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California’s Central Valley is one of the most important — and most intensively managed — waterfowl landscapes in North America.
In this episode, host Dr. Mike Brasher is joined by Matt Kaminski, Ducks Unlimited Regional Biologist, and Dr. Dan Smith, DU Waterfowl Scientist, for a deep dive into habitat conditions, conservation challenges, and the future of wetlands in the Pacific Flyway.
From highly engineered water systems to changing land use and declining snowpack, the conversation highlights how water management decisions shape waterfowl populations across the entire annual cycle — from breeding to migration and wintering.
In this episode, listeners will hear about:
- Current breeding habitat conditions in the Central Valley
- The role of snowpack and water supply in wetland availability
- Why California remains critical for wintering AND breeding ducks
- Declines in mallard production and possible causes
- Changes in agriculture, especially rice, and impacts on ducks
- The importance of watergrass as a key food resource
- Highly engineered water systems and wetland infrastructure
- Seasonal vs. semi‑permanent wetlands explained
- The concept of “reverse cycle wetlands” and brood habitat
- Why summer water is critical — but difficult and expensive to maintain
- DU and partner programs incentivizing habitat for breeding waterfowl
This episode provides an inside look at one of the most complex conservation landscapes in North America — and how Ducks Unlimited is working with partners to keep it productive for waterfowl.
Listen now: www.ducks.org/DUPodcast
Send feedback: DUPodcast@ducks.org
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Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just getting started, this episode is packed with valuable insights into the world of waterfowl hunting and conservation.
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Creators and Guests
What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
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.
So it's not a it's not a doctor Ringelman effect, though?
Dan Smith:No. Not yet. You'll have to ask him about his, American bidder evaluation, though. He just he might be, yeah. He found some cool stuff on some of the landscapes out here.
Mike Brasher:I thought you were gonna say he would be bit he was gonna be bitter if I asked
Dan Smith:him that much.
Mike Brasher:That was that was my attempt at comedy. It usually doesn't go very well. So Can
VO:we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jerad Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU Podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
Mike Brasher:Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I am your host on today's episode, doctor Mike Brasher, and I am thrilled to be joined by two guests from out in California. We're gonna have sort of a California Central Valley conservation, habitat management, science, all sorts of other good topics, discussion. Today, joining us, we have Matt Kaminski, a regional biologist out there.
Mike Brasher:I guess you're kind of in sort of the southern part of the Central Valley. Is that right, Matt?
Matt Kaminski:Yes. I'm in the I'm in the San Joaquin Valley.
Mike Brasher:Alright. Well, it's great to have you here with us. You've been on, I think, once before, maybe in one of the first two years. Right? Does that sound familiar?
Matt Kaminski:That's correct. Yep.
Mike Brasher:Alright. Well, it's good to have it's great to have you back and joining I don't know if you've been on a podcast. I know you've been on a waterfowl season outlook. Dan Smith, waterfowl scientist, a k a science guy. Dan, great to have you on.
Dan Smith:Thanks, Mike.
Mike Brasher:How how good is my memory? Did have you been on a podcast before, or is it just the waterfowl season outlook?
Dan Smith:I don't know, so it's up
Mike Brasher:Your to memory's just your memory's as good as mine's. Alright. Good deal. So, Matt, you have been with Ducks Unlimited for how long? It's it's been more than a couple years.
Mike Brasher:Right?
Matt Kaminski:Yeah. I'm rounding up to my twenty first year.
Mike Brasher:No. Really? You so when did you start?
Matt Kaminski:August '25. I mean, August 2005.
Mike Brasher:Did you know that you and I started the exact alright. So what was your start date? August 15?
Matt Kaminski:I think it's August 1.
Mike Brasher:Ah, you have you have worked for DU longer than I have by, two weeks. Wow. I didn't I didn't know that. So, yeah, I was, like, August 2005, and you were right there around that that same time. Now did when you first went to work for DU, were you on the Texas Coast?
Mike Brasher:Was that your first place?
Matt Kaminski:No. I was in California. I was based in the Rancho Cordova office, and we focused on wetland restoration in our coastal regions of the North Coast, San Francisco Bay, the Delta.
Mike Brasher:And then you went to Texas.
Matt Kaminski:Then I went to Texas, and I was there for almost eight years.
Mike Brasher:Okay. But you met your wife, Molly, out in California, and she moved with you to Texas, or am I getting all this wrong?
Matt Kaminski:No, it's all correct.
Mike Brasher:Okay. Alright. How about that? Memory didn't totally fail me. Well, it's good to connect with you again.
Mike Brasher:We got some good things to talk about here. And then, Dan, you're kind of on the other end of this sort of tenure within Ducks Unlimited sort of gradient. Tell us how long you've been with with the organization.
Dan Smith:It'll be my third year in July. So Still Not very long compared to you guys.
Mike Brasher:Still just sort of a little duckling in sort of the in the duck world. So you you you'll get to fly here pretty soon now, actually. I think you've already fledged. You're out there doing a lot of great work, and and we work together on the science team and a lot of the other efforts. It's great to have you out there, have some additional science capacity assisting Doctor.
