This spring, Ducks Unlimited was awarded a Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant to enhance over 2,337 acres of coastal wetland habitat in Calcasieu, Cameron and Vermilion Parishes in southwest Louisiana. Partners contributed more than $2.2 million to match the $998,576 received from the federal grant. The project will restore breeding and wintering habitat for resident mottled ducks.

This proposal represents a continuation of long-term efforts to protect and enhance important wetland habitats in coastal Louisiana. These habitats support a rich diversity of wildlife species.

Large areas of wetlands along the Louisiana Gulf Coast have been lost to subsidence, altered hydrology and saltwater intrusion. The overall health of the coastal marshes and the benefits they provide to mottled ducks, other wildlife and people that depend on them are in jeopardy. Additionally, the coastal prairie region within southwestern Louisiana has lost more than 99 percent of its native grasslands due to intensive agricultural practices and urban development.

To help the coastal wetlands continue to fulfill their role, project partners will restore estuarine intertidal marsh by installing water control structures to manage water and salinity levels and by controlling invasive Chinese tallow trees and other woody vegetation on upland prairie habitat.

Successful delivery of this project will partially compensate for the region’s loss of emergent wetlands and coastal prairie grasslands and will maximize waterfowl and other migratory bird values. This proposal will provide breeding habitat for mottled ducks as well as wintering and migration habitat for northern pintails, mallards, gadwalls, American wigeon, green-winged teal, blue-winged teal, and other waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds, and grassland dependent land birds.

The end result will be a complex of habitats that meet the needs of mottled ducks throughout their annual life cycle including nesting, brood rearing and winter survival.

This NAWCA project combines the fish and wildlife management capabilities of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the wetland enhancement expertise of Ducks Unlimited. In addition, the partnership incorporates contributions from BP America, Stream Companies and private landowners.

Like all of our projects, the partners involved in the Mottled Duck Habitat Restoration and Enhancement project make it possible.

DU has been able to help NAWCA be successful in many ways. DU has been responsible for designing and carrying out many of the wetland conservation projects funded by NAWCA. Perhaps most important, and thanks to our tens of thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of members, DU is proud to have been able to stimulate support and partnerships that have been most critical to the past and continuing success of NAWCA in restoring, conserving and managing these habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife across North America.

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