Flyway Foundation in P&C

[Wad Shooter]

http://www.charleston.net/stories/?n...tion=localnews

Duck nests to get some cradling
Great Lakes effort might help mallards make way to S.C.

BY BO PETERSEN
Of The Post and Courier Staff

More than a mile of rebar will be cut into 900 cradles and shipped to the eastern Great Lakes to hold wire mesh henhouses in a curious project aimed at putting more mallard ducks in the streams and skies of South Carolina.
The project is the work of the Flyway Foundation, formed in February by 200 avid duck hun-ters, to "enhance the population of mallards" that winter in the state and fly off to nest in the Great Lakes region.

The cradles will make it easier to set, repair and maintain the mesh nesting tubes placed on posts in open water in lake coves, farm ponds and parks to protect eggs and hatchlings from predators such as raccoons. A study as part of the project will gauge its breeding success; only one of every five hatchlings are said to survive in wild, open ground nests.

The mallard is a larger cousin of the wood duck, a year-round Lowcountry waterfowl that makes use of the familiar wooden duck boxes along rivers. The mallard is the most popular game duck.

Foundation director and Columbia attorney Stephen Hucks described the nests as a way to bolster a population dwindling in the Southeast because of shrinking wetland habitat. A foundation news release estimates the South Carolina mallard population has declined from 250,000 in the 1950s to fewer than 10,000 today.

"I've got two kids and a third on the way. If the trend continues, they'll never know what I've enjoyed," he said.

The idea left U.S. Fish and Wildlife migratory bird management biologist Al Manville shaking his head. The mallard population might be declining sharply in South Carolina, but the population tends to fluctuate and overall is in relatively good shape.

Meanwhile, wading birds such as the wood stock or the nearly extinct whooping crane, which use roughly the same habitat, are in far more serious trouble, he said. Fewer than 500 whooping cranes are known to be alive today. So are songbirds that travel South Carolina, such as Kirkland's warbler, with fewer than 750 breeding pairs worldwide.

"Mallards are not a species in trouble by any means. They're everywhere. Let's put our effort into the bigger issue. More than one-quarter of the birds we're mandated to manage are in trouble and in some areas serious decline," he said.

"I would suggest protecting habitat as the best way to go about this. We're losing wetlands at an unprecedented rate."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bo Petersen can be reached at bopete@postandcourier.com or 745-5852.

[Low Country Sandlapper]

Hey Manville.....WAKE UP! I saw more wood storks yesterday afternoon than I've seen wild mallards in the whole state in the last 5 years. Kirkland's warbler?! WTH does that have to do with migratory waterfowl?

[Wad Shooter]

Those Warblers are pretty tasty, but there ain't a lot of meat on them.

[2thDoc]

Originally posted by Wad Shooter:
The idea left U.S. Fish and Wildlife migratory bird management biologist Al Manville shaking his head. The mallard population might be declining sharply in South Carolina, but the population tends to fluctuate and overall is in relatively good shape.

what is he smoking?

while i appreciate his "opinion", am I the only one that worries that the mallard will become the next whooping crane or Kirkland's warbler?

[Low Country Sandlapper]

Exactly, 2th. Petersen might as well have called a FWS biologist in Idaho and talked to him about the plight of California condors....that would have been about as germane to the topic of migratory mallards in S.C.

[Quack Daddy]

Let's try to save enough rebar from the scraps to make a couple of cages for Peterson and Manville and ship them off to find some condors or better yet, they might find another DoDo bird.

[Catdaddy]

"Mallards are not a species in trouble by any means. They're everywhere. Let's put our effort into the bigger issue. More than one-quarter of the birds we're mandated to manage are in trouble and in some areas serious decline," he said."


That statement pretty much sums up the USFWS attitude about long term averages and harvest rates. They don't care about the waterfowl populations ever getting back to historic levels. They have adopted a mentality of "we have too many now and can get by with less."

Somebody also forgot to tell Mr. Manville that installing hen houses qualifies for matching USFWS dollars under NAWCA for habitat improvement.

[Wad Shooter]

I do care about warblers, cranes, storks and even the Condor. However, I prefer to see them from my duckblind while I am shooting mallards.

What disturbs me most about his statement is his lack of appreciation for what hunters and their organizations (DU, etc.) have done for these non-game species. Hunters such as ourselves and Teddy Roosevelt are the original conservationists. Wetlands and habitat preserved by DU and other organizations funded by hunter's $ have provided the added benefit of providing for these non-target species. What shape would we (as well as target and non-target species) be in without these efforts?

So now when we come up with a target-specific program these bird watchers get upset. Manville may want to take his ball and go home, but the ball is ours and we'll play the game without him.

[Rock & Rye]

Interesting angle the writer and bio man took on this one.

I will say ALMOST any press is better than no press. This gets the FF name out there to some degree. Duckhunters will see through the BS, other's won't and never will.

Now the press just needs to show up on a planned work day sometime or next year when birds are banded. They will see this group is serious.

Congrats and thanks to all of you that have worked so hard putting ideas to work, and those that have supported the efforts!