Mike Brasher:Mark Petrie and now Doctor. Patrick Donnelly, who we had on an episode very recently. So there's a little hub of science activity that's starting to get underway out there in the in the Western Region, the Pacific Flyway. That is a it's a great thing. You've also got some expansion up into Alaska, the Alaska initiative, and kinda got a science position, science and program position up there.
Mike Brasher:So it's a it's an exciting time out there in the Western Region. It's always an exciting time in the Central Valley Of California because of its importance to waterfowl from from a migration standpoint, winter standpoint, and also a breeding duck standpoint. We talk about that quite often and try to remind folks that, yeah, there's a lot of ducks produced in the Central Valley Of California, and so we're gonna cover a lot of those different topics. So first thing I wanna do though is I'll turn to you, Dan, and I wanna ask for an update on habitat conditions. We're recording this on May 22, so we're right in the middle of the duck breeding season out there.
Mike Brasher:What do things look like for the birds? How's their habitat both, I guess, in terms of nesting habitat as well as, you know, most importantly, wetlands for for those birds to sort of establish their territories and then to raise those ducklings? What are things looking like?
Dan Smith:Yeah. So breeding habitat right now, upland cover in particular, is looking pretty good. We are pretty low on snowpack, but we did get some late spring rains that really allowed those grasses to to grow in that permanent or semi permanent cover to to be in pretty good shape. The the water, you know, that semi permanent water is always a concern for us. It's really hard to to maintain those areas, but what we do have is looking good.
Dan Smith:I think overall, the the sentiment from a breeding standpoint is the early nesting ducks are probably in pretty good shape. So mallards in particular. A little more concerned for things like gadwall. I think from the wetland management side, so things that pulled water off maybe a couple months ago or pretty recently, you know, they're doing irrigations. They're doing all normal management as they'd expect, and food production for the wintering waterfowl that we'd expect to see here in a couple months appears to be moving well.
Mike Brasher:And Matt, anything to add from sort of the southern part of the of the Central Valley Of San Joaquin? How are things down there?
Matt Kaminski:I would say it's very similar to what Dan expressed. The thing that we saw was that we had a very mild winter in which we had early growing season. So subsequently, the early grasses really provided some really great early nesting cover for those early nesting mallards. But now we're getting really hot early. We've had several weeks of upper nineties, low one hundreds, so the water on the landscape is disappearing relatively quickly.
Matt Kaminski:And with the low snowpack, I think it's going to be a little bit of a challenge for the water district to sort of, you know, meet all the needs and still have enough water supply for the winter with the reduced snow and water going into the reservoirs this summer. So it's sort of a sort of wait and sort of see kind of game for us right now. I think we're gonna have a good production year, but I think it's those late wetlands and those late broods are gonna have some challenges.
Mike Brasher:And you guys have had some pretty decent duck production the past few years. Right? I I think well, I mean, or at least the numbers, the number of mallards were up last year. Right? Maybe I'm just kinda thinking about the BPOP numbers.
Mike Brasher:Dan?
Dan Smith:Yeah. You might be looking on the BPOP numbers. Unfortunately, California is kinda in this historic slump. Just a couple of years ago, the Sac Valley has had its, you know, lowest ever estimate. So anything looks like an improvement when you're at the trough.
Dan Smith:Right? So we're seeing some recovery, but overall, we're we're pretty far away from where we were even just ten, fifteen years ago.
Mike Brasher:Do we do we have any better idea right now what has been responsible for that long term or or that slump that we're in? I I know when you and I had talked previously, I guess it was part of that waterfowl season outlook, we were thinking maybe it's it's nesting habitat as much as anything. Do we have is there any research going on out there to further inform some of our understanding of of what's happening?
Dan Smith:Yeah. There's there's been a big focus on this over the last few years. A lot of horsepower has been dedicated to try to better understand this, but all that takes time. Right? I mean, we get to look at one nesting season a year, and when there's not that many birds out there, it's it's hard to gather data.
Dan Smith:So right now, our kind of best hypothesis is a real decline in quality breeding habitat, but then also semen and permanent water that Matt pointed out. We need all those features. And so, you know, we've seen a shift in crops away from cereal grains, which could be used by nesting waterfowl towards kind of less waterfowl friendly crops. And then, you know, drought and everything else plays a big role in that too. And I think it's important to to, you know, understand the system just at a very high level California used to historically really depend on snowpack in the mountains and that'd kind of be a big water reservoir that would melt over time and then come down the rivers and then provide water into the summer and spring or for really into the summer.
Dan Smith:As snowpack has declined, we just don't have reservoir capacity to really hold all the water that we ideally would like to see come down those rivers. So that's been a big change.
