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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Jered Henson: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm Dr. Jared Henson, and I'm going to be your host today. I think we have a great episode for you. One that I find pretty interesting. Got some great folks in the podcast studio with me as well. And today we are going to be jumping into the value of a wetland, and that's going to be our focus. And I will now introduce our awesome folks in the podcast studio with me. One of them you have heard a lot from. Too much of. Too much of. A lot from. That's Dr. Mike Brasher. He's our senior waterfowl scientist here at Ducks Unlimited.
Mike Brasher: Jared, it's awesome to be here. Is this the first time you have served as the host whenever I've been on as a guest? This is the first one. This probably doesn't happen very often for you. It will not be the last time either. I can guarantee you that. So it's great to have you here doing this and I'm thrilled to be a guest on here with you.
Jered Henson: Don't worry, we'll pitch a lot of stuff at you. And then we also have Dr. Ellen Herbert, Senior Scientist for Sustainability and Nature-Based Solutions with us.
Ellen Herbert: It's a delight to be on with you gentlemen today. Thanks for having me.
Jered Henson: Glad you're here. Ellen, have you been on the podcast before?
Ellen Herbert: It has been many years since Dr. Mike had me on the podcast, but yes, second time.
Mike Brasher: Way too long, way too much time between those appearances, and I'll blame it partly on myself and partly on the fact that Ellen is just so darn difficult to get in studio. So kudos to you for making this happen, Jared. Well, it took a while, but we got there.
Jered Henson: Some real wrangling. Yes. Ellen, can you tell the audience a little bit about kind of your background? What you do at DU and what brought you to DU?
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm originally from Arkansas and, you know, obviously growing up there, wetlands and waterfowl are a huge part of the heritage and culture of that state. I've worked in wetland complexes all over the United States and was drawn to a position with DU because of the work that Ducks Unlimited does. to get that habitat conservation on the ground. And that's really what I wanted to do was to see more wetlands on the landscape and Ducks Unlimited was the group that was doing that. My job here is really to support our conservation and our fundraising staff in having really good science-based ways of communicating all the benefits of wetlands. Not just the waterfowl ecology component that wetlands provide, but the benefits that a broader portion of society might care about, whether it's floodwater or non-consumptive recreation, kayaking, hiking, bird watching. all of those different aspects of wetlands to help garner support for our mission, get more young people interested in what we do, and keep accelerating the pace at which we get wetlands on the landscape.
Jered Henson: And we're very happy you're here.
Ellen Herbert: I'm delighted to be. For sure.
Jered Henson: And so that is a really good segue for kind of a little bit of a background on DUDU mission and for our listeners out there that it's not a surprise that Ducks Unlimited is a wetland conservation organization. Our mission statement is Ducks Unlimited conserves, restores, and manages wetlands and associated habitats for North America's waterfowl. And these habitats also benefit other wildlife and people. And so that was a great segue into our mission statement. And so I want to pose a couple big broad questions that I hope we get at today. And the first one is, why does DU focus on wetland conservation? And I'm going to throw that at Dr. Mike.
Mike Brasher: Well, it all starts in 1937. So, this won't be an hour-long history. Back when you were a small boy. Yeah. I wasn't around then. You transpose the three and the seven and you get when I was born. So, yeah, DU was founded in 1937. Our origins actually go back a few years before that because there was a group of people that were sportsmen, conservation-minded. They had a passion for waterfowl hunting. They appreciated that resource. They began to understand, began to recognize, as we got into the 1930s, the plight that they were, that waterfowl and other wetland-dependent birds were experiencing due to a number of factors. We don't have to get into all of that, but they wanted to do something to help waterfowl populations. They recognized, and credit to them, recognized that it was a habitat issue, recognizing that in order to to recover waterfowl populations to levels that were satisfactory that they wanted to see. The best way to do that and to do it so that those populations could be sustained was to address the concerns and the issues with the habitat that the animals relied on. And so, you know, If waterfowl, ducks, geese, swans were the animals that this group was primarily interested in, now granted they were sportsmen and women and conservationists that recognized values and appreciated parts of nature beyond waterfowl, but they were keenly interested in doing good things for waterfowl and trying to recover those populations. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, nor does it take a waterfowl scientist necessarily, to understand that if you're going to support healthy populations of waterfowl, you have to have water in various forms. And so that's where this broader label of wetlands comes in. Waterfowl use habitat types beyond technical wetlands. Wetlands, deep water habitats, lakes. estuaries, rivers, there's a lot of different technical categories of water bodies, so to speak, that aren't officially wetlands but are still used by waterfowl. So, the common denominator is water, in terms of what waterfowl need. Again, doesn't take any type of scientist to sort of figure that out.
Jered Henson: Yeah, when you remove that water from the landscape, like happened in the 30s, right, the Dust Bowl area, you see the effects on waterfowl and that was kind of what spawned.
Mike Brasher: Right, right. And so the real question was not whether we needed wetlands, needed to conserve, restore, protect wetlands. Even back then in the 30s, it was where. Where do we need to be focusing? What type of wetlands do we need to be focusing on? What are the mechanisms that we need to be putting in place? What are the activities that we need to be putting on the ground to protect and restore those wetlands? And, you know, that's where a lot of the work that the space that we're involved in the kind of the science and conservation planning and then ultimately the delivery comes into play. and figuring out what, where, why, how much on that kind of wetland thing. So from a waterfowl standpoint, wetlands, without wetlands, you don't have waterfowl populations. And all the details in terms of what they're good for, the different types of wetlands, when we need to be providing them, how much and how, those types of things is, that's where we get into the exciting stuff.
