Ep. 633 - Conserving Duck Habitat on the Prairies

The Prairie Pothole Region is DU’s highest priority landscape, as it supports over 50 percent of breeding ducks in North America annually. On this episode, Dr. Mike Brasher is joined by Dr. Scott Stephens and Graydon Garner, agricultural programs and extension specialist for DU Canada, to highlight the activities used to conserve grasslands and wetland in prairie Alberta. From forage conversion to wetland restoration and permanent protection of intact habitats, DU applies a diverse portfolio of conservation on the prairies, as we seek solutions that benefit agricultural producers and ranchers while improving the landscape for ducks. But to begin, Graydon provides an update on wetland conditions on the prairies and highlights the need for additional precipitation to improve conditions heading into 2025.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Mike Brasher

DUPodcast Science Host

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.

Mike Brasher: Hey everybody, welcome back. I'm your host today, Dr. Mike Brasher, and you know, throughout a lot of the episodes that we record, we talk about conservation programs that we deliver all across North America to benefit waterfowl and all sorts of other critters. The prairie pothole region is, of course, our number one priority because of its importance to ducks here in North America, and today we're going to talk a little bit about some of the conservation programs, the type of work that we do. up there in the prairies, specifically Alberta in this case, to benefit ducks and kind of what that looks like. Joining me today, I have two guests, both remote. I'm going to start up in Canada right now with Graydon Gardner of Agricultural Programs and Extension Specialist with Ducks Unlimited Canada. Graydon, thanks for joining us. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast.

Graydon Gardner: Thanks, Mike. Sure appreciate you inviting me, and I'm happy to be here.

Mike Brasher: And Graydon's sidekick, shall we say, as an appropriate word on this episode, is none other than Dr. Scott Stevens. Scott, of course, gets his own sort of walk-up music here. He's been around with us for a number of years, I think we can say now. And Scott always brings great insight, a little bit of humor, occasionally some ridicule, and I suspect that we'll get a taste of all of that today. Scott is an appropriate person to join us on this episode because Scott used to work for Ducks Unlimited Canada, now working back for Ducks Unlimited Inc. here stateside, but has tremendous knowledge of a lot of the programs that occur. up in Canada and their importance to waterfowl. Scott, welcome back. It's great to have you. Yeah, thanks. Happy to join you guys today. We'll eventually get to this discussion about what our conservation programs look like in Alberta, specifically here, to give people an idea, a flavor of what their support, what their contributions are going to and how it's helping target the habitat needs, the ecology and biology of waterfowl populations. You know, it's early November. Graydon, you're in Canada. Scott, you just got back from Canada. We might save most of your expertise on sort of conditions for a little bit later, maybe a later episode. But Graydon, I want to start with you and have you give us an idea of what it looks like up there in Canada, wetland conditions specifically. You can talk a little bit about the weather and how that's affected. I've kind of affected the migration, I think it's delayed it, but let's start with like what do wetland conditions look like up there in Alberta right now?

Graydon Gardner: You know, Mike, we're talking, me and Scott here a little earlier when I first jumped on and I was letting them know that, you know, we're still dry. We had a better year this year overall. We had a nice cool start to the spring, so that really helped. We had a bit of runoff happen and we had some early rains. Not a whole heck of a lot, but more than we've had in the last three or four years. It's been tough slugging, to be quite frank, over the last four or five years. You know, a lot of basins have ran dry. There's still a lot of dry, smaller basins out there. Your larger bodies are holding water. But it's hard to call them full right now. There's a lot of basins out there at that 10-30% level, a lot that are 100% dry, and just driving out around the landscape, it's tough. It is. So we're really hoping for a big snow year this winter and that we can get a big runoff in the spring. We have just a little bit of soil moisture that's going to freeze up. We just had our big first snowfall today here. We got four or five inches on the ground this morning and we're hoping that it carries on and doesn't stop all winter. As agricultural producers, it can be a little tough dealing with those big snowfalls throughout the winter, but we're at the point where everybody's willing to go through it to fill some of these Not just wetlands, but dugouts for producers even. A lot of guys have been hauling water to cows for two, three years now, and that's getting old. So we got fingers crossed that it's going to be a big snow year. We're going to fill some basins up this spring.

Mike Brasher: We certainly have our fingers crossed for that. Have you been able to get out and do any type of hunting? You and I met just earlier this summer when we were, I guess it was for Ducks University, and I don't even know if you hunt, so I'm kind of asking this question in the blind, but I see you nodding your head, so that tells me you do. Have you been able to get out and chase any birds or any kind of other critters?