Mike Brasher:I I think so I've been fortunate to work in California for one summer back in the mid nineties, and so I have some understanding of that landscape, and the most notable thing that I recall, I remember just standing in amazement as I walked into the Grassland Water District office at one time and looked at the map. I think there I saw these maps in various locations of all the canal infrastructure across that landscape. It is so heavily engineered, at least in terms of the water conveyance infrastructure there across that across that landscape. I mean, do I would love to know how many how many screw gates there are across all of those areas across that that Central Valley. I mean, I don't know.
Mike Brasher:You're tens of thousands, I mean, easily. It's just and higher than that. Hundreds of thousands probably, Dan?
Dan Smith:I mean, it's a it's a lot, Matt. I'd love to get your guess on it, but it's, you know, every wetland unit's got a few, and there's a lot of wetland units. So
Matt Kaminski:Well, I can give you an aspect. We did a wetland enhancement project for one landowner, and we put in a 105 water control structures, and that was and that was benefiting 900 acres of habitat, and of that was 25 canal gate water control structures. So that was just one property. So I would say we're probably in the hundreds of thousands, just because every canal has to have a canal gate on there to make sure you don't have any water loss.
Mike Brasher:Yeah, because you got to pay for all that water, right? I mean it's heavily regulated or heavily sort of accounted for, and what you can get and when you can get it, and that was the that was an eye opener for me coming from rural Mississippi where I had never seen a screw gate in my life, and I go out there and I see these concrete water conveyance channels and canals and screw gates and other kind of water control structures coming off of it, and it's like, yeah, everything here is highly, highly engineered from hydrology standpoint, and so that kinda it gets to sort of the intensively managed nature of of that landscape, especially from a a wetland standpoint, and I I guess I guess it would be helpful as we kinda get into this conversation to to provide people an idea of the the type of wetland habitats that we're talking about there. Obviously, well, rice, from a winter wetland standpoint for ducks, rice is going to be a huge part of that landscape. I've heard you you guys have mentioned a few of the other wetland types, but maybe, Matt, just kinda what are the dominant three or four different wetland habitat wetland types that that are prominent out there?
Mike Brasher:Help people get some visual image of what wetland management, wetlands in Central Valley Of California look like.
Matt Kaminski:Well, if you're looking at the Sac Valley, and that's the northern half of the valley, it's a little more varied. You got a lot of aspects that are influenced by riverine systems, so you have the historical wetland basins, semi permanent wetlands, you have rice, and then you have your seasonally managed wetlands that are dominated by Swap Timothy, Watergrass, Smartweed. I would say those are probably some of your big three. And then if you go to the San Joaquin, we've we lost rice as a significant footprint on the landscape, just due to the hot nature, water availability, saltier soils. So most of the wetlands that are concentrated in the San Joaquin are seasonal wetlands.
Matt Kaminski:We have some semi permanent wetlands, and we do have some riverine systems, but the rivers in the San Joaquin have been severely impacted by water diversions, and subsequently really don't function like they historically did. We historically don't get the rain about. So the San Joaquin is more of the turn off and turn off kind of system, unless we have a big water year. And when I say a turn off and turn on and turn off kind of wetland system, it's highly engineered. You pretty much call on your water and they deliver water to your doorstep of your wetland, and that's how your wetland gets flooded.
Mike Brasher:You mentioned a referenced a term that I'm going to get you to clarify because people East or outside well, I don't know exactly how geographically specific it is, but I know you don't hear much of it East or the Rockies. Watergrass, what is that?
Matt Kaminski:So watergrass is, the best way to describe it, it's a type of millet. It is a species of millet that came over with the rice culture from Asia, sort of became naturalized in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, sort of spread throughout the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys through water conveyance infrastructure like your canals, and sort of became really naturalized and became prominent in the landscape. It's a high energy food, looks very similar to millets, barnyard grasses that everybody else has seen back east, but it is highly sought after as a waterfowl food because of its high seed output, great invertebrate with the biomass, but it's also a significant weed in the rice culture and some of our other agricultural crops, just because those irrigated crops create the ideal wetland conditions for water grass. You know, they create wet, moist soil, and it's hot here during the summer, and we get a lot of weed pressure within those agricultural fields dominated by water grass.
Mike Brasher:It's hot there during the summer. You also don't get very much rainfall during the summer. Right? That's why this snowpack and having why having an abundant snowpack is so valuable is because it's not like you can count on periodic rain events throughout the summer with any regularity to provide that irrigation water. Right, Matt?
Matt Kaminski:That is correct. Our our rainy season starts in October and is typically over by May, with the bulk of our rain events coming in December, January, February, and then sort of tailing off March and April.
