Contact: Paul Bultsma
701-355-3528

BISMARCK, ND, Sept. 19, 2006 - Cows, water, grass and ducks go together. That is why Ducks Unlimited (DU) is offering a program to help ranchers keep cattle on their pastures by improving their livestock’s water supplies.

Funds are still available for DU’s Grassland Partnership Program (GPP), which reimburses livestock owners 50 percent of the cost of water development projects, up to $3,500, that offer long-lasting solutions to each rancher’s livestock water problems.

“We’ve had a lot of interest in the program, but we still have dollars available to help North Dakota ranchers in the Missouri Couteau,” said Paul Bultsma, DU biologist in the Great Plains Regional Office in Bismarck.

DU is offering the program to ranchers in all of Kidder County parts of McIntosh, Logan, Sheridan and McLean counties. These are drought-stricken counties in the Missouri Couteau, which is prime duck nesting habitat.

“Ducks have the highest nesting success in large areas of grass, so DU is interested in keeping as much grassland intact as possible,” Bultsma said.

Details of the program are available at www.ducks.org/GPP or by calling Bultsma at 701-355-3528.

With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization. The United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands - nature’s most productive ecosystem - and continues to lose more than 80,000 wetland acres each year.

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