Graydon Gardner: Yes, sir. Yeah, it's actually been a great fall for bird hunting up here in Alberta. You know, last year was a very weird year. We're very hot and dry all fall. And then right at the end of October, it went from warm, hot and dry to cold, nasty and snowy. And the birds just flew right over us on the fast track heading south. This year was polar opposite. We had a little bit of a chill start in early September. Started getting the birds moving down right to where I'm at here, east of Calgary on that Highway 1 corridor. And then it got warm and they just sat there for about a month. And we had some real good shoots. There's a lot of birds in the area. So it was a nice change up from last year to sneak away from the office an hour early here now and then to get out in the field and chase some birds.

Mike Brasher: Well, I think I speak for everyone down here and in mid-latitude states and even the Great Lakes and other locations south of you that would say, when I say, we hope it gets cold, real cold, real quick, and doesn't let up with a lot of snow along the way until, let's say, sometime February, March, April of next year. You probably would say differently, but just to let you know what we're cheering for down here.

Graydon Gardner: Yeah, we can get pretty selfish sometimes up here. And, you know, like I said, we're sure fortunate this fall. But just looking at what's happening outside there today, I think, you know, these birds are going to be pushing hard. We got a lot of snow is moving through right now. And that's kind of the big sign that the big push is happening. Greenheads are moving hard, too. So the birds are on their way. Don't worry, boys. We left some for you. Not all of them, but we left some of them for you.

Mike Brasher: Well, we would expect nothing less, so I appreciate that. Now, Scott, I know you just got back from Manitoba on a hunt, but like I said a few minutes ago, I think what we want to do is wait and record a little bonus episode here, and folks will probably will probably have already heard that if they tune into the Ducks Unlimited podcast regularly by the time this episode goes out. So, a little bit of sequencing thing to deal with there as we talk about this, but we'll talk with you here in the next couple of days to get that report. What I want to do now is go ahead and get into this topic, and I want to back up a little bit in this conversation, Graydon, to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself more formally, what it is that you do, how long you've been with Ducks Unlimited Canada, and then what it is that you do in your position.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely. So, again, you know, pleasure to be here, Mike. It was great meeting you back in the spring at Ducks University and I've been with Ducks Unlimited here coming four years this winter. My title right now is Agriculture Programs and Extension Specialist, like you said. I started out with the company four years ago doing conservation delivery. So, in Alberta, we We kind of have two sections of our programs. We have what we call conservation programs and what we call agriculture programs. And basically what that boils down to is term length and land use. So conservation programs being, you know, your conservation easements, your long-term perpetuity ones that want to keep the habitat in its natural state. Agriculture programs being those that are shorter term agreements, shorter term programs. and we're initiating a land use change for the benefit of waterfowl and for the farmer as well. So two years ago I made the shift from doing conservation delivery over to agricultural program delivery. Now I oversee the delivery of those programs in the province. We have a whole tool toolboxes that we do so throughout the year you know depending on the season Agriculture being a very seasonal industry, you know, spring, summer, fall, very busy. Winter we get into our extension side of what we do. So half of what I do being an extension specialist is all of our industry relationships with our agriculture stakeholders here in the province. So we work with grazing clubs, cattle associations, different things like that, to not only lend a voice in conservation and a perspective at the policy table, but we also work, you know, we can find producers to work with at their events. We can go and have some speaking opportunities, networking opportunities, and that's how we do a lot of our marketing in the provinces, is getting out there in that face-to-face action, right?

Mike Brasher: I'm going to ask you a question here because I get this occasionally. I'm sure Scott does as well. When you think back, when you think about all of the things that you do that make you or allow you to be successful in the job that you have, what's one of the most important skills to have, given all that you kind of described there?

Graydon Gardner: You know what? It's kind of funny. And when I explain this to people, you know, it takes them by surprise sometimes, but we're salesmen. That's what we do. And instead of asking for money, we're trying to give money away to benefit waterfowl, right? So we're out on the landscape and we're selling our programs that we have, you know, up here in the way we work in Alberta and all of Canada. Working with Ducks Unlimited is voluntary. There's no legal obligation for producers to work with us. So we have to sell our program and we have to have the right programs to sell at the farm gate. If we have producers that are dealing with problem X or challenge X on the landscape and we come with solution Y, They don't have to sign with us if they don't want to. So we have to make sure that we have relevant programs to show up to the farm gate. But at the end of the day, what we're doing is sales, is we're pitching our mandate and our mission, and we're showing them how it can be a benefit to them as a producer. And that's what it is. It's sales.