Jered Henson: Yeah, a lot of details in there that we can focus on. And so the rest of today's podcast, we hope to jump into actually focusing on some of those details of the values, the values to waterfowl, but also the values to those other two groups mentioned in our mission statement, other wildlife, as well as people. And those are some things we're going to want to jump into. And since you mentioned that wetlands are such a broad category, and as we talk about just water bodies in general, that's a lot. We don't have time for that. So let's focus on today our two priority areas. Let's focus on like a generic wetland and our priority one breeding habitat. So say prairie pothole region of the US or prairie Canada. So a pothole and then we'll go on and talk about a priority one non-breeding maybe a flooded bottomland forest within a riparian area, so a river system, in a non-breeding area, say in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley or something. So we're going to go into details on those. I think that will get us specific enough that we can talk about some examples, but not get lost in the details. So let's first and foremost talk about that priority one, that breeding habitat, and that is our focus. And if you've seen any of the headlines for DU recently, we've got a lot of news about that. That's big news. $100 million. $100 million. That's right. To the prairies. To the prairies. Cox Enterprises. A lot of that was earmarked for Habitat, right?
Mike Brasher: Yes. So, Dr. Karen Waldrop and I talked about this on a recent episode and we kind of spell out a little bit of what we understand at this time, and it's not a whole lot. Those conversations are literally ongoing with Cox Enterprises and representatives from the James M. Cox Foundation providing the funding for that. And so I think we are all just still super excited that we got the gift, we received the gift. And looking forward to the decisions that will be forthcoming on how, again, how, when, where, and over what time frame that gift is going to be delivered and make the biggest impact possible on our highest priority landscape, that being the Prairie Pothole region of the U.S. and Canada.
Jered Henson: Yeah, and I think that's a good jumping point to jump in and just say, why is it our priority one landscape, right? So what are the waterfowl benefits of, say, a prairie pothole? Let me back up a step. Can y'all help me define a prairie pothole?
Mike Brasher: Yeah, yeah, so we'll get to that here in a second. I guess, bigger picture, one of the other questions that I alluded to whenever you're trying to figure, I mean, it wasn't, as we've heard our colleague, Jerry Holden, oftentimes describes Ducks Unlimited as kind of having the audacity to think that we can have an impact on a continent, on a continental resource. And that's really what our mission says we're trying to do. is have an impact on a wild free-ranging population of animals at a continental scale. And so, Jerry's right. I mean, that's a very audacious goal. But I think 87 years later, we have proven that, you know, we're not crazy. We can't have an impact. There are a lot of things that are acting, that are fighting against us, right? All the additional work that we're doing now is incredibly important, but kind of going back to that idea of how do we make an impact? Where do we make an impact at a continental scale? One of the first things that they had to figure out is where do we need to be working? What's the most important place on the landscape to work to restore and sustain healthy waterfowl populations? And through some early research and early science and early counting of ducks, the International Wild Duck Census, they began to confirm what a lot of people knew, and that is that this region called the Prairie Pothole region, which historically began in Northern Iowa, extended up through Western Minnesota into South Dakota, North Dakota, Eastern Montana, and then up into the Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta became known as the duck factory. It was, is, and hopefully always will be the heart of duck production in North America. There's a lot of geese that are produced up in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, but when it comes to duck production, It's the prairie pothole region, this area that was formed by retreating glaciers about 10-12,000 years ago. When those glaciers retreated, they left behind these large chunks of ice and they slowly ground out these shallow depressional wetlands of all different shapes, sizes, and water permanency. And so when we say pothole, we're talking about these shallow depressional wetlands across that northern Great Plains geography. So.
Jered Henson: Right. And some of them can be ephemeral. Yes. So here to get here today gone tomorrow and some are permanent wetlands. Right. And so so there's some a lot of variation there.
Mike Brasher: But. All of them are important. They are, and here's a plug for if you've never been to the prairie pothole region, get there. I mean, there's a lot of different times to get there and have an enjoyable experience, whether it be spring when the birds are arriving, summer when they're in the peak of breeding. or whether it be fall to partake of some of our favorite outdoor activities, hunting and so forth, or if you're a lover of cold weather and frozen water, then go in the winter. You're not going to see as many exciting things, not as many birds, but get there one way or another. If you want an appreciation for, try to get an appreciation for the scale of that landscape and the number of wetlands across it, go to Google Earth, Google Maps, use the satellite imagery, scan that entire landscape from one end to the other, and try to get a feel for what, for the immense number, the millions of wetlands that dot that landscape. It's one of the most remarkable places that's on the planet, you know, it's just a few other places like it. So where do we go now? At least in terms of that kind of high level that we wanted to define a pothole, I guess, right? And we've sort of done that. There's different shape sizes and permanency.
