Director's Message
April 2008
Spring has arrived and birds are returning to their breeding grounds. This year they will find more fields prepared for corn in the US Prairie Pothole Region which means less grass for nesting. Expiring CRP acres are coming under the plow, and native prairie is being converted to agriculture at alarming rates. Already, we have lost acreage equal to a three-mile swath of wildlife habitat from the southern border of North Dakota to Canada. That’s how many CRP grassland acres were lost in just North Dakota this past fall. Agricultural policy is critical to ensuring that waterfowl continue to be a part of our present and future. During an average year, more than 2 million ducks are produced on CRP ground.
By the time you read this, the Business Plan that will guide the Southern Region for the next 5 years will be complete. Expanding our science in support of our public policy will be important to our success – today, tomorrow, and in the future. Over the next 5 years, we are planning to conserve more than 250,000 acres in the 15 southern states and secure almost $10 million for the breeding grounds through major gift fundraising and state grants programs. We will produce an executive summary for your quick review. For those desiring more detail, please contact me directly.
Our conservation easement program was very successful in calendar year 2007. More than 54,000 acres were protected in the Lower Mississippi Valley, 18,000 in the South Atlantic Unit (mostly Lowcountry), and 3,471 in the Confluence area of Missouri. We have protected more than 241 tracts in the southern region totaling 268,436 acres. Land protection is important to the waterfowl on the wintering grounds because it secures high quality habitat in perpetuity.
The DU Team of passionate and dedicated volunteers and staff has made great progress toward securing the future of waterfowl. We are working in a very dynamic world and we must respond to the ever changing conditions. Charles Darwin said, “It is not the most intelligent species that survive but the ones most responsive to change”.
Let us know how we can better serve you.