Mike Brasher: I thought you would say something like that, and what I heard whenever you were talking about that is that so much of the success in any of these programs depends on trust and a relationship with the people on the other side of this conversation, which means you have to be a good salesman, you have to have a good product, but you also have to be a person that likes to work with other people, you have to value those personal relationships, and you have to have the skills to develop those. So to the folks that are listening to this or watching this that want to pursue a job in this career, yeah, you can study ducks, you can study habitat, you can study the plants, and you can get to know all of those things, and you can get really knowledgeable about various statistical programs and so forth. But if you want to be on the ground delivering conservation, you got to be You gotta be a person that likes interacting with other people and that is good at that, because at the end of the day, it's personal relationships that ultimately drive some of the conservation programs that we do. And so, I know Scott is a great salesman, he's a great talker as well, and I know he would agree with all that.

Scott Stephens: Graydon and I were chatting before we got on, too, and I think one of the most important things is he's a producer himself, so it gives him instant credibility with the folks sitting across the table from him because he can talk about things that he's tried on his land, things that his neighbors have tried and what the results have been, so that's pretty important, too.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, for sure. So I just wanted to kind of take a little bit of a call an audible there on a question. We hadn't really discussed that, but it's really interesting to hear those types of things come out. I'll also pause right here and tell the listener or the viewer, if you hear some banging or any kind of odd noises in the background, that's the sign of construction and some type of office expansion here at Ducks Unlimited's National Headquarters. We are a growing organization. Anytime you, typically anytime you come here to National Headquarters to visit, you're going to find some part of the building where there's some type of construction ongoing or being planned. We are, and that's what you hear right now, they're taking another room and making it into two offices so we can accommodate additional staff here to help grow our conservation work that we're doing all across North America here. So, I want to talk about Scott, and I'll go to you for this, talk about the importance of Alberta. That's going to be sort of the focus of what we're doing, what we're talking about here today, because Graydon, that's where you work. Scott, we're not going to get you to do an introduction because people kind of know and have heard from you a number of times. From a waterfowl, duck perspective, Um, talk about the importance of, of Alberta. Um, we talk a lot about Saskatchewan. We hear about Manitoba a bit, but, but, but Alberta is also really, really important. It's the Western most of the three prairie provinces, but just kind of set that up for us. I have some stats that I can supplement with, but you've been there, you've worked there. Talk about its importance and how it differs from the others.

Scott Stephens: Yeah, well, I mean, we've already touched on and folks hear lots about the Prairie Pothole region, and I think maybe the first place I would start is that the whole geography is important, right? Like, so we have Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Two Dakotas, Highline of Montana, and then, you know, it actually goes into Minnesota and Iowa. Those are more impacted landscapes that we're doing restoration on, but You know, the reality is we never know when the environmental conditions are going to be good in any of those areas, right? I mean, Graydon talked about it's dry in Alberta. It's dry across much of the Canadian prairies. We've had a little more water in the Dakotas, but we can have just the opposite, you know, in a year or two. So we really have to maintain all of those geographies to be productive. If you have the stats, I would say that as far as the scale of the geography, Alberta is a big chunk. of the Prairie Pottle region. In Canada, Manitoba is kind of a small corner of the province, but it's kind of really about the southern half or southern third of Alberta. You know, there's a little bit that's clipped out in the mountains in the west, but, you know, much of the province is prairie and glaciated prairie, so it's an important geography, you know, for different species. We have more western distributed species that breed there. I know in the springtime you can see cinnamon teal kicking around some of the areas that Graydon's in, so those are some of the unique characteristics of Alberta, but yeah, an important part of the overall equation.

Mike Brasher: Historically, shortgrass prairie in contrast to Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which were mid and tallgrass prairie. There's sort of that gradient from east to west where it's tall and then eventually gets to shortgrass prairie in the far western edge. And partly because of that, mainly because of that, I suppose, it's of outsized importance historically for pintails relative to some of the others, probably when you look on a density basis. That's one of the things that the numbers I have here don't account for is sort of the relative area that's captured in any of these different strata. But really, really important for pintails and continues to be. But from a total duck standpoint, if you look at the long-term average in southern Alberta, the long-term average comes in at about 4.3 million, and Scott, I just realized, you asked me earlier before we started recording if we were going to be talking about averages, and I told you no, but actually we are talking about averages. So about 4.3 million total ducks on average, and you compare that to southern Saskatchewan, which is about 7.9, but then you compare it to a few of the other areas. Southern Manitoba, 1.5 million. Montana and Western Dakota is 1.7. You get places like the Eastern Dakotas that are at like 5.2 million and then some of Alaska, Yukon Territory is 3.6. So you can see that Southern Alberta, that prairie region of Alberta, is probably the third or fourth most important breeding geography for ducks in North America, at least when you break it down according to the strata from the Waterfowl Breeding Population Habitat Survey report. So, incredibly important. People, hunters in the Pacific Flyway will be keenly interested in what happens in Alberta because it has a more Western distribution of birds coming out of Alberta, but it does also feed birds into the Central Mississippi Flyways. But anyway, just wanted to kind of set that up in terms of its importance, that prairie region of Alberta, and why we focus so much on it. I've never been I guess I'm trying to think here. Never been to Alberta in the fall to see how it compares to some of what I would see and have seen in southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. So that's a box that has not yet been checked. We'll take care of that at some point. I guess let's transition to what it is that we try to achieve whenever we talk about habitat conservation for ducks in Prairie, Alberta. And Scott, let me throw this to you kind of from an ecology standpoint. It's a pretty basic answer, I think. But what are we trying to do? What's most important from a duck standpoint and duck habitat conservation standpoint in that landscape?