Jered Henson: Let's jump into why you mentioned that it was the production area for waterfowl. So it is the nesting. Some ducks nest over water. Most of the ducks nest in adjacent uplands, or a lot of them, and rear their broods in those wetlands. So really important for duck production on that. But that scale also can be really important in molt as well, right? Post-molt, all that invertebrate biomass that's in those wetlands, lots of protein.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, so obviously waterfowl are wetland-loving animals. That's where we find them. They have webbed feet. They're equipped to exist in, feed in wetland water environments. Their bill morphology is such that it enables them to filter fine food particles, whether it be seeds or invertebrates from the water. They didn't evolve by kind of picking up individual bits of seed or things the way we think of a turkey or a quail or something of that nature. They have more of a filter feeding kind of apparatus on their bill. As we all know, some ducks can pick corn or rice or whatever individually from the ground, but fundamentally they're designed to filter foods from the water. So, everything that they do pretty much depends on water in some way, evolutionarily. So, from the prairie pothole region, its primary importance is as a breeding geography. It provides all of the resources they need to produce a clutch of eggs, to re-nest if their initial nest or second nest is destroyed, and then to raise their brood, importantly raise their brood. I mean, that's one of the most important reasons why we see a lot of species of birds, waterfowl that have adapted to breeding at northern latitudes. Daylight is, there's more daylight as we get into summer at northern latitudes. That gives the individuals more time to forage because they don't have great night vision. And so the more, the better they can see, the more light there is, the better they can see, the longer they have to forage and build up nutrients and grow in a rapid fashion. Wetlands in northern latitudes are incredibly productive. And then also you mentioned molt. Again, nutrients, protein, all of the minerals and nutrients necessary for growing feathers if you're a young bird or replacing feathers if you're an adult. All those things come from those wetlands.
Jered Henson: And that was something that really, really impressed me while I was at Ducks University was actually we did some denetting in a pothole and just the sheer amount of biomass of invertebrates inside those potholes was quite astonishing. Like tons of invertebrates in there.
Mike Brasher: A lot of times those shallower wetlands are the ones that are most productive from an invertebrate standpoint. And that is another thing that we see across that landscape is a lot of very shallow wetlands that will thaw early, that will provide a flush of invertebrates. And so for those pairs that are returning, the female will forage in those wetlands. as a way to build up additional protein reserves that she uses to then fuel the production of the eggs. Eggs are incredibly energy dense and high cost, so they need a lot of resources. Some of the resources they'll put on and carry with them. Yeah, some capital. That's right, but others they get… once they've arrived on the breeding grounds. That's capital breeders and income breeders.
Jered Henson: We don't have to go down that road.
Mike Brasher: It's complicated.
Jered Henson: Some of the audience may enjoy that. And so I guess we've established pretty quickly that the potholes are important for ducks. They're also pretty dang important to people and other wildlife. And so, Dr. Allen, you want to jump in on that and talk about some of those other benefits?
Ellen Herbert: I will and I love that you guys were talking about food resources in a wetland because one of the things that I love to educate people about is that the same things that make wetlands really important for waterfowl and other migratory birds, all these little critters that are going up and down the continent and need tons of food, It's really the same basic functions of a wetland. A lot of people think about things like the tropical rainforest as being incredibly productive. Prairie potholes and other emergent vegetation wetlands produce as much vegetation, leaves, seeds and stems as a tropical rainforest on an annual basis. A tremendous amount of energy and biomass and part of that story is that energy and biomass getting in the mouth and belly of a migratory bird But it's also part of why wetlands are sort of a powerhouse for what we call ecosystem services. And that's sort of the benefits that the natural systems of the world provide to humans. The crazy high productivity that fuels the energy of migratory birds is also fueling really important processes like little microorganisms that are taking fertilizer and other contaminants that come off the upland and drain into the wetland. and they're processed into their elemental composition and makes them no longer harmful to the environment. So that same kind of process, it's all driven by how productive wetlands are.
Jered Henson: And that, I think that's a key point. If you look at, especially when we talk about those prairie potholes, most of them sit within agricultural landscapes. And so those nutrients you're talking about, a lot of them are fertilizer runoff and things like that, right? Or nutrients from cattle or something like that. And they can help cycle all of that and keep it in the landscape instead of letting it run off.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, which is becoming a more and more important part of the way we look at wetlands. Most of the prairie pothole region sits in two major drainages that are really important to humans, the Missouri and Mississippi River drainage in the US that goes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, and then up in Canada a lot of that region is draining into Lake Winnipeg, which is very important economically in Canada. So having wetlands on the landscape is really a place we can capture, store and transform some of the nutrient and sediments that we don't want getting in the waterways that we boat, fish and go to the beach in and they can be sort of processed on site and provide that value. So that's something we're definitely leveraging a lot now at Ducks Unlimited. restoring wetlands to reduce nutrients and have some really cool ongoing studies with multiple universities in the United States and Canada showing that we can achieve waterfowl benefits and water quality benefits at the same time.
Jered Henson: Win-win. Always good. And I also want to mention you talked about the productivity there in those agricultural landscapes and nutrients, but also the other wildlife side, right? If you have a bunch of native, at least somewhat native vegetation in the middle of a giant monoculture, right, that is agriculture, it's a pollinator haven as well, as well as pest management. So those things can be quite beneficial too.
Ellen Herbert: Because again wetlands occur at this funky little place, they're not quite dry land, they're not quite totally aquatic in nature, they tend to have really, really high diversity of plant species, especially some really neat flowering species that provide a lot of resources for pollinators. They also tend to be little refuges for the predatory insects you were discussing that reduce reliance on pesticides and allow, you know, bugs, basically bugs to eat other bugs. but you have to have those reservoirs on the landscape. Those insects don't tend to travel very far. And there are a couple of really neat studies, and put in a pitch for our colleagues up in Canada, continuing to do work on the economic value that wetlands provide in terms of pest control and pollination services. For any of the listeners that own a farm, especially up in those regions or out in California, you know that oftentimes you're paying to have pollinators trucked in in the form of bee boxes. It's a cost to your operation. So if we can demonstrate through science and through working with producer groups that this is a real economic benefit that prevents an expenditure on the farm, we can really demonstrate the value of retaining wetlands in those landscapes.
