Running the How Montana manages its nationally significant (but often unrecognized) waterfowl populations. BY DAVE BOOKS Arriving before dawn, my hunting partner and Duck Factory I tossed out two dozen mallard decoys and settled into the cattails surrounding a small north-central Montana pothole, while two excited Labradors explored the muddy, shallow shoreline. Ducks had left the pond in a flurry of quacks when we’d walked up. Now, 20 minutes later, we could hear the whistle of wings in the darkness overhead—a good omen. Time stands still while you’re waiting for legal shooting time on opening day of duck season. As I watched the sky gradually lighten in the east, I thought about other duck hunting dawns I’d witnessed across Montana, from Swan Lake in the northwest to Medicine Lake in the far northeast. Though my partner and I had this little pond to ourselves this morning, I knew that legions of like-minded hunters were opening the sea - son at Ninepipe and Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuges west of the Continental Divide, Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area along the Rocky Mountain Front, and Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge near Malta. Others were hunkered down along countless reservoirs, river sloughs, and potholes all the way to the North Dakota line. There’s no question that Montana is a great state for duck hunting. Waterfowlers from across the country make a pilgrimage HERE THEY COME As dawn approaches, and with it incoming mallards, a hunter quickly sets a decoy spread to lure birds into shotgun range. ﬔough Montana produces more E ducks than almost any other state in the nation, it lacks the rich waterfowling lore and C R E I P culture found in places like Arkansas, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. N E B 18 SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2015 FWP.MT.GOV/MTOUTDOORS MONTANA OUTDOORS 19 waterfowlers helped ban market hunting, and associated habitats. Within each joint Program, enacted by the state legislature in passed laws to regulate duck harvest, and venture, agencies, organizations, corpora - 1985 and administered by FWP, provides one formed conservation groups like Ducks tions, tribes, and individuals cooperatively important source of those matching funds Unlimited (DU), a nonprofit organization conserve habitat for priority bird species and (see sidebar on page 22 for details). WHERE DUCKS GET MADE dedicated to providing habitat for water - other wildlife. Montana is part of three joint “These programs put dollars on the ﬔe Prairie Pothole Region accounts fowl. Bob Sanders, manager of DU’s conser - ventures: Prairie Pothole, Intermountain ground and ducks in the air for the benefit of for most of the nation’s waterfowl Breeding duck pairs vation programs in Montana, says that West, and Northern Great Plains. While the all Montanans,” says Sanders. Partnerships production. In the Lower 48, Mon- per square mile tana is the number three duck >100 hunters have always paid most of the nation’s conservation work targets waterfowl, it also often include DU, FWP, The Nature Conser - producer. In addition to prairie 80-100 waterfowl management costs by purchasing creates great living and breeding habitat for vancy, the Natural Resources Conservation potholes, Montana contains duck- 60-80 hunting licenses, paying excise taxes on guns shorebirds, prairie songbirds, and other Service, the USFWS, and private landown - producing potholes in areas west 40-60 and ammunition, and supporting conserva - grassland and wetland species. ers. “Ranchers are our most important ally in of the Continental Divide, like these 20-40 tion groups like DU. “Hunters pushed hard a lot of these efforts,” says Sanders. “Several (le) in the Blackfoot River Valley 10-20 MAP PRODUCED IN APRIL 2012 BY THE U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE near Ovando. 0-10 SERVICE AND THE PRAIRIE POTHOLE JOINT VENTURE for passage of a federal duck stamp back in MORE FEDERAL MONEY excellent public programs pay them to the Dust Bowl days, and Montana’s annual Though joint venture projects were able to conserve grasslands and improve livestock share of that revenue—about $800,000 in use some federal duck stamp revenue, they operations in ways that benefit wetland here each fall in pickups and SUVs packed tana and the Dakotas combined actually pro - receded, they left behind shallow depres - recent years—funds a lot of wetland conser - required additional money for acquiring wildlife.” with decoys, camping gear, and retrievers duce more ducks than all of prairie Canada.” sions that became wetlands rich in aquatic vation work,” he says. easements, identifying critical habitat, and Other than weather, the most important steaming up the windows. Montana is also life. Known as North America’s “duck fac - Established by Congress in 1934, the helping landowners restore and protect factor affecting duck production is the