Scott Stephens: Yeah, well, first I'd start with the fact that we know from all the science that, you know, it's what happens during the breeding season that's most important. So, you know, we have a bunch of historic projects in places like Alberta that were more focused on migration and staging habitat. You know, those are still there, still provide those functions, but the new programs that are going on the ground are focused almost exclusively on breeding habitat. So we're really trying to either maintain wetlands and grasslands that are already in existence out there, or do restoration of those to provide more of that habitat to birds so that they can take advantage of those and be successful in reproducing during the breeding season.

Mike Brasher: And then maybe talk a little bit about the risks. Are we still seeing wetland drainage there in Alberta? Are we still seeing grassland conversion? Most of the prairie nesting ducks we have up there are going to be ground nesters. There are some divers that nest over water and will build their nest over water, but most of these birds, these ducks are going to be nesting on the ground and that's where the grasslands come into play and are so important. But what are the threats that we continue to face?

Scott Stephens: Yeah, it is still those threats of, you know, really there are pressures to, you know, to bring more land into production from an agricultural standpoint. That's the primary pressure. There are some pressures around urban areas, but those are more limited, I would say, especially in Alberta. So, yeah, when crop prices are high, as they've been, you know, over the past several years, there's pressure to bring more land into production and that can mean, you know, you can get additional land by either draining wetlands or converting grassland into cropland. So that's really the primary pressure. So, you know, the programs that Graydon will talk about will be focused on either keeping grass and wetlands in place or restoring those or in some cases Providing what we might call surrogate nesting habitat, things like winter wheat, provide some of that as an agricultural crop, but has some nesting benefits to birds during the springtime.

Mike Brasher: Great. And how long have you lived in? Have you lived in Alberta all your life? Yes, sir. OK, so you've seen some of these changes that that Scott talks about, right? Can you talk about that from a personal perspective? How easy is it to see those as a as a producer yourself, as Scott talked about? You have a bit of a unique perspective relative to Scott and me and some of the others that we traditionally talk about, but how do you see those things and how does it make you feel when you see grassland being converted to one other use, to an alternative use?

Graydon Gardner: Yeah. I mean, it's, to use a bit of a cowboy analogy and fit the bonanza theme song with Big Hoss over there, it put the bird under my saddle.

Scott Stephens: It really does.

Graydon Gardner: You know, we're so limited on the native grasslands that we have left here in the Prairie Pothole region, not just in Alberta, but all across the Southern Prairies. And you know, to see it, and I've seen it multiple times, and as a producer, I understand it. I'm not going to say I agree with it. I understand it by trying to, you know, running a farm business and the pressures that come with that. But, you know, it hurts to see that stuff get tore up, to see, you know, I've seen large operations where guys are farming 80,000 acres up here and they have enough equipment to not just drain wetlands, but fill them in. I've seen guys haul dirt in for weeks on end with 20 tandem trucks and fill in a 10-acre basin. So you see it out there on the landscape. But I do have to say in Alberta, I do have to take a bit of a moment and champion our producers we have here. We have a lot of very forward-thinking producers that we've worked with. And for every one of those that you see gets tore up, Obviously, in our lifetime, we're never going to see it get back to that true native range that we classify it as. But there's some other things that we can do to try and initiate that landscape level change. And we have a lot of really good producers here in our province that we're fortunate to work with and have that mindset of You know, in our programs, we have a bit of a saying of farm the best and conserve the rest. So we understand at Ducks Unlimited that we're trying to feed the world. These producers are trying to run a business. They're trying to raise a family on the land, and that's their right. And you know what? It's one of the best lives to live. But when you can have that mix of conservation on the working landscape and find that harmony, you know, it's a great thing and that's probably one of the greatest satisfactions I get out of my job here is being able to see that, you know, as much as you can see, there are instances where you're seeing a section of native grasslands broke up, you can go work with one of our great producers and see the great things that they're trying to do on their operation to bring some of that back.