Jered Henson: We talked about some of the permanence of water on the landscape as well. And so some of those other, I guess the ephemeral ones maybe not quite as much, but some of those more permanent wetlands also have some other water benefits.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah. And really, wetlands are just depressions on the landscape that are there for more than two weeks a year. And almost any wetland can provide benefits in terms of regulating the water cycle. So there are low spots where sometimes we get rid of them for exactly this reason, but there are low spots where water collects. When we look across the Prairie Pothole region, those wetlands each are capturing, you know, a couple inches of water in every storm, but that accumulates to be a huge amount of water. So there is really good evidence that demonstrates that the loss of wetlands from the Prairie Pothole region is contributing to flooding downstream. We're getting rid of that capacity to hold water diffusely across the landscape and we're concentrating flows. So that, you know, retaining and restoring wetlands on the landscape has been demonstrated to contribute to reduce flooding downstream, potentially reduce flooding upstream depending on the wetland that you're talking about. But they are really part of what we like to call natural infrastructure. It's wetlands that are really contributing to the same functions that, you know, traditional concrete levees and storm walls contribute to, but doing that in a much more natural fashion. So really think of them as the sponge of the landscape. They absorb the floodwater and then they're letting it back out very slowly, which can help alleviate drought during dry times as well. So they're really acting as a, you know, kind of turning the temperature up and down on the water cycle in a watershed.
Jered Henson: Yeah, kind of mediate the flow. And then it can also help with aquifer recharge in that region as well.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, so this is a little bit more relevant when you get out of the Prairie Pothole region and down to the Southern Great Plains. But in certain areas of the country, the Southern Great Plains, Kansas and Nebraska, there is a significant body of evidence that says about 95% of all the groundwater recharges going through those, the wetlands of Kansas and Nebraska.
Jered Henson: I guess that's not a pothole, that would be a playa.
Ellen Herbert: It is not a pothole. It's very similar in nature. But yes, there are parts of the country in which wetlands are really important for maintaining groundwater and that's where a lot of folks are getting irrigation and drinking water. And it doesn't hurt that as water passes through wetlands it often gets a little bit cleaner. So again, sort of a win-win providing multiple benefits where wetlands are recharging groundwater.
Jered Henson: I think that was a really good run through on those benefits. Is there anything else you want to add to benefits on a prairie pothole, ES benefits?
Ellen Herbert: Well, I'll just say, and I think we've had a couple great articles in the DU Magazine recently about this, but the role that waterfowl hunters in particular, and anybody who's buying a duck stamp or paying excise tax that goes into the Pittman Robertson Fund, Those benefits are… waterfowl hunters are responsible for providing a lot of these benefits to broader society. I think that's a very cool story that hasn't been told in the way that I would like to see it be told is the contribution that waterfowl hunters are making to address broader issues of water quality, water availability, to non-hunters. So I just think that's a cool part of the story that goes under-recognized.
Jered Henson: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. Waterfowl hunters were conservationists before it was cool. And have been for a long time and contribute immensely to conservation, especially in North America. That's the North American model for conservation. And I think that's why we're having this conversation right now, right? Is that waterfowl hunter numbers are not as high as they once were and so we're needing and wetland loss and some of the challenges you know facing wetlands in North America are increasing and so we have to scale to be able to keep up and so for us to do that we need to look well beyond just a very narrow lens we need to look at a very broad lens and see the value of that wetland well beyond just what it looks like to a duck. And I think us jumping in and grabbing that and going down that road really helps us leverage and move into new spaces.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, Jared, we've been really good for most of, well, for most of the existence of Ducks Unlimited at identifying, quantifying and talking about the benefits of wetlands from that waterfowl standpoint and to the people that value wetlands specifically for waterfowl. And I think that's why you see, well, I know that's why now you look at our membership and it's predominantly people that are passionate and ridiculously obsessive about waterfowl for whatever reason, whether it be photography, hunting, just a lot of people came to this, came to love waterfowl because they loved hunting and talk to a lot of people now that say, you know, I've shot enough waterfowl in my life. I just love them. I admire them. They're incredibly beautiful animals. They're charismatic. I want to see waterfowl around for the rest of our existence. And so we've done really, we've done great at communicating to those people. and understanding those values. Now, what we're talking about here is trying to connect with all of those other millions of people that are just as obsessive and just as geeky and ridiculously passionate about wetlands for these other reasons. Some are tangible, some maybe not so much, maybe not recognize the connections between these wetlands and some of the things that they value so much, such as clean water, abundant water. And I don't know that people will get geeky about abundant clean water, but they will definitely get passionate about its importance for quality of life and our existence, right? And so that's why having Ellen, having you, having so many of the other new staff on coming to be part of Ducktown Limited now to study in these areas, to understand and to communicate in these areas, at the same level that we've done for ducks, geese, and swans for all these years is so incredibly important. And it's why we've been so successful here over the past five or five plus years at growing and scaling and starting to make inroads into new audiences while hanging on to our core supporters and the ones that founded us and got us to this point. And it's admittedly a little tricky in some ways, but the important thing in my mind is communicating honestly and openly about that. And it gets to this idea of trade-offs. It's a note I made over here a minute ago. In some cases, there probably are some trade-offs between the benefits that a wetland provides for waterfowl and the benefits that it'll provide for water quality or abundant water or flood protection or flood mitigation or something of that nature. But in a lot of cases, there's not a trade-off. It delivers tremendous value to both of those. And I know we're doing some and supporting some work in that area. And in some cases, I think we're even finding some of the wetlands that are designed for providing some of the quote non-waterfowl, but designed for interest in not necessarily waterfowl, We're actually supporting waterfowl at higher levels than some of those that we originally designed for waterfowl. Is that still holding true, Ellen, on some of those studies?
