By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bruceross@wi.rr.com
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s September, 2021 Newsletter edition.
All photos courtesy of Josh Preissner.
If you attended the EXPO, here are some of the things you might have seen…
-
Delta’s Chris Nicholai presents on satellite telemetry’s use in understanding waterfowl migration.
Several seminars on caring for your harvest in the field, and preparing it for the table.
- 78 indoor and outdoor booths with everything from artistic taxidermy, to neat inventions.
- 8 Presentations and demos on how to get the most from your four-legged hunting companion.
- Duck and goose calling contests that led to the selection of the top state callers from youth on up to the adults who will go on to the national competitions.
- Kids from 7 months to 17 years, drawing bows, squeezing triggers, clamboring through decoys, touching wildlife artifacts and cuddling ducklings.
- Shooting clay targets with new shotguns from Winchester, Browning and Beretta.
- Presentations on the upcoming waterfowl season, duck ID, duck banding results and where duck stamp funding is improving habitat around the state.
- Duck carving and painting demos and displays
- The social science components of waterfowling, current state and federal research on waterfowl, and new technology being used in understanding duck migratory habits, and what parasites can tell us about their duck-hosts travels.
- How to become an outdoor woman and better photographer of wildlife like ducks.
- State habitat stamp entries for waterfowl, turkey and trout.
- Managing wetlands for waterfowl (and other community benefits), and our own Peter Ziegler presented on helping private landowners improve their wetlands.
- And so much more!
Here’s a link to a video made by a recent WWA volunteer Justin Ryan that shows the range of activity that was at the EXPO (even if the drone footage was shot towards at the beginning of the day the end of the day when most of the crowds were still inside).