Mike Brasher: Great, and I think this is a good place for us to take a break. I appreciate you sharing your perspective. That's really insightful. I'm going to follow up with one question. I want a little bit more information about, you know, are you a rancher? Are you a row crop producer? But we'll get to that on the other side of the break. And then I want to jump right into a discussion about some of these programs. that we are using to try to do exactly what you described, conserve the rest, and make it better for some of the ducks and other things that we care about. So stay with us, folks, and we'll be right back. Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I am here with Graydon Garner and Dr. Scott Stevens, and we're going to pick right back up with our discussion about conservation programs for ducks and waterfowl in Alberta. Graydon, you're a producer yourself. Are you rancher or is it row crop or is it a mix? I didn't get all that whenever we were talking earlier.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely. It depends on the day what hat I'm going to wear. Our family operation here, and we are a family operation. It's all family labor that we do. We have a mix of everything. So we do have cash crops, we have forage crops, and then probably the largest sector of our business is going to be livestock, primarily cattle, but we also run some sheep as well. So we, you know, everybody in the family wears a bit of a different hat, which is really nice. We kind of have our own enterprises that we can specialize in, but we do dabble. in multifacets around the agriculture industry.

Mike Brasher: And that's useful because you're able to see the value, even some of the constraints, some of the opportunities in each of these programs that we'll talk about. I don't know that we're going to get to all of these, but we'll get to a couple of these, well, a number of them anyway. And you have great perspective in that regard. So I want to start by talking about some of these programs that I think there's at least a couple of these that relate to improving conditions of the forage, of the upland vegetation. Let's say a forage program, then I see a rangeland improvement program. We talked about the importance of uplands of one type or another for providing nesting habitat, but what are these two programs, the DU Canada forage program and then the rangeland improvement program, and how do those fit within what we're trying to do to improve landscape for ducks.

Scott Stephens: Hey, can I interrupt for a minute? Yep. I was just gonna say that I think when we talked about big overarching things, and I think you're right, Mike, it is advantageous that Graydon is a mixed producer and sees all the sides. Really, in the big picture, I think what we're trying to do with our conservation programs is sort of provide economic incentives for them to do things that are beneficial to you know, waterfowl and a whole host of other things out there. So, you know, really, I think, in the end, producers are making decisions based on the economics. I mean, they are good stewards, as Graydon talked about, but they've got to pay bills at the end of the day. So, just kind of an overarching trend that, you know, we're trying to think about how we make these things attractive economically. So, now I think it's perfect. We can jump into the details.

Mike Brasher: I appreciate that, Scott. One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on here, you can provide some additional commentary on those big, that additional color. Thank you. So great.

Graydon Gardner: Great. And take it away. Absolutely. You know, to expand on Scott's there. And it's so important that, you know, we talked about sales here earlier on, on this episode. And when we're approaching, no matter what program we want to do with a producer, when we're approaching producers, we're not selling them more ducks. That doesn't make them money, right? So as much as that's our mission and our mandate, and that is our end goal, and that's what we're doing, that's not how we're approaching the farmer. We're going and we're talking about the economic viability. Some of them, like I said, in our province, we have some forward thinkers here. They're already going down the environmental goods and services train that their operation provides. So there's multiple different ways that we can approach it to a producer. But rarely are we ever knocking on the door saying, hey, if you do this, there's a high likelihood you're going to have more waterfowl nesting on your place in the spring. They love to see it. We hear about it all the time from our producers and it's great, but it doesn't make them money. And if you want to be able to work with these producers voluntarily, it has to impact their bottom line. So it was a great point by Scott brought up about that. To tie into the forage program, so our forage conversion program we have here in the province, and we deliver this all across the Prairie region, it's one of the bread and butters of what we do. We impact probably the highest number of acres on an annual basis during this program. You know, this last year in Alberta, we were right around that 10,000 acres that we converted from an annual cropland. So your wheat, barley, canola, peas, the stuff that we grow here in the province, into a perennial forage stand for a 10-year period. So we incentivize, we pay incentive to producers to help offset that first year of production because in your forage stands, in your first year of production, you're really not going to get much. So that incentive we pay really helps kind of offset that first year of cost. And then it's 10 years that they're keeping that forest stand in production. What Ducks Unlimited gets out of that is we're getting an increased availability of dense nesting cover for potential nesting habitat in the spring. Most of the projects that we do have wetlands right inside the field boundary. There's a few of them that have adjacent wetlands all around the field boundary, but we're delivering them in these target landscapes where these birds, like you said, they don't just need the water, they need the uplands as well during that nesting season. We're helping provide those uplands for them to nest in.