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, and you know, to go back to your earlier point, Mike, about the audacity of the goal of this organization to manage and essentially save an entire species of birds across a continent, we have to build strong partnerships. We're not doing it alone and we never have been doing it alone. So a big goal of this is how we work with new partners, look at new ways of funding our wetland work, and then to your point about the way we used to design wetlands, the way we design them now, even our traditional partners are thinking about new ways of designing wetlands. They're thinking about new ways of satisfying their customer base. serving fewer and fewer waterfowl hunters and more and more bird watchers and anglers and kayakers and hikers. So really having the evidence to sit down at the table with a partner and say, yeah, you know, we can achieve all of these goals. and here are the trade-offs, here are the benefits, here's how we put together the funding necessary to do that. And so that's a really cool story that we're beginning to be able to tell is, you know, how we sit down with our partners at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or Missouri Department of Conservation and really think through how we get the most benefit for ducks and for people and for other wildlife. And that's what's going to sustain our mission and sustain the missions of those organizations that are our partners.
Mike Brasher: Ellen, you made a comment there about us telling a story about the different benefits that we're getting. And it's the thing that whenever I heard you say that, it occurred to me, anybody can tell a story, right? But what backs up our story is credible information that we get from our investments in science, in collaboration with our partners at the state, federal, and university level. For us, the three of us, we're scientifically trained, and so I know we get great satisfaction personally in knowing that our leadership, our volunteers, everyone champions sort of the mantra of us being a science-based organization. And we kind of live it. And we have the privilege of kind of carrying that forward and ensuring that the stories we tell are backed with credible scientific information. And this is another example of kind of what we've learned and what we're now talking about with respect to the importance of different wetlands.
Jered Henson: I think it's really cool to say that you are, you know, you work for an organization that's the largest wetland conservation organization in North America. A lot of our non-hunting people out there don't realize that. When you tell them you work for DU, they're like, oh, you like to shoot ducks. Like, well, you're not wrong about me. You're not wrong, but we do way more than that. And I think that's really important that we highlight. I also want to take a quick second because I know you mentioned a little bit about flood mitigation and some things like that. Let's go downstream a little bit from that wetland we looked at. We're running out of time. No, we got time. We can make part two. Let's go downstream. And just kind of look at something, let's say, lower Mississippi alluvial valley, and let's talk about a bottomland hardwood wetland, you know, a forest wetland down there. Mike, you want to talk about it?
Mike Brasher: No, let's reverse it.
Jered Henson: Let's go to the ecosystem service. We're gonna use that term now. Ecosystem services that that wetland can provide.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, I mean, so once we get down, you know, say we're a little drop of water and we've traveled all the way from the prairies down the Missouri River to the main stem Mississippi River, you know, what we're really looking at there now is what used to be vast floodplains. We've narrowed those floodplains for flood protection and for agriculture and for economic benefit, but there's a consequence to that. Our floodplains are much narrower. Again, it's one thing that tends to exacerbate the extremes of flooding. And then on the other side of the coin, we get that water down the river really fast. We also exacerbate the extremes of drought. you know, when we're getting down in those floodplain areas, the remaining bottomland hardwood forests really play an important role in absorbing that energy. So you just think about a big wet field full of trees, it's going to slow the water down. And that's kind of one of the things that we rely upon for shoring up some of our traditional levee infrastructure plant trees in front of them. Slow down that water. Look for places, and there's some really good examples of this on the Mississippi River, places where we can restore, notch the levees, take down the levees, and provide more room for floodwaters to expand. which is really cool, provide habitat, provide habitat for all kinds of riverine fish species, not just the waterfowl species and other migratory birds, and provide some of that flood reduction service. And that's one of, speaking of being science-based, it's one of the really cool research programs we have ongoing with several engineering schools around the country to try to understand how that might work. and what benefits we can expect. The other really cool part of Bottomlands is obviously now we're getting into territory where we're talking about big trees for waterfowl. We're mostly talking about benefits that have to do with the mass of acorns food that comes therein but again with all that food production you have a lot of leaf and wood production and so one of the big things we think about with the forested wetlands is their ability to hold on to carbon in all that standing wood. So you know they also may play a role in helping us mitigate potential for climate change by absorbing carbon and we're even funding some restoration programs through the lens of climate. So that's another way that these forests are really playing a part in broader story about benefits to society.
Jered Henson: Yeah, and I think that we can also kind of mention it drew some attention from a bunch of communities up and down the Mississippi River.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, and I believe Mike can chime in here, but I think he did a special podcast on that with Sarah Burns and some other folks, if he can remember that far back. MRCTI, is that right? Yeah, the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative. A group of mayors, many of whom are really interested in our mission, they understand the economy of the Mississippi River. There's a big tourism, agriculture, and hunting and fishing part of the economy on the river. And so they were looking for solutions to flooding, to recreational opportunities, to green space for their communities. And it was sort of a very natural fit to talk about how the wetlands along the Mississippi can play a role in capturing and storing floodwater. in providing climate mitigation services, but also have a nexus with actual recreational opportunities for the folks that live in and visit those cities. So we're a couple years into that partnership and have done a couple projects up and down the Mississippi, continuing to look for additional projects, but it's a really cool example of how you get a totally different group of supporters and build a totally different partnership when we're talking not just about waterfowl but about the other benefits that wetlands provide.
