nesting cover for ducks while reducing soil erosion and input costs for farmers.
DU is actively working to increase the acreage of winter crops on the prairies by providing landowners with technical assistance and financial incentives, and by funding research to develop hardier strains of these crops.
"In areas where waterfowl must share the land with people whose livelihood depends on farming and ranching, DU promotes conservation practices that are not only compatible with agriculture, but also profitable for landowners," says DU Canada Executive Vice President Rod Fowler.
"By positively influencing agricultural practices on vast areas of private land, we can achieve much greater benefits to waterfowl and the environment than could ever be accomplished through traditional habitat conservation programs alone."
On waterfowl wintering areas, DU has had excellent success working with farmers to flood harvested croplands, especially rice fields, to provide wetland habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife.
This practice has been widely adopted by farmers as an environmentally friendly method of disposing of rice straw.
Winter flooding also controls winter weeds, prevents soil erosion, improves water quality, and recharges groundwater supplies.
In California's Central Valley, the coastal prairies of Texas, and much of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, flooded rice fields now provide the majority of the wetland habitat available for wintering waterfowl.
As a result, DU's efforts to support the voluntary efforts of farmers to flood harvested rice fields will be important to the future of waterfowl in these regions.
To help preserve the ecological integrity of wildlife habitat threatened by development, DU is expanding its use of conservation easements, to permanently protect environmentally sensitive lands for wildlife and people.
Under these agreements, landowners receive payments or tax benefits for granting permanent protection to wildlife habitat, while maintaining ownership of their property.
In the Great Plains states, DU recently launched an ambitious new conservation easement program that will preserve 2 million acres of the most productive waterfowl breeding habitat in coteau regions of the northern plains over the next 20 years.
DU has made conservation easements a major component of its conservation programs in many other regions, including the Low Country of South Carolina, the Central Valley of California, the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the Pacific Northwest, and the Intermountain West. |