Mike Brasher:I want to start transitioning here to talk about some of the habitat management, maybe some of the management programs that we have out there, and this is going to be sort of framed against the context of the on the I've mentioned earlier in terms of Central Valley supporting waterfowl throughout the annual cycle, you know, migration in winter and in the breeding season, so if I'm if I may and ducks need wetlands throughout the year during all of those time periods to be successful, but any wetland manager knows that there are certain types of of management that that require you to pull the water off during the growing season if you're wanting to produce these high energy and and high energy foods and wanting to maximize the productivity of those foods or the production of those plants, that's sort of the moist soil management type of of activity that a lot of people will be familiar with, but but those pulling that water off is not good for for breathing ducks. So if I'm a wetland manager out there and I wanna provide food resources for ducks during the hunting season, I think about a certain suite of activities and the timing of of those activities, but I also know that a lot of the mallards, at least, that I shoot in California and a number a good percentage of the other ducks that I shoot will be locally bred, and so here I am weighing these two sort of alternatives for how I manage wetlands on my property.
Mike Brasher:Matt, as a person that interacts a lot with private landowners, public landowners, let me let me break this down, I guess, ask you from the fir from first, a private landowner standpoint, how many well, how much of that private landowner base do we see in in the type of wetlands and wetland management activities that that are specifically targeting habitat for breeding ducks versus providing food resources for during migration and winter?
Matt Kaminski:I will say it's a very small percentage. The ability to have water on the landscape throughout the summer comes at a great cost. When I say a cost, means you got to first of all have available surface water to keep that wetland flooded, you know, through late July, early August. It comes with a cost with the habitat management because when you keep water on for a long time on the landscape, it really grows a lot of emergent vegetation like bulrush and cattails, which subsequently need to be controlled and manipulated a little bit. And then subsequently those semi permanent wetlands typically don't have as much of the, you know, annual plant communities and the seed base that goes with them.
Matt Kaminski:So at times they may not attract a lot of waterfowl to those areas. So you got those three concerns on the landscape. And during the massive droughts that we've had here in California, through the twenty ten's, through the almost the 2020s, it's been a challenge for the landowners to just dedicate saying, okay, we're gonna we don't have water available during the summer, so we just focus all our energy on seasonal wetlands. We're in a crossroads though, Mike, and I think that's, you know, what I love about, you know, California is that the state of California and its partners really have identified that breeding waterfowl need a voice and they need to have a change on how wetlands are managed on the landscape. And why that is important is that sort of helps drives the conservation programs that Ducks Unlimited and the grant programs that Ducks Unlimited pursues to put that kind of hapta on the landscape.
Mike Brasher:So Matt, I wanna hear more about that, but I know from my time I know from my time out there, there was a type of wetland, and I don't know, maybe it's a wetland management activity, and I don't know if it is still practiced, but they referred to it, and this was on some public areas, I think it was some state areas, maybe Los Banos Wildlife Management Area, and they were what they called reverse cycle wetlands. Do they still use that term? They do, and so I thought those were the coolest wetlands and they were specifically, as my understanding, specifically in place to provide that spring and summer water for breeding ducks. Is that still the case? And are those wetlands primarily still provided on public land?
Matt Kaminski:They are, but it comes down to water availability. During a drought, you know, well, the wetland managers have to make a choice. They only get a limited amount of water supply, and they have to decide on which wetlands will get their water and to make sure that they get enough water to grow enough food, but also to support the footprint of winter and waterfowl. So I would say during the really good years, in which we have a lot of water supply, you will see reverse cycle wetlands out there. And reverse cycle wetlands are the ones that are typically kept dry through the summer and fall, and then they're gradually flooded up in late winter through early summer.
Matt Kaminski:They, some of them, do get water held on through July and sort of become a semi permanent wetland. But the whole goal of a reverse cycle wetland is to sort of get more of an upland kind of growth habit, and subsequently when it's flooded, it provides a lot of terrestrial and subsequently aquatic invertebrates, which are really important for ducklings' protein levels, and if they're kept on long enough, they're very important for molting birds.
Mike Brasher:Yeah. I remember seeing some of those wetlands on on those WMAs, and they were just gorgeous. Again, this was like the mid nineties, maybe '96, and they were just absolutely gorgeous growing up growing up in this almost perfect hemimarsh type of, you know, water vegetation interspersion ratio, and and, of course, that's it was a study that I was working on that had marked mallard ducklings, and so those little ducklings loved those areas. They also loved the ditches that had emergent vegetation in them, and and that's oftentimes where some of the bullfrogs hung out that would also eat the ducklings, and so there's, you know everybody likes to eat a little fluffy duckling, and and, yes, we did recover one of those transmitters by catching a bullfrog and cutting that sucker open and and found that little transmitter inside there. And so anyway, lots of cool stories from the times there, including the time where I followed a coyote across the followed a a tracking signal across one of those private duck clubs and eventually came to where I saw a coyote, and and as the coyote started to run away, the signal ran away with it, you know, so it had it had eaten the duckling, and so, yeah, it's tough for ducklings really out there or any other place, but it sounds like it's getting challenging and increasingly challenging for breeding ducks as well.
Mike Brasher:You know, we've got Dan, you talked about some concerns about nesting habitat, loss of some of those areas. Now we're talking about sort of the the challenges that that prolonged drought has on the ability to provide those wetlands during spring and summer, and and so, Matt, you were you were talking about wanting to give breeding waterfowl more of a voice, like, does that look like? What are are are we involved in any of any of that with our partners out there? What are the what are the answers in regard to that?