Jered Henson: Yeah I mean I thought it was really neat when we kind of talked about that and I got introduced to that project. I thought that was an awesome opportunity to work with communities.
Ellen Herbert: One of your first days on the job, I believe.
Jered Henson: Yeah, I got stuck in a room for three days, two days with a lot of people way above my grade, but it was a good time. I learned a lot and I got to learn a lot about how conservation works at a whole bunch of different levels, right? I've been science-minded. I've had the science blinders on and I've thought about ducks and waterfowl and wetlands and that. that, but to see a room full of scientists, development people, infield biologists, policy people, all in the same room, that was a really cool experience to see the scope and the scale at which we can work, and also engineers. That's been something else that's helped DU kind of jump into some of these, you mentioned the fellowship programs with some of the universities, a lot of those are engineering programs that really help make our system go is having those engineers that can do this work. Mike, do you want to add anything to the waterfowl values of, say, a bottomland hardwood down there?
Mike Brasher: Sure, I can add a little bit to that. Jared, bottomland hardwoods is a system that you are certainly familiar with, having grown up and hunted many of those areas in your life. And so, I guess big picture, I'll kind of back up and say we talked about the prairie wetlands and their importance. One of the reasons why that breeding season, why those breeding geographies are so important is when we look back through some of the science and population dynamics, we've been able to identify, the larger science community has been able to identify that when you look at the annual changes in population growth, of population size for duck populations. About 70-75% of that change is accounted for by events occurring during the breeding season. Nest success, hen survival, duckling survival, etc. Those are some of the key ones. So that leaves about 25-30% of that annual change in population size that's accounted for, attributed to events occurring and demographic rates, survival rates, etc. that occur during the non-breeding season, which is essentially what we're talking about here. whenever we're moving farther down the flyway into the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and more specifically a bottomland hardwood system. So, just generally speaking, when we talk about annual life cycle events or annual cycle events of waterfowl during the non-breeding season, it's going to be pretty similar. Well, it would be similar regardless of what kind of wetland you're talking about. When ducks migrate south, it's an adaptation to exploiting seasonally available environments, right? Wetlands up north, they get hard during winter. Some, you know, temperatures get cold and water turns to ice, right? And so it runs them out of there because they can't access the food resources. So, migration out of northern areas is principally in response to the decreased availability of food resources. You gotta eat to survive, right? And so, as they move down, they're also starting to undergo various physiological behavioral processes that are beginning to prepare them for breeding the next year. You know, animals like they want to survive and reproduce and pass on their genes to the next generation and they kind of have some fun and play and do all kinds of crazy things along the way, but principally it's about surviving and reproducing. And so, when we look at the type of things that waterfowl do during that non-breeding season in the habitats that they encounter, There's some notable things that are happening. They go through pair bonding. They are feeding a lot. There's a fair bit of resting that goes on. They're defending the pair bonds that they may have established. Females, well, there's some molt that goes on, different stages, different types of molt, whether you're talking about the male or the female. But anytime you're molting, replacing feathers, it requires good nutrition to replace those. And so where do they get good nutrition? But from the wetlands that they're occupying and so they're acquiring everything from calories in the form of fat, fiber. starches, to proteins, to other essential nutrients that are fueling everything that they do.
Jered Henson: Yeah, and that bottom line hardwood system too, you know, calories are important, right? That drives a lot of selection, but especially when we talk about molt and some things like that, protein. Protein is necessary and you're going to get more protein out of a more natural system than you will from say a rice field or a corn field, right? So those systems, even if you had tons of rice, you still need those other systems so that that duck can finish out all parts of its annual cycle.
Mike Brasher: Yeah, anybody that's hunted in a bottomland forest will also probably notice, especially as you get later into winter, it's not uncommon for you to perfectly set up your decoy spread. It's awesome, right? Looks great, sun's hitting it just right. and you get a pair of mallards that kind of drops down into the trees and lands about 80 yards off. Just the pair of them all by themselves. You've all seen that, right? So, that's that kind of pair isolation that's happening. And so, they just need some, doesn't have to be solid visual isolation. They just want to get away. They want some space because that female doesn't want another male coming around messing with her. She's already in kind of breeding mentality trying to hang on to the mate she's got, the mate's trying to defend her from all the other crazy guys that are out there flying around that haven't found a mate yet. And so then she's wanting to be able to, to feed undisturbed, not be bothered, and just kind of biding her time until conditions improve. And she gets that stimulus, that stimuli to, to migrate back north. Right? So we've got them- Tanner Iskra, Ph.D.:
Jered Henson: : Yeah, she's got to finish that molt and then she'll head on up. So she has those resources to feed.
Mike Brasher: David Jones, MD, PhD.:: Right. So when we have them here, southern latitudes or in any migration or wintering area, We're hanging on to them and helping them prepare for the ultimate job of getting back north and breeding. And so, good food. From their perspective, they want to be able to survive. We want to be able to harvest a few, you know, from a renewable standpoint. But yeah, they're looking to survive and get in good body condition. Diverse wetlands that provide natural foods, diverse foods are key. Just like humans can't live on bread alone, ducks can't live on bread alone. We shouldn't feed them bread to begin with, right? That was just sort of a figure of speech. I hope everybody understands that.
