By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bruceross@wi.rr.com
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s March, 2021 Newsletter edition.
As I write this note, there are six months until waterfowling season starts anew in Wisconsin. So you might think this is the low of waterfowling activities at WWA. Au contraire! Yes we are ramping up into banquet season (don’t miss Green Bay’s kickoff banquet on March 18th); and we are already strongly into raffle season, but it’s also been non-stop duck hunting issues since the season ended months ago – and it looks like this pace will continue until we start again in 180 days.
Here’s a snapshot of what your WWA has been working on this last month:
- Since our annual meeting in January, our state-level mission committees have met several times to consider today’s issues and build a work plan for the year. There’s still time to play a role in your areas of interest: Habitat, Education; Policy, or Development (all sort of possibilities) and membership/Communication
- The 2021 waterfowl seasons are being established over the next few weeks, and WWA reps sit on a couple of influential committees to rep your interests. Your input on WWA’s recent survey on Big Water Zone is helping to shape that inaugural season. Expect an email and social media alerts when they are finalized.
- It’s that time of year when wood duck boxes need maintenance, so chapter reps are trudging across the ice and snow to put fresh shavings in hundreds of boxes around the state. And Eagle Scouts continue to find value in their own wood duck box programs as a way of attaining that esteemed rank—check out the article in this newsletter.
- WWA has partnered with Wisconsin Outdoor News to sponsor the annual Wood Duck Challenge to bring youth into this conservation area—our most popular post ever on Facebook with 15,000 views.
- Check out Bruce Urben’s article on maintaining your wood duck box. Want to buy some ?
The Waterfowl Hunters EXPO is chugging along; we’re finding it pretty easy to find top notch speakers and sponsors since this will be a kick*ss inaugural event. But there’s a lot of work to build this particular dream: Compile a top shelf seminar and presentation program, meet sponsor marketing expectations, raise the funds necessary to keep attendee costs low and determine and coordinate all the logistics considerations to host thousands of attendees. If you haven’t already, check out the EXPO website and follow the Facebook Page to get a preview of coming attractions.
- Sherper’s, Lucky Duck, War Eagle boats, Purina Dog chow, Vortex Optics, UFO boats and UW Stevens Point all just signed on as sponsors to help us put on a superb event at low entry cost ($10 or less!)
- The Migratory Bird Committee’s biennial apportionment of duck stamp funds just happened yesterday. We considered 51 projects, and were able to allocate dollars to just half of them. A lot of good projects will put habitat into the ground in the next few of years. I was impressed with the number of projects (the most in many years) and their quality/impact on state wetlands and duck habitat. But I was also disappointed at how many good projects we were not able to support due to running out of funding.
- FYI: WWA has been awarded $273K of duck stamp dollars in the past decade, equating to 66 projects and 1261 acres of restored wetlands. None of this money goes to administrative support and is a bargain at less than $217 of duck stamp money per acre. Take a look at some of the recent small but important duck stamp projects WWA has been involved in here.
- We can address this latter issue if state legislators put the duck stamp increase into the state’s budget (or keep it in the Governor’s proposal), so we’ve been working at that. Good news, the governor put it in his budget and we are working to keep it in there as the legislature takes their bite at the budget “apple”.
- Several policy initiatives that our members support: Knowles-Nelson Stewardship re-authorization, railroad crossing restrictions and other policy topics…
- WWA’ers should be tickled to see former WWA Board Director Mark Kakatsch recognized with the Mississippi Flyway Council Heritage Award – the top honor of the flyway council (see the article late in this newsletter). But it makes me think there must be something in the WWA ‘water’: former Executive Director Don Kirby was also recognized in 2019 with the same award! And it’s not like they hand these things out like candy, they only award one across the entire Mississippi flyway (14 states and 3 provinces) each year!!! To have two WWA leaders win the award in back-to-back years, well, that’s a singular achievement. Well done Mark, and well done Don.”
And of course, there’s much more just in the past month. Your WWA is hard at work to support your interests, because you’ve supported us. Thanks – and take a look at our recently published annual report to see where that support you provided in 2020 was used.
See you on the water,
Bruce