federal one of the nation’s most fertile waterfowl BOTH WATER AND GRASS tory,” the region supports as many as 30 mil - federal duck stamp, officially known as the private wetlands and grass lands. So in 1989, Farm Bill and its conservation provisions. The factories, ranking third in duck production in Such a prodigious output of waterfowl lion breeding ducks when favorable water Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Congress passed another act that provides latest Farm Bill, passed in 2014, disappointed the Lower 48, trailing only the Dakotas. seems odd for a state known for its dry cli - conditions prevail, as in the early 2010s. Stamp, has provided more than $750 million matching grants to organizations and indi - many conservationists because it lowered by Yet mention “Montana” to hunters out - mate and periodic droughts. “It’s because Just as important as water—where ducks for wetland habitat nationwide over the years. viduals who cooperate on wetland conserva - 15 percent the amount of CRP acreage na - side of, or even within this state, and rela - we have wetlands and we have grass, and feed and avoid predators—is nearby grass Just as important as the money was formation tion projects that conserve wildlife habitat, tionwide that Congress would fund. Fortu - tively few would conjure the image of drake both are blessings for waterfowl,” explains for nesting. That’s why the Conservation Re - of a new model for waterfowl conservation purify water, prevent erosion, and lessen nately for wildlife, the new bill requires mallards streaming across the sky or pot - Hansen. He says that while the rest of the serve Program has been critical for water - embodied in an act of Congress that created flood damage. landowners to use good conservation prac - holes packed with feeding teal. United States has lost about half of its origi - fowl and other wildlife. Enacted in 1985, the the North American Waterfowl Management These federal funds are often tripled or tices if they hope to qualify for federal crop in - Why is a state that produces so many nal wetlands, as well as more than 90 per - Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays Plan (NAWMP) in 1986. The plan came in even quadrupled with matches by local part - surance. Landowners who drain wetlands or ducks not considered a “duck state,” com - cent of its native prairie, Montana has landowners to plant vegetation, primarily response to alarming declines in the continen - ners. In Montana, more than $22 million in till virgin prairie put their insurance eligibility plete with a long, rich waterfowling culture, managed to keep a large share of both. grasses, on environmentally sensitive land. tal duck population, caused by habitat loss. federal funds has been matched with an addi - at risk. The new Farm Bill also provides some According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife A key provision of the NAWMP was tional $100 million in partner contributions funding to the states for developing or Service (USFWS), during the years creation of several “joint ventures” through - to protect nearly 320,000 acres of wildlife strengthening public access programs like when CRP enrollment by landown - out North America to conserve wetlands habitat. Montana’s Migratory Bird Wetland FWP’s Open Fields. Here in Montana, cattle need water ers was highest, the additional grass - and they need grass, and so do ducks.” lands in Montana and the Dakotas added two million ducks per year to the fall migration. like, say, Minnesota or Arkansas or even Because the soil here is less fertile and rain - Unfortunately, economic conditions have northern California? “Chalk it up to an fall less abundant than in states farther east, changed to the detriment of wetlands and embarrassment of riches,” explains Jim Montana farmers have less incentive to grasslands. High prices for corn, especially, Hansen, FWP waterfowl biologist in drain their wetlands and convert the land convinced many farmers to plow up their Billings. “We have so many other wildlife to crops—although that definitely occurs. CRP grasslands. “In the last eight years we’ve species and hunting opportunities—elk, an - “States like Iowa have lost most of their lost a million and a half acres of CRP across telope, deer, upland birds, and trophy big duck-producing areas to wetland drainage,” Montana’s portion of the Prairie Pothole game species like bighorn sheep, mountain says Hansen. “Here in Montana, where we Region alone,” Hansen says. “Duck numbers S E N O J goats, and moose—that waterfowl tend to have a thriving cattle industry, we’ve kept are still strong, thanks to a series of wet years, . M D L A get lost in the crowd. more of our wetlands. Cattle need water and but we’ll need to work even harder to keep N O D ; S “I suspect that few Montanans—except they need grass, and so do ducks.” our remaining grasslands from being plowed E N O J PERFECT MIX Ducks need both grass, for .