Jered Henson: And I will clarify, the waterfowl we're speaking of here primarily are mallards. That's right. Because they're the ones primarily doing pair bonding.
Mike Brasher: And then wood ducks are going to breed locally too, right? Some will, but I digress. Let's see, what else? What else do we need to touch on there regarding value?
Jered Henson: We're talking about benefits to that wetland system you mentioned, wood ducks. So that system is also important for wood ducks in the summer. So that technically could be a breeding system in that.
Mike Brasher: I think that's probably the highlight of, at the high level, to kind of keep from going any, any farther, any deeper into some of the challenges that we're facing in the management of some of those, those bottomland hardwood forests. They take many different forms. Some are intensively managed, some are natural and they're subjected to natural flooding.
Jered Henson: And all those have different ES benefits, depending upon how that system is managed.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, the way that we manage wetlands and there isn't a universal rule of thumb. Some intensively managed wetlands provide a lot of benefits. Some wetlands are used for, for instance, wastewater and flood control. So there isn't like a perfect rule of thumb, but it is very true that, you know, really at the end of the day, the way water moves through a system, is what determines the benefits that that system has. It's going to determine plant growth, tree growth, it's going to determine flood water retention, the way that wetland may or may not contribute to improving water quality. So there's no hard and fast rule of thumb, but it's one of the things that we as scientists at DU are trying to do a good job of documenting and communicating. And again, working with our partners on how we can balance a lot of those benefits and achieve the most in one acre.
Mike Brasher: And so Ellen, this is a good example where there are some more notable trade-offs between waterfowl benefits and ES benefits. And again, this is something that we are studying, we're trying to understand. I want to go there in a moment, but the first thing that popped into my head is when we talk about the value of bottomland hardwood forest to mallards and wood ducks, there are some notable differences in the value of that area based on the species composition. Not all oaks are the same in terms of their foraging value to waterfowl. Some of the smaller acorns, pin oaks, are the ones that are most valuable. What do we know about differences in, let's say, carbon sequestration between different species of oaks? As we understand them within those bottomland hardwood systems, do we have any of that information right now or is that being studied?
Ellen Herbert: It's something that's being studied and really, I mean, I think at the most basic level, faster growing trees that produce more wood are going to store more carbon. Carbon is the majority of the elemental composition of wood. So, slower growing trees are going to do that more slowly. When we get to the story of bottomlands, it is equally if not more important to consider again how long site is flooded because you can have the fastest growing oak in the world if it's flooded all the time and it drowns out and it dies. You got no food, you got no carbon, you got no trees. So that is one of the things that we are studying with partners. It's a core component of some of the high-level science questions we have in our southern region is how all those things play together. So, you know, slow versus fast, wet versus dry, we can give you some… Back of the envelope, but like many things, a lot more research is needed.
Jered Henson: Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons they're suggesting these days to have multi-species plantings, right? Not just giant monocultures of those specific red oaks. There was a push for a while, and I don't know if it's still going. I don't think the push is still there as much to interspace cottonwoods into those systems. I thought you were going to say eucalyptus. I missed that one.
Mike Brasher: I know they've done cottonwoods. I distracted us, I'm sorry.
Jered Henson: It can stimulate the oat growth and make them compete so they grow faster, but ash I think can help doing that.
Ellen Herbert: You raise another good maybe win-win point of something we've been discussing a lot, especially in bottomlands, that again, a good general rule of thumb, the more species you have, We scientists call it biodiversity. You have a lot more ability to adapt to changing conditions because some species, if multiple species, you have almost guaranteed to have some that do well in drier conditions, some that do well in wetter conditions. and as water level fluctuates, you can be a little bit more resilient. And that's one of the things we're really putting a big investment into now, especially in bottomlands, is understanding not only tree diversity and how that contributes to the health of the forest, but also the diversity of all the other species that are using the forest that we restore. And recognizing that every different partner we have has a different species of focus and really trying to become thought leaders in how we measure and communicate the value of wetland restorations to broader group of species, especially those that might be threatened or endangered or of special concern to certain user groups. So that's a really cool part of our growing program that Jared's contributing a lot to. is how we think about, not just how we plant forests, but what that means for all different types of critters.
Jered Henson: Yeah, we do a fantastic job in restoration and doing restorations in a pretty natural system in a natural way. And when we do that, we get some pretty impressive biodiversity responses, right? Especially when we're doing this work and heavily manipulated and altered landscapes. So when we work in those systems, we can have a huge, huge impact.
Mike Brasher: I just want to clarify, whenever I mentioned the eucalyptus thing, I wasn't talking about that being a push for Ducks Unlimited, Dick, because you never know. But I think from a carbon sequestration standpoint, there was a push for that because they're rapidly growing trees. But no, D has never gone to the eucalyptus area. I just want to clarify that. But one of the things that Karen and I talked about the other day, was that not all the acres we deliver are the same. And that's fine. There we deliver a lot of different geographies and a lot of different habitat types. There are even examples within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley where we're working on bottomland hardwood restoration. in slightly different areas that are going to have slightly different values to waterfowl, slightly different values to any of the ES metrics that we're trying to record. All of that in the larger scheme of creating landscapes that are more suitable for waterfowl and other critters that depend on them is a great thing and there's some synergy to be achieved there I think in a lot of the conservation that we do and as we're because we're being, we're becoming more appealing to, we're delivering benefits for a larger group of outcomes, parts of our natural system, and in essence, and as a result of that, becoming more appealing as a go-to source of conservation for a whole host of other people, and so it's like, it would be like, power through growing our base or something of that nature across all these different types of work that we're doing.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, and Mike, I do want to clarify for our listeners that when the two of you say yes, what you're saying is ecosystem services, which is, again, the benefits that nature provides to people. And that's exactly right. The idea is to grow the tent, is to get more people on board with a wetland restoration mission, whether they care about the ducks, the black bears, Out West Salmon, you know, there are just so many people that can connect with our mission if we can credibly communicate about the benefits to those groups. And that's really, you know, that's really what our program is about.