Scott Stephens: Just one translation. Sorry, I was going to say just one translation. I think forage is the common term and what you hear all the time in Canada, I would say equals hay land for many folks in the US. So think hay if you're listening from the US.

Mike Brasher: Thanks for the translation. You speak Canadian and American.

Graydon Gardner: Yeah, that's right. He's got both of his cards, eh? But so yeah, moving on to our rangeland improvement program. This one is actually more of a program that's meant to keep habitats in their natural state. So, you know, we talk about and I'm sure it's been talked about on this podcast before is the conservation easements that we deliver. You know, that's one of the pillars that we deliver here in the province. This is a very similar program. It's just a shorter time period meant to add that level of flexibility that some producers might need in a farm transition era. You know right now we're looking at an average age of about 55 years old for our agricultural producers here in the province. There's a lot of land about to be transitioned in the next 10 to 20 years to that next farm generation to another producer and it might be tough for them to make that full perpetuity commitment to a conservation easement. This is a way where we can facilitate that transition on these really nice native habitat uplands with lots of wetland abundance in there, and we can do it on a 10-year period and give them flexibility within their systems.

Scott Stephens: And, and I'm sure the other thing that those programs do for you, Graydon is also, you know, it, it, it's probably rare that somebody is going to come in and say, yep, let me partner with you guys and sign something up forever. You know, it's, it's a way to sort of test and build that relationship. And then they kind of say, yeah, these guys have been okay to work with. Maybe I'm going to entertain that longer term commitment.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely. Both of the forage and the rangeland improvement program, we call them door openers. They're what we would call an easy sell. And there's something that we can go that's, like he said, it's not a long-term commitment right off the hop. We can start working on that relationship, that trust. We can provide some advice. We can provide some services to them in that 10-year period. But our programs also complement each other really well. We have producers that come and they might do a forage conversion incentive program with us and out of a full quarter section that's 160 acres, they might seed 60 acres back to hayland, while the other 100 is native upland habitat with 20 wetland basins on it. So once they do that forage conversion incentive and get the entire quarter section into an upland, whether it's tame grass or native grass, well now that maybe fits our rangeland improvement program and in the long, long run can turn into a conservation easement. So we can really shift and shape and be flexible in what we deliver and have programs that complement each other on the landscape. And again, to try and hit that landscape level change, because that's what we're dealing with up here is the risk that we talked about of wetland loss, wetland drainage, and grassland loss. It's landscape level. We're not looking at the micro level. We're at the 30,000 foot level looking at this.

Scott Stephens: The one example that jumps to mind for me, Graydon, is I know, you know, just a couple years ago we did the biggest conservation easement we've ever done in Canada with the McIntyre Ranch. And I know as I look back in the history, you know, it was like 25 years before that we had done grazing programs with them on their ranch. So, you know, it didn't start with perpetual protection of 55,000 acres. It started with some grazing programs, some of those entry programs that you talked about, but down the road they decided that that was an appropriate thing to do in partnership with us and Nature Conservancy Canada.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely, that's a great example, Scott.