Matt Kaminski:Well, through the California Waterfowl Habitat Program or the PRESLEY program, that's a state funded cost share program that really incentivize landowners to maintain their annual costs for their seasonal wetlands, but also they have a program that incentivizes landowners for brood ponds or semi permanent wetlands. And one of the things that we've been doing is when they have identified a landowner that has an interest and is willing to convert one of their seasonal wetlands and transform it into one of these brood ponds, Ducks Unlimited then takes its expertise and finds the grant dollars, and subsequently will get the grant dollars and the engineering to sort of reimagine or retransform those seasonal wetlands into productive semi permanent wetlands. But you got to have a willing landowner, and typically you got to have a financial carrot because the management costs, the cost of the water, and the upkeep of those semi permanent wetlands is a lot more than just a traditional seasonal wetland. So I think it's a really good transitional point in my career, is that we've got a lot of interested landowners that want to take on this new kind of habitat type and put it as a focused footprint, not just a scattered, you know, scatter block of brood ponds across the landscape.
Matt Kaminski:It's really looking at, okay, we got some big blocks of grass, these are a good block of grass, These would be a good block of wetlands that we could convert, and therefore we can sort of have a rotation because when you have multiple landowners, you don't want them all on the same management schedule. You want them to draw one wetland down to do the rehab. You want to have the wetland footprint of another brood pond still existing on the landscape. So these birds sort of know that over a period of time, they can go to this one block of habitat, and there's always going to be good high quality brood habitat and nesting habitat. It's now just, you know, finding the grant dollars and getting those projects built.
Matt Kaminski:We've I think that's the next challenge for us, is that we've got proposals out, and we've got big proposals in which, in theory, when things get funded, we will have 25 to 35 new brood ponds scattered across the grassland ecological area, and that comes at a tune about $10,000,000 to build and reimagine those brood ponds.
Mike Brasher:If any of our listeners have a cool $10,000,000 sitting around in your pocket and you want to put it to good use producing ducks, I know somebody that can can can help you out there. So, you know, dupodcast@ducks.org. Get in touch with us now. Seriously, we do appreciate the all the donors and all the partners that help us with the fundraising that goes into these projects and these programs. Dan, I I think this might be a place where your mind kinda comes into play in some of the work that you do and the role that you have.
Mike Brasher:Whenever we're designing a new program or implementing a new program, there is typically a heavy dose of science and scientific understanding that goes into that. Oftentimes, it's because we've studied the system and know what some of the limitations are, and we're trying to address those limitations through some very focused targeted programs such as what Matt described, but then that's not necessarily where the scientific inquiry stops. We also wanna know if the work that we do is producing the outcomes that we want. So how engaged are you with with any of these programs, any of these ideas? Is work underway?
Mike Brasher:Is work being discussed from a science standpoint to ensure that that we're doing the right thing in the right way with with some of these programs?
Dan Smith:Yeah. Absolutely. I think one of the really beneficial things for for waterfowl that breeding California is a a really close knit community of of waterfowl researchers. And so right now, a lot of the work that's going on either related to the easement programs are really just these overall questions that we have is really being tackled by this group. And so some of the work that Matt referenced just nest searching in general is being conducted.
Dan Smith:A large part of that is being sponsored by California Department of Fish and Wildlife. That research effort is led by USGS, the US Geological Survey. They have an amazing database on nesting waterfowl, but we're also excited to expand that. One of the things that's really hard to to evaluate and you referenced it yourself is what happens to ducklings after they hatch. You know, it's another big part of that equation, and there hasn't been a lot of work done out here on that.
Dan Smith:It's pretty challenging. And so we're excited to see some of our collaborators and partners, you know, move towards trying to understand those questions. So quick shout out for, doctor Kevin Ringleman at UC Davis. He's now the raveling chair here, and he's bringing a lot of the work that he's done in the Prairies and and a lot of that experience that I think we could benefit from. One of the things you referenced there, Mike, is is how do we evaluate these things?
Dan Smith:And one of the things we've noticed pretty quickly is this is not the prairies. We have a very different landscape. It's very modified. We control all the knobs and levers, and so we wanna know what combination needs to be pulled so that ducklings are successful.
Mike Brasher:The Central Valley, in some of those areas where we find some of those areas in the Central Valley, I should say, are so incredibly unique, at least my this is my memory. I'm I'm not an expert on breeding ecology of waterfowl in that region by any stretch, but I do remember one of the things that stood out and that I've heard other researchers talk about is that there are some places, I think is it like Grizzly Island, WMA, wildlife management area, where you can find just incredibly high densities of nesting ducks? Am I remembering that correctly? I see you nodding your head. So, Dan?
Dan Smith:I think that came out of I think it was the eighties, but that was a doctor Rob McClandress. Doctor Bob or uncle Bob as he's more locally known. He did some work out there. Yeah. He found yeah.
