As spring advances north, waterfowl are beginning to arrive on the breeding grounds. The staff and volunteers in the Southern Region work hard to help the birds return in good condition, ready to nest and successfully rear the next generation of waterfowl. Thanks so much for your continued commitment through your daily work activities as a DU staff member and/or as a volunteer giving of your time and financial resources.

Upon their return to the prairies each spring, unfortunately, ducks find expiring CRP acres that have come under the plow, and native prairie nesting cover converted to agriculture. Loss of CRP and native prairie continue at alarming rates. As you all know, breeding habitat remains DU’s highest priority. However, we must not discount the importance of our work in the Southern Region to secure and improve migration and wintering habitat because the habitat requirements of waterfowl must be met throughout their annual cycle, and throughout North America.

In previous newsletters I have referenced expanding science and policy. The SRO has worked with partners to complete several important research efforts, with others ongoing to evaluate aspects of waterfowl winter survival and habitat use, or to assess and monitor priority landscapes important to wintering waterfowl. Some of our work includes development of a decision support models for forest protection and restoration, estimating female pintail survival and habitat use along the Texas coast, and habitat use, movements, and survival studies of female gadwalls, mottled ducks and mallards. Please take a minute to read about this work elsewhere in this newsletter.

Also, we are working to assist our federal partners in delivering wetland restoration projects as a result of the recent economic stimulus package passed by Congress. DU is a natural partner because President Obama has made it clear he expects the stimulus funded work to be completed quickly. This will strain our wetland engineering capacity, but we are already contacting retired natural resource engineers and consulting firms to help with this influx of wetland restoration and enhancement work.

We also continue to seek new sources of conservation-based revenue. I mentioned in previous newsletters that we were working on various wetland mitigation opportunities. I’m pleased to report we are making good progress and hope to report favorably on our first major project within the next 12 months. Bobby Massey and Eric Held are leading this effort, so please continue to funnel mitigation contacts and opportunities to them.

The DU Team of passionate and dedicated volunteers and staff has made great progress toward securing the future of waterfowl, but now is not the time to rest. We are working in a very dynamic world during a difficult time and we must respond to the ever changing conditions. I have every faith that all of you will continue to meet these challenging times to the best of your ability. DU began during a difficult and challenging time in our nation’s history, and we have been accomplishing great strides towards our vision for over seventy years! Keep up the great work.