Volunteers Fill Key Roles
By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bross@wisducks.org
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s November, 2022 Newsletter edition.
WWA’s wood duck box program has been around just about as long as WWA – 37 years! But it was in jeopardy when program patron, Erich Pitz, passed in 2021. Fortunately, Erich had built a surplus of several hundred boxes. But with the high demand from chapters and the public last year, that surplus was depleted in March earlier this year.
Enter the prairie chicken…. or at least, supporters of the game bird. A group that adopted the latin name of the prairie chicken – Tympanuchus Cupido Pinnatus – manages a fund with the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. That fund supports projects that protect and conserve birds that breed, migrate, or winter in Wisconsin, including game birds like the Wood Duck. With $5,000 of support from “The Wisconsin Bird Fund – A Legacy Fund of the Society of Tympanuchus Cupido Pinnatus”, WWA will be filling orders for the nesting structures beginning in December.
There will be more wood ducklings on the ground this spring, thanks to the generosity of this group which stated, “We are pleased to perpetuate WWA’s successful wood duck program by funding raw material cost for hundreds of wood duck houses. We recognize an important component of this program is to engage the Next Generation in outdoor, environmental and waterfowl related activities.” By selling a few boxes to the public, WWA will generate sufficient funds to sustain this program indefinitely.
Funding is one thing, but we also needed to turn that funding into wood for the boxes; and then turn that wood into the kits or completed boxes; and then get those boxes delivered to the individuals who will hang and maintain them. Here, volunteer President Bruce Urben started the ball rolling by locating sawyers who could not only provide the rough sawn lumber required, but do it at a discount. Director Dave Elwing coordinated needed hardware for the construction (screws, drill bits, hardware cloth). As part of WWA’s Habitat Committee, Volunteer Bart Tegen coordinates logistics for the program, and worked with the instructors at the Blackwell school in Laona to get the wood and hardware delivered and manufacturing underway. As the boxes are built and ordered, Bart will then coordinate distribution to chapters and to customers who order boxes or kits online at WWAs website. By the way, they make great Christmas presents – check back early next month to get yours here!