Dan Smith:I think it was at the time the highest density of nesting ducks on any kind of landscape, and it's it's a pretty small area. It's cool. There's tule elk out there now, and so you get to see all sorts of wildlife moving around on that landscape. Unfortunately, there's a a little lower density of nesting ducks now, but it's still a really special place that we have a nice long term data set on. But we also see other weird stuff or maybe not weird, unexpected things like mallards and gadwalls, you know, emergent open water nesting, you know, not what you would expect to find.
Dan Smith:So, you know, they're making do with the habitat they have, you know, in the grasslands where Matt works a lot. I think they're nesting in salt bushes and all sorts of other weird vegetation types that we wouldn't look at and say that's breeding waterfowl habitat, but they're making do with what they have.
Mike Brasher:That's pretty interesting to hear that you're finding gadwall that are creating overwater nest. It doesn't surprise me that mallards would. I know and well, now that I'm I'm pausing to actually wonder. So the the other person or the person that I know that documented overwater nesting in another species of duck that we didn't necessarily expected was one and only Kevin Ringleman with model ducks down in Louisiana. Now he is he the one that's finding overwater nest by no.
Mike Brasher:It's not him. He's not the culprit here?
Dan Smith:I mean, this is this is a hypothesis. We have not proven this. You know? But when we look at those landscapes, and particularly with some of the work that we're, you know, exploring is remote sensing to try to find where ducks might be nesting if we're able to detect those, you know, kinda classical breeding habitats. But we look at the population survey data.
Dan Smith:We look at the broods that we're actually seeing on the landscape, and we're looking at a pretty barren landscape. And we're going, man, the only other place they could be. Right? Like, that's the next box we have to check. So it's a guess right now, I guess you could say.
Dan Smith:But
Mike Brasher:So it's not a it's not a doctor Ringelman effect, though?
Dan Smith:No. Not yet. You'll have to ask him about his American bitter evaluation, though. He just he might be yeah. He found some cool stuff on some of the landscapes out here.
Mike Brasher:I thought you were gonna say he would be bit he was gonna be bitter if I asked
Dan Smith:him that. No?
Mike Brasher:K. That was that was my attempt at comedy. It usually doesn't go very well. So but, anyway, that's cool that that Kevin is back out there and working. I know he did some of his PhD or postdoc work.
Mike Brasher:It's it was his PhD work out there. And so, yeah, he's a great asset to he was a great asset to us in on the Gulf Coast. Is now gonna be a great asset to you all out there, and I think he'll probably continue some of the work in the Prairies if I know at least he'll look for opportunities to do that if I know Kevin. So we are gonna take a break, and we're gonna come back, and then we are gonna talk a little bit more about habitat management, conservation programs, our work out there, and then we're gonna we're gonna end on a high note of challenges and how we're gonna address all those challenges for waterfowl and wetlands in California. Stay with us, folks.
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Mike Brasher:Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I am here with Matt Kaminski and Dan Smith. We're gonna get back into our conversation talking about, wetlands out in the Central Valley Of California. And, Matt, an average day for you involves what in terms of interacting with do you interact with landowners as well as public land managers, or do do we have programs that are sorta where responsibilities are divided, some working on private land programs, some working on public land programs?
Mike Brasher:What does that look like for you and and our team out there?
Matt Kaminski:Out West, our program is pretty much broken up by geographic regions. So I cover the San Joaquin Valley, and with the San Joaquin Valley, I get to work with both the public and the private landowners as one. So day to day, it really looks like I could be on a call discussing habitat work with a private lander and give them an update on their grant application, or it's just, you know, pounding the weeds and looking for grant dollars and trying to, you know, move the needle in a positive direction. Or I could be working hands on hand with the engineers and really looking at our designs and really looking at it from a high level aspect of how we most efficient with that water supply, but also how can we put the best waterfowl benefiting habitat. And it could be breeding waterfowl, it could be seasonal wetlands for wintering, or it could be a combination of both.
Matt Kaminski:So yeah, my day to day is it's quite varied. Typically during the summer, it is all of that. Out in the field a lot, looking at how some of our projects have responded to, you know, being constructed the prior year and how the habitat conditions are responding and moving forward. It could be looking at a landowner and saying, okay, we've tried these wetland management techniques, and how is the wildlife and the wetland plant community responding? And then it's just, you know, looking on the landscape and trying to figure out what is our next portfolio of projects that we're going to present to a grant agency, and really trying to figure out how to put that puzzle together, because it's all about, you know, it's not just a random set of projects that we put together.
Matt Kaminski:It's a really cohesive idea of trying to sell a centric theme. That is the biggest challenge out there, is that we've worked in a landscape that has had lots of financial investment for the last twenty five to thirty years, but the needs are continually evolving for both the wetlands, the water supply, and the wetland wildlife that they benefit.
