LOUISIANA WATERFOWL HARVEST TREND M M M Since Louisiana has harvested more waterfowl than neighboring Arkansas, and more than a million more ducks for the last years. *USFWS harvest data through 2013 Over the past years Louisiana has accounted for % of the annual US waterfowl harvest (on average). .M .M L O *USFWS harvest data through 2013 U I S I A LOUSIANA HAS THE N HIGHEST DUCK A HARVEST IN US, AND THE HIGHEST PERHUNTER TAKE. BIRDS PER HUNTER PER SEASON IN …OF THE DUCKS IN THE *USFWS harvest data through 2013 MISSISSIPPI FLYWAY WINTER IN LOUISIANA *approximate, based on mid-winter survey data All of this will change if we don’t conserve Louisiana’s vital waterfowl habitat. For more information: http://la.ducks.org NOW IS THE TIME. THIS IS THE PLACE. Saving coastal Louisiana for waterfowl, for everyone LOSS FACT: From , Louisiana lost more than . million acres of coastal marsh = an area about the size of Delaware. (Couvillion et. al. 2011) FACT: Coastal marshes continue to disappear at alarming rates– an area the size of a football field disappears every hour. (Couvillion et. al. 2011) IMPORTANCE FACT: Louisiana is expected to winter ~ MILLION DUCKS and a half-million geese (% of the nation’s waterfowl and about half the Mississippi Flyway population). FACT: Louisiana has lost the capacity to overwinter % of the waterfowl it did as recently as the s. (Gulf Coast Joint Venture unpublished estimate 2010) SOLUTION FACT: DU works to keep rice agriculture on the % landscape, which provides of the available food for winter dabbling ducks on the Gulf Coast. FACT: Fresh and intermediate salinity marshes restored by freshwater and sediment inflows have more food for waterfowl than brackish and saltwater marshes. Returning fat and happy ducks to the prairies starts here. For more information: http://la.ducks.org.