Jered Henson: Yeah, and I think this is something that I thought was absolutely fascinating joining that sustainability and ecosystem services team is our traditional conservation base has done phenomenal work helping us to leverage funds and we can use that against NACA money and things like that. But when we jump into these other benefits, these other people benefits, it opens the door to partners that would have never, ever, ever batted an eye at us. Can you speak to some of those partners we work with now? that probably don't care much about a duck, but do care about clean water and things like that.
Ellen Herbert: I mean, certainly many of our newer partners in the corporate space, probably the listeners aren't that familiar that we've had an over a decade long relationship with two major sewage districts in Wisconsin. Which, you know, you start to go like, why would we do that? Well, because they're interested in how wetlands help clean up water and avoid costs for them. We're getting into similar relationships with a huge diversity of corporate partners who maybe don't necessarily connect with the waterfowl mission, but they connect with the wetland mission. The way that the wetland mission provides benefits for water quality, for sustainability of some of the goods and services that they source. Even in some cases for, you know, recreational and community bonding experiences for their employees. There is just a whole world of possibilities when we communicate about, you know, biodiversity or water or non-hunting recreation. for that to bring in additional new partners and support and, you know, build some wetlands off the backs of corporate sustainability dollars. They're not thinking about ducks. They're thinking about water and the sustainability of their operations in places like the Trinity River in Texas or the Central Valley of California.
Mike Brasher: And we're tapping into those dollars that we never would have been able to gain access to before. And one other thing that I guess I just wanted to point out here is that some people may be asking, why? Why are we doing this? And it's pretty simple. The threats facing waterfowl habitat have never been greater than they are right now. incredibly diverse, they are pervasive, they are accelerating, and there are new threats that pop up every month. And those threats are both, they're consuming habitat, they're degrading habitat, or they are doing any other, making areas less attractive to waterfowl. I think in over the past 10 or so years, Some of their estimates out of the prairie pothole region suggest that somewhere between 500 to a million acres of native grass have been converted annually. So, we've talked a lot about wetlands, but we also conserve, protect, restore grasslands in those areas. Because ducks need grass to nest, right? And so, in the prairies, that's just as crucial as wetlands. And so, the threat to waterfowl habitats has never been greater and it's imperative if we're to be successful that we work with a broader swath of people and find common ground.
Jered Henson: We have to be able to scale, right? Yeah. And you mentioned those threats and that was even such a big topic and a big point of discussion that during the Duck Symposium, that was a keynote that they brought about was how do we scale the system for waterfowl conservation? And this was one of the biggest opportunities for us to jump in. And we're there. We've already jumped down that road and moving in it.
Mike Brasher: It's really rewarding. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan and the partnership around it have been talking about this for about a decade. The 2012 NAWAMP, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, really ushered in really really urged the waterfowl management profession to embrace the idea of truly selling wetland conservation on the merits of the non-waterfowl benefits. I've even heard people say, if we're to achieve our wetland conservation mission in supporting waterfowl populations in perpetuity, It's not going to be on the backs of waterfowl alone. There are just too few people that share that passion that are as ridiculously obsessed about the birds as we are. And so, it's so exciting to see Ducks Unlimited be a leader in this space. It took a commitment from our leaders, it took a vision from our leaders to hire folks like you and the others. that bring that expertise and that can talk about, communicate, study, and deliver the projects that fall into these other areas of interest. And so, here we are.
Jered Henson: And I think we're running out of time here, but I want to give an opportunity to Dr. Allen if she wants to give any closing statements or conclusions that she wants to deliver.
Ellen Herbert: Yeah, I can do nothing but reinforce Mike's message that, you know, the grasslands and wetlands that migratory water birds depend upon are some of the most imperiled ecosystems on earth. We can't have enough partners to try to reverse that trend. We've got to bring everybody aboard. But I also don't want to lose the message that our traditional base of waterfowl hunters has contributed incredibly to value for our whole society in North America. So we've really got to have both pieces of that puzzle for society and for waterfowl. And they're not two separate things. They are people coming together for the habitat. Regardless of what your end goal is, whether it's water or there's just no room for us to not all be rowing in the same direction.
Jered Henson: Yeah, for sure. I want to wrap this up and I want to thank our guests today, Dr. Ellen Herbert and Dr. Mike Brasher. Thank you, Jared. Thanks for the great job. So I was really happy to finally get y'all in here and talk about this and talk about sustainability and de-use sustainability and how it all meshes with Our waterfowl work moves that mission forward. I'd love to thank our listeners. Thank y'all for tuning in. And I've got to make a shout out here to Chris Isaac, our producer. And thanks for sitting in here and hanging out with us today. And everything he does, he makes this thing go. And so we really appreciate that.
Mike Brasher: Is he still awake over there? He's loosening up.
Jered Henson: I think he took a small nap, but yeah.