Mike Brasher:. Dan, I wanna talk with you now about sort of our our public land partners, wetland management capacity, any kind of management capacity. You you and I have talked about this and had some ongoing email exchanges related to sort of some some other issues, we had related issues, and I I think this is a the sort of decline in capacity, whether we're talking financial resources or human resource capacity across many public areas, whether we're talking state or federal, is not unique to California. It's not reunique to the Western Region. It's not unique to The United States.
Mike Brasher:You know, our our colleagues in the Canadian Wildlife Service have faced some recent budget constraints, and we've certainly seen our agencies here in The US face budget constraints. And so, Dan, I wanna talk about sort of the public land aspect of this thing as well, and and it's it should be no secret that that in a lot of places, whether we're talking California, the Pacific Flyway, Eastern US, or even into Canada, we've seen some some budget constraints, especially when it comes to our public partners, state and federal agencies, and a lot of that has sort of spilled over into their ability to have necessary capacity in terms of financial resources or human resources to manage those properties. We, through some of our programs, can help ensure that the infrastructure and the the the what they need sorta physically is there to do a good job with the management, but there are certain aspects of this that we we can't necessarily help with, but are you seeing the are are you seeing that in the Central Valley where that's a growing concern, And is there anything that we can do?
Dan Smith:Yeah, Mike. That's a a great question. Think it's easy to to focus on a lot of the private aspects of land in California, but public land is a huge, huge footprint. And as we talked about earlier, everything is extensively managed. So we need managers on that landscape to ensure that habitat remains productive so that hunters and people who recreate see the wildlife that they expect to see.
Dan Smith:We have seen a pretty concerning decline in that management capacity within that community, particularly in California, lots of folks retiring. These are not positions that see a lot of turnover. And so when those experienced hands leave, you know, it's it's hard to find someone to fill that role, particularly if if money is tight. So right now I think our biggest concern is trying to figure out what role should we fill. How do we, you know, elevate the concerns of our partners, how do we assist them as they try to find solutions, and then how can we step in and maybe find novel solutions that they can't.
Dan Smith:So those are ongoing conversations, but I was just on an interagency management call like, earlier this week, and there's a a gentleman that was talking about how he's the one person responsible for 15,000 acres of land, and that is that's not enough. So, yeah, big concern that we have.
Mike Brasher:One person for 15,000 acres is certainly not enough. This is not the only place where that is an issue. It's an issue that hasn't necessarily developed just overnight or not even the last two years or not even the last three years or not even the last eight years. I remember working along the when I was in the Gulf Coast, there were I mean, the refuges have consolidating into complexes for years, for well over over a decade, and we see that trend continue, and the extent to which we and other organizations can help find solutions to that, we certainly want to do so. We I mean, there's have the potential to be the crown jewels of wetland of wetlands and other habitats for waterfowl all across this this country, and I think it's I think it's starting to gain attention in a lot of circles of the kind of the dire condition that we're in in some areas.
Mike Brasher:And so, yeah, I I would just say folks can should stay tuned and start thinking about that look for opportunities to engage if you hear about any of those, and we're certainly gonna do our part to elevate the message, whether it be through policy or whatever other mechanism because it is definitely a concerning issue, and that sort of relates to the topic of challenges, which is where I think we wanna go to begin the closeout here, and with regard to sort of capacity for management being one of those challenges, that all is happening against a backdrop of a whole host of other challenges. We've talked about some of those, but, Dan, what would those let's reiterate some of those. What are the the biggest challenges that we face as a waterfowl habitat conservation organization in California. You can and some of these are gonna extend well beyond just California, but what are the biggest challenges, and what are we doing to try to address those?
Dan Smith:Yeah. That's not a that's not a small question.
Mike Brasher:I know.
Dan Smith:I mean, we the whole kind of premise for our conversation today, we we really tried to address the entire annual cycle of waterfowl. That in and of itself is a big challenge. Of course, water is at the center of that challenge, and also other species and and human needs, of course, come to mind. So as we see efforts to recover salmon populations, ensure communities have stable water supplies, all those are all happening on top of the limited wetland footprint that we have in an essentially managed landscape. And so nothing happens by accident.
Dan Smith:So when we start to think about those things, it's it's really trying to best identify our core questions and then use some robust science to say this is the best outcome. This is how we should proceed. And so we're really working through that. And, you know, like anything else, anything conservation related, it's often a money challenge and a time challenge. So those are really kind of the the crux of the problems that we face in the West.
Dan Smith:But fortunately, we have an amazing group of partners that's focused on all of these things. And so I certainly think there's things to be excited for as we face these challenges. I think there's a lot of opportunity, and so I'm excited to see that, you know, as we start to try to better manage this landscape holistically.
Mike Brasher:You know, one of the biggest challenges that we've alluded to multiple times already is availability of water. We can't make it snow more in the mountains. We can't oh, you kinda do in your can we do cloud seeding? Is that what you're thinking? That's a
Dan Smith:very controversial topic, but, I mean, technically, we can make it rain and snow. I don't know if it's a good idea. Okay.
