Yes. And with my membership came letters urging participation in in a new waterfowl forum. Poof! taken down quickly.
But back to mallard populations. Here is a recent one, and I at least got meaningful response. DU could do a bunch of these demonstration plots with chump change.
20 Nov. 2018
3962 89th Ave SE
Jamestown ND 58401
Dear District 6 Advisory Board members and attendees,
First, thanks to the North Dakota Game and Fish Department for the fine work you do for our natural resources.
I suggest we spend a bit more money on managing wetlands with prescribed fire. Its been known for a long time that weather, especially fire from lightning and grazing by everything from insects to bison developed grasslands worldwide, but we seem to mostly ignore it around here. Peek out the car window and you will quickly see many sloughs that have turned into thick bands of old cattail, and in many places thick with willow and even cottonwood trees. The best grasses for livestock and hay that once grew in these places are gone, shaded out and smothered, mostly by hybrid cattail that swept across the state about fifty years ago. And as the native meadow and marsh plants disappeared the birds and mammals went with them.
There is a lot of public land, including State Game Management Areas in southeast North Dakota where these overgrown conditions exist. My thought is that if parts of them, perhaps with some adjacent upland grasslands, were burned, then eventually put on a rest, burn, graze rotation, they would make wonderful demonstration areas where landowners could see the results of wetland restoration with prescribed fire and possibly apply the techniques to their own wetlands to produce both economic and wildlife benefits.
Sincerely,
Harold Kantrud
