GREAT OUTDOORS: Delta Waterfowl announces 'Million Duck Initiative'

Delta Waterfowl, a wildlife conservation organization in its 110th year, is launching a bold new $250 million initiative to add 1 million ducks to the annual North American fall flights.The leadership team of Dr. Scott Petrie, Dr. Frank Rohwer and Joel Brice announced the plan during their Duck Hunters EXPO in Little Rock, Arkansas."We're embarking on the most-ambitious initiative Delta has ever undertaken," said Petrie, Delta's Chief Executive Officer."Delta Waterfowl has done the research. We have the proven programs to produce ducks — to maximize duck production on key breeding waterfowl habitat. We're going to raise 1 million more ducks every year, forever, and create a monumental impact for waterfowl conservation in North America." Rohwer, President and Chief Scientist, has spent his long and distinguished career studying and seeking methods to produce more ducks. "We work for duck hunters, and I've never met a duck hunter who didn't want more ducks," he said. "All of my years as a waterfowl scientist have shown me that duck numbers are directly tied to what happens on the breeding grounds. "We know that those few months in spring — the breeding season — are the most important to ducks. Unfortunately, most nests fail to hatch because of predators." In the Prairie Pothole Region, raccoons, skunks and other mammalian predators have become overly abundant.Prior to recent declines in fur prices, trappers and predator hunters kept fur-bearing animals in check through aggressive seasonal harvests, but interest (and harvest rates) drop when it costs more to run a trapline than the profit generated.South Dakota's Game, Fish and Parks have been offering bounties on targeted predators for the past few summers to boost nest production success for waterfowl and pheasants — their state bird and a major economic driver in rural communities.Delta Waterfowl developed a couple of major tools to increase duck production. Their predator management has shown impressive increases in nest success, often doubling or tripling the number of nests hatched.Also, the installation of their "hen gouses" creates a safe place for mallards to nest out of reach of most predators. Hatch rates for mallards using a Delta hen house are up to 12 times better than for mallards nesting in nearby grass.These hen houses are made by rolling straw in a welded wire cylinder and mounting them on a pole over the water. Many can be seen in use locally on public and private wetland properties. I saw how readily hen mallards used them when I installed them on my own constructed wetland. Hen mallards annually nested in a very large hollowed-out oak tree on Gibraltar Island next to the Stone Laboratory classroom building. No amount of my pleading could convince the landscaping crew to leave the trunk standing when the rest of the limbs were broken off during a powerful summer storm. Nor would they leave the 50-year-old stand of juniper bushes in front of the building. They hosted a bevy of nesting mallards each spring, offered shelter for dozens of Lake Erie water snakes and protected the soil from erosion during flooding. Ignoring my prediction, within weeks of their removal, a high-water seiche eroded most of the newly exposed soil from the sloping frontage, which has been covered with low-grade habitat beach cobble ever since. Nearly extirpated around 1900, wood ducks are now a leading species harvested in several states, including Ohio, after biologists, conservation organizations and hunting clubs began erecting artificial nesting boxes for them throughout North America in the 1930s. Rohwer concluded, "It's time to put Predator Management and Hen Houses to work on a much larger scale to dramatically increase the number of ducks in every fall flight. The Million Duck Campaign will do exactly that. "Our Million Duck Campaign delivery plan calls for the construction, distribution, installation and annual maintenance of 110,000 Hen Houses. In addition, we will boost Predator Management to more than 350 sites across the Prairie Pothole Region."