Mike Brasher:Okay. So there are ways to enhance that. Alright. Let's set that to the side because it's controversial, but let's say lacking that, what how do we try to address that issue? Any type of conservation activities or any of our projects, what are some of the key things that we're focusing on there?
Mike Brasher:Like, water efficiency is what I'm thinking.
Dan Smith:Yeah. So water efficiency is, of course, a big one, but there are some kinda unseen costs of being efficient with water is there's no spillover. There's no little ponds here and there. I mean, we we start to lose some of those little tangential or or or, like, micro habitats that you don't think are important until, you know, hundreds of thousands of Yeah. Start doing something different.
Dan Smith:So, I mean, one of the big things that we're we're trying to work on now within California is, of course, groundwater management. I mean, that's been a hot topic that maybe we don't wanna open that can of worms, but it's something I think DU hopes to play a pretty big role in in the future as we try to help recover our groundwater storage through things like, you know, groundwater retention areas. Can those areas become beneficial to wildlife as well? So just again, you know, we can't make it rain, so how do we optimize every drop of water as it hits that landscape?
Mike Brasher:I know we also have a lot of work going on with the agricultural community. The rice stewardship partnership is is is prominent out there in California. Dan, what are some of the type or or Matt, I'm not sure if you haven't you're in the San Joaquin Valley, so I'm not sure how much you work in in any of those sort of rice programs or projects. But, Dan, what what do those activities look like, and and what are we trying to achieve there?
Dan Smith:Yeah. I mean, the rice footprint is is always really important for waterfowl. I think we're trying to to really understand how those landscapes can provide habitat to a lot of different species and provide a lot of benefit for people. Of course, we all really appreciate rice as a as a food source, so do ducks. And we're trying to learn how those landscapes can also be used to benefit aquatic species as well, typically through the supplementation of aquatic invertebrates that things like our endangered salmon runs require.
Dan Smith:So we're we're really kind of looking at this. It used to be very siloed. The fish people would work here. The duck people would have these questions. The shorebird person would have these questions.
Dan Smith:And we're really putting everyone together in the same room and trying to think about, okay, if we all have these needs and we all have these demands, where where is that Venn diagram? Where do we all overlap, and how can we find some some really collaborative solutions as we move forward?
Mike Brasher:And, Matt, anything to add additional challenges unique to the San Joaquin Valley that we may not have already touched on, and how we are trying to address those?
Matt Kaminski:Yeah, a big thing that we're doing is modernization of the water delivery infrastructure. You know, a large part of this footprint was put in, you know, over a 100 years ago. There was another big slug, you know, right after World War II. So now we're looking at stuff at 70 to 80 years old. And, you know, we've done small scale kind of things, but now our projects are getting more expensive.
Matt Kaminski:I mean, we're looking at, you know, upgrading radio gates that are, you know, 3 quarters of 1,000,000 to a million dollars just to put in one infrastructure to help manage water levels within a canal system. So, you know, these kind of improvements are very expensive, but they'd have a huge footprint on managing and making the water supply more efficient. There's not as much waste in the system anymore. So therefore we can do a lot more with less water, which is good for everybody.
Mike Brasher:Well, there is no shortage of things to do, there's no shortage of need out there when it comes to waterfowl wetland conservation. You too are just you are are just two of a larger team that operates there in the Central Valley Of California and really in other parts of California as well. I know we have some work that going on in other regions, and those areas are all connected. They all have some challenges that are probably shared across regions, but there are some that are gonna have some unique challenges, and we have people that wake up every day and think about those challenges and how to address them, whether that be through policy efforts, whether that be through habitat efforts, and oftentimes it's a combination of those things. And so we're gonna continue to do those things, and we'll continue trucking along with all the work that we do out in that area.
Mike Brasher:I think we had some technical difficulties there where it looks like Matt just dropped off, so we're not going to be able to say goodbye to him unless he's hidden somewhere that I don't see. But Dan, I'm at least going to come to you and thank you for joining us today, Thank you for sharing some insight on what all is happening out in California, and, you know, thanks to you, thanks to our volunteers, thanks to everybody that makes it possible for us to succeed in that important area.
Dan Smith:Thanks, Mike. I mean, it's a it is a very large team working out here. There's lots of challenges, lots of topics. I will say one thing that's been impressive is the Western Region has grown dramatically over the last few years, and we've got some great folks on board. So as we build capacity, hopefully, we'll start addressing some of these large challenges that we've pointed out today.
Mike Brasher:Alright. I do appreciate it, Dan, and we'll catch up with you on a on a later episode or another waterfowl season outlook. So thanks again, man.
Dan Smith:Thank you.
Mike Brasher:A very special thanks to our guests on today's episodes, Matt Kaminski and Dan Smith. We appreciate their time and all the hard work that they're doing out there in California, the Central Valley. Specifically, we thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for getting these episodes scheduled, edited, and then out to you. And then we thank you, the listener, for your time. We thank you for your support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation, and go attend the Ducks Unlimited event.
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