Mike Brasher: And each of these things that you're talking about has in common a boots on the ground type of approach. These things don't just happen without the people that are out there knocking on the doors that are that are driving through the farm gates. Again, it comes back to that to make this happen. I want to stick with the sort of the upland aspect of this of what we're trying to achieve improving recovering, developing surrogate nesting habitat for ducks in some way or another. And this is a topic that I think we've touched on a few times and it's winter cereals, the agricultural crops that are grown during winter such that they grow They begin to germinate and grow throughout the winter and then sort of take off. I guess they were sort of dormant during winter, but then they take off in the spring. And then that growth sort of emulates nesting habitat, short grass nesting habitat for some duck species. And there's been some work showing that that type of situation is valuable for nesting ducks. And that's something we've invested in. Graydon, talk about where we are on that. You and I were discussing earlier this year, we've heard a lot about winter wheat as the primary crop that we've historically targeted through that program, but you were saying that there's actually some traction in a few other types of grains now. Give us the rundown on where we are with winter cereals.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely. You know, the last 30 years across the prairies, Ducks Unlimited Canada has had a very close tie to the winter weed crop. As times have changed, as the landscapes have changed, as agricultural operations have changed, so have the crop varieties and so are the crops that are being grown. We took our winter wheat initiative here in Alberta, and last year we changed it to a winter cereals initiative. So what that does is it opens up the door for other crops just than wheat. So we have fall rye and winter triticale that are also part of our program. In Alberta, we are in a bit of a specialized area where we have a lot I can't tell you the number, but it's a vast majority of the feedlot capacity in Canada for raising cattle is in Alberta. And those feedlot producers, they feed silage all year long. So some of them are growing corn, some of them are growing barley, a lot of them are starting to grow fall rye. The new hybrids of fall rye that are out there are producing some fantastic numbers and they offer a higher level of flexibility on the farm whether you want to graze it, silage it, take it for grain. So we took that feedback from producers and this is where I have to give my co-workers here at Ducks Unlimited Canada a pat on the back. We're not just out there promoting our programs to producers. We're talking to them. What challenges are you facing? And how can we adapt as Ducks Unlimited as a service provider? How can we change to fit your needs? And how can we find that middle ground between conservation and agricultural production? And this is such a great example of this. So we changed to a winter cereals initiative. Again, those crops that are seeded in the fall time, they're dormant. And really the benefit to these crops is that you don't have a giant piece of iron, a seed drill, being drug over every square inch of these crops in the spring. Pintails, like we talked about before in the province, Alberta is so critical to the pintails. Well, what do pintails like nesting in? They like nesting in that short grass prairie or that cereal stubble that's about 68 inches tall. So if you're not dragging a drill over all those nests in the spring because that crop's already in the ground, Like you said, the research that our great team at IWAR here has proven, Jim DeVries was one of the lead scientists on that. I've met that man, fantastic individual. I believe it's about 300% increase in nest success for pintails that nest in a fall cereal seeded crop. And so it's been a great success here in the province. We're able to use the winter cereal program to also work with a different dynamic of producer. You know, a lot of the programs that we have are a great fit for either the cattle producer or the mixed cattle and grain producer. What winter cereals does is we can now work with that grain only producer. you know, that fella or that gal that's farming 30,000 acres, they can still achieve a level of conservation on their landscape by doing a winter cereal program with Ducks Unlimited. So we're able to reach a wider scope of producer and a larger landscape in which we can have a positive effect on.

Mike Brasher: It's been one of the more exciting innovations that we've tried to put on the ground here over the past 20 or so years, and it's exciting to see, continues to be exciting to see the additional thought going into that. Winter wheat hasn't taken off quite like we hoped it would, but the expansion, at least that's sort of my understanding, the expansion to other varieties and other grains is certainly It continues to show that we see value in that approach, and I'm happy to see that we're still pursuing that. I want to move on quickly to talk about some of the wetland restoration programs that you have going. We've talked about mostly upland-related work, although some of those programs that you mentioned do, I think, increase the likelihood of some of those embedded wetlands being retained on the landscape would be my assumption. But there are a few opportunities out there where we actually engage in restoring wetlands that have been drained. Talk about those if you could, Graydon.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely. So one of the bread and butter programs, again, that we've done here over about the past 10 years in Alberta is our Wetland Restoration Lease Program. A quick overview of the program is we'll use a lot of aerial imagery, satellite imagery, driving around on the landscape to try and find these wetland basins that have been drained, generally by a big V-plow, but some anthropogenic drain. by human causes that is no longer holding this basin. We'll try and find those, approach the producer. And what the program is, is it's a 10-year lease. So what Ducks Unlimited Canada does is we'll come in, we'll plug that ditch up, we'll seed it with grass, we'll bring that water cycle back. So once you plug these ditches and you just let that water cycle bring that water back to the basin, we'll lease those wetland acres from that producer for that 10-year period. So we pay them fair market value per acre, so that if they're farming through that basin or whatever, we can compensate them for that loss of quote-unquote production. Although a lot of these basins, guys are only getting crops off them two out of ten years. So it makes a lot of sense for us to come in and say, you don't have to lift a finger, we'll restore the basin, we'll pay you a bit of money to compensate you for your production loss. And then after that 10 years is up and we shake hands and say, okay, that was a fair deal. In Alberta, we have the Alberta wetland policy. And once that basin is restored, that is now protected under the Alberta Wetland Policy and unless you have a special license to divert water, you cannot legally re-drain that basin. So it's a great deal for ducks in terms that we don't have to look after that basin or maintain it, in perpetuity. After that 10 years, we can pass the maintenance of that basin off back to the producer, but it is now protected under the legislation that we have here in the province. And Ducks Unlimited played a big role in helping to get that legislation in place and create the Alberta Wetland Policy. And without it, we couldn't have the success that we've had with our wetland restoration program.

Mike Brasher: And the landowner obviously knows that stipulation on the back end kind of going into this, right? And so again, all of this is these are voluntary and center-based programs fully aware of what it is that you talked about regarding the Alberta policy that is in place once that agreement expires.

