Ducks not immune to Gulf disaster
Glynn Harris, Writer
07-13-2010
I wonder what heretofore not thought of industry or livelihood or wildlife species the news wil. be reporting next week as impacted by the Gulf oil spill.
This week, there’s a new one just now rearing its head. Ducks.
A history lesson here, in case you don’t know what ducks do in late summer and fall.
Ducks, geese, loons and a plethora of shore birds, nest and rear their young way up north thousands of miles away from the Gulf.
As food supplies diminish and cold fronts begin icing over nesting and brood ponds in Canada and the northern tier of states along the Canadian border, waterfowl does what it’s always done; pack up and head south to spend the winter.
Biologists report that it’s been a good year for the production of duck and goose hatchlings.
As many as 13 million ducks and 1.5 million geese were born in Yankee country and many are likely to spend their winters in what normally are lush marshes and ponds along our southern coast.
What they are likely to find awaiting them on their arrival is not unlike somebody who has a vacation home along the coast and who arrives to find his special spot covered in sludge.
The difference is that the vacationer wrings his hands and calculates his losses and heads for the nearest BP office to file a claim.
Waterfowl have no such option. They are hard wired to head south in fall and winter and unless something drastic happens such as an abundance of food and plenty of ice-free water awaits them along they way, they’re destined to splat down in oil covered marsh ponds.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is addressing the potential problem by working with national refuges along the flight path of waterfowl to formulate plans that would provide supplemental feeding in the event that oil does in fact cover their wintering grounds.
This should attract waterfowl to refuges and hopefully prevent them from doing what they always do, spend the winter in marshes along the Gulf.
Ironically, this plan is what some disgruntled Louisiana duck hunters think is already happening during hunting seasons when the ducks don’t show up. This year, though, short-stopping waterfowl would undoubtedly be a blessing, not a curse.
The U.S. FWS seems to be making their decisions heavily weighted toward waterfowl and not hunters. Some hunting rules and seasons could be changed and it is likely that on refuges where supplemental feeding is implemented, those areas would be closed to hunting.
Not all the ducks that head south for the winter make it all the way to the coast; tens of thousands find the agricultural lands and flooded fields along the Mississippi delta in northeast and eastern Louisiana attractive enough to end their southern migration in those areas.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource and Conservation Service (NRCS) is ready to implement plans to pay farmers to flood their fields to attract waterfowl.
This would involve a hefty chunk of change since farmers would basically be sacrificing their income from the harvest and sale of grain in exchange for flooding their fields to give arriving waterfowl a buffet they can’t afford to pass up.
Right now, this is all a matter of speculation; it may not be necessary for waterfowl hunting seasons to be scrapped this year, but that is subject to change.
Let’s just keep hoping and praying for that dadblasted leak to be fixed and for the successful recovery of leaked oil so that duck hunting, a time-honored Louisiana tradition, doesn’t end up on this year’s scrap heap of broken dreams and shattered promises.
Glynn Harris is an avid outdoorsmen and columnist for The Gazette.
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