By Jason Fleener, WDNR Wetland Habitat Specialist
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s March 2020 Newsletter edition.
Wisconsin is one of the few states in the nation that has taken waterfowl habitat guidance from the North American Waterfowl Management Plan and regional Joint Ventures and stepped them down to a state-level plan. Recently, the Wisconsin Joint Venture Steering Committee completed the Wisconsin Waterfowl Habitat Conservation Strategy. The Strategy compliments DNR’s recently updated Waterfowl Management Plan in that it provides the detailed habitat element for waterfowl conservation, whereas the Waterfowl Management Plan focuses on direct species management and human dimensions issues.
This Strategy will drive decisions related to the conservation of wetlands and associated nesting grassland habitats in Wisconsin over the next 15 years. The Strategy sets broad objectives for the restoration and retention of quality wetland types for various stages in the life cycle of waterfowl and nesting grassland habitat. The Strategy also produces data-driven models that spatially prioritize waterfowl habitat areas across the state at the ecological landscape level and down to the level of small, local watersheds.
Through this Strategy, WWA will continue to look for more habitat restoration projects across the state, like this one, completed last March.
Wisconsin is taking a novel approach to these models as we are analyzing waterfowl habitat priorities from a conservation capital perspective (protecting, managing and maintaining existing wetland and grassland habitats) and from a conservation opportunities perspective (restoring wetlands and grasslands that have been lost). The Committee encourages all statewide and local conservation partners in Wisconsin to utilize the Strategy to implement strategic waterfowl habitat conservation programs at regional and local levels.
DNR plans on sharing the Committee’s strategy along with interactive waterfowl habitat decision support mapping tools on the DNR website later this spring following the revamping of the website. We thank WWA for their role on the committee for being a champion of the Strategy over the next 15 years.