Graydon Gardner: Absolutely. You know, that's conveyed from day one. We have little information packages that are like a 101 on the Alberta Well Land Policy to help make producers aware of all the stipulations that comes with it. And this ties back to where we're selling the program. We're talking about economics on the farm. We're impacting the bottom line. But the producers love to see the effects of what we do. And as an agriculture producer myself, I can say that Generally, farmers need to see it to believe it. So when we can get in the door through the economic sales pitch and provide those results, the amount of phone calls we get from producers two, three, four years down the road, man, you got to come out and look at this basin. You won't believe the amount of ducks that are on there. This is awesome. They love it, right? It's such a feel good thing. They're producing that on their land. They have a stake in it. You know, these folks love their land more than anybody else in the world. So when we can facilitate that sort of change and see that change in mindset, it's extremely gratifying.

Mike Brasher: Guys, we're going to have to start wrapping this up here. We've kind of got a hard stop for another episode that we want to record here in the studio. We could talk a little bit more about a number of these things. Scott, I did want to give you a few minutes here, though, just to talk about one particular funding program. We talked a lot about the programs, what they look like, what they translate to in terms of duck habitat, but none of this happens without the boots on the ground, and also none of it happens without the funding to actually provide these incentives. And I think people will be excited to know and pleased to know that They have a connection. People here in the states have a connection in multiple ways to the funding that is actually going to put this habitat on the ground. So, Scott, talk about that. Mainly, I want you to emphasize what we call our Fall Flights Program, where some of that funding comes from.

Scott Stephens: Right. Yeah, the Fall Flights program is funding that comes from state agencies, typically from their duck stamp sales. And in most states, a portion of that goes to Canada to provide this nesting habitat that supplies birds to them. So I want to say across the prairies, we're up to a little over 3 million acres or $3 million a year comes from state agencies. I think we almost have all 48 of the lower states engaged in the Fall Flights program. So yeah, provides a lot of money. That money is matched three times when it goes to Canada. Once by Ducks Unlimited and another two times typically through a program called North American Wetlands Conservation Act or NACA. So, you know, state provides a dollar, we bring three other dollars to the table to fund all of the things that Graydon has talked about and has all these benefits. So, really important program and one that helps deliver habitat on the ground in Canada.

Mike Brasher: And like I said, there's multiple pathways by which the listeners of this, supporters of Ducks Unlimited, and duck hunters in general contribute to those funds. If you purchase a duck stamp or I guess a duck stamp or hunting license through various states. I'm not exactly sure the pathway of all of the funds in every state, but I know some of it relates to the purchase of stamps, and then they use that money, as you described, to fund this work. Contributions that people make to Ducks Unlimited also are a big part of this. So this was an opportunity to provide I guess a brief look and description of how your support, your contributions to Ducks Unlimited actually affects and drives habitat conservation on the ground in our highest priority landscape, Alberta, being this example. So, sorry about that. Bumped the microphone there. As we wrap up here, I want to give each of you a minute to kind of talk about, to add any final comment. Scott, I'll start with you.

Scott Stephens: Yeah, I would just say that I think as we've talked about this, really the one strategic advantage that DU has all over the continent is our ability to have those people on the ground like Raiden. who are able to work with landowners and deliver the conservation work. We're better at that than anybody else on the continent, I would argue, and that's really an organizational strength and something that has led to the growth and success that we've seen over more than 85 years now.

Graydon Gardner: and ingraining to you. My final thought just has to be a thank you. Thank you to our agricultural producers that we work with. That's one of the greatest pleasures of being able to work with DU is the people that we get to meet and the places that we get to see and the work that they do is second to none. And thank you, huge thank you to all of our supporters north and south of the border. We don't get to do what we do without you guys and we don't get to do what we do without the producers so I'm kind of in the middle between the the supporters and the producers and I think it's the best place to be because we just have the best of both worlds in our supporters, our volunteers and everybody that has the same level of passion that we do for Ducks Unlimited and you know it's just such a pleasure to be here. Thanks to you guys for having me. It was really great to expand on this and be able to talk with you guys and hopefully provide some insight to folks south of the border.

Mike Brasher: Great. And we thank you an awful lot for sharing your time and joining us here on the Ducks Unlimited podcast for the first time. I doubt if it'll be the last time. We appreciated all the insight that you brought, and I know there's other things that you'll be able to talk with us about in the future. So appreciate that a lot. Scott, same thing to you. Thanks for always being a willing participant on this. So again, thank you guys for joining us here. Absolutely. Always happy to join. Thanks guys. I also want to thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the great job he does with these episodes, and all the other folks that are now producing the video component of this. Got a lot of folks involved in these things now, and so hope y'all are enjoying this. We thank you for listening, if you're listening on the audio version. We thank you for watching, if you're watching on YouTube. Most importantly, we thank you for your support of wetlands and waterfowl conservation.