Project Profiles - United States

200th Wetland Restored at Hamden Slough Refuge
by Jon Schneider, Ducks Unlimited, Inc. and Mike Murphy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

A prairie-conservation partnership recently marked the restorationof the 200th wetland on Hamden Slough National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Minnesota. Designed, engineered, and constructed by Ducks Unlimited, Inc.'s, Great Plains Regional Office, the 100-acre Bisson Lake—wetland number 200—has been brought back to life with funding from project partners and a North American Wetlands Conservation Act Small Grant.

In 1995, refuge staff set a goal of restoring the refuge's northern 130 wetlands and surrounding 600 upland acres by the end of the past millennium. Faced with skeptical neighbors and a judicial-ditch system within the refuge, forging a partnership was pivotal to accomplishing the goal.

Of particular interest to refuge neighbors was the impact of surface-water flooding and groundwater seepage. Project credibility was built with the local Watershed District and the County Highway Engineer by enlisting the aid of soil scientists from North Dakota State University. By 1998, the University's innovative research had convinced board members, engineers, and neighbors that with appropriate construction designs wetland restoration would not have a negative affect on roads or cropland. Seepage analysis done was labeled as "state-of-the-art " by the National Soils Laboratory. Since then, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) and its partners have gone on to restore the refuge's northern wetlands, prairie grasses, and forbs.

Beginning in the 1940s, both the State of Minnesota and the Service made several attempts to protect the Hamden Slough area, one of western Minnesota's critical bird nesting areas. In 1989, the federal Migratory Bird Conservation Commission approved the establishment of boundaries that would eventually hold a 6,000-acre Hamden Slough refuge. The refuge currently contains 3,235 acres on the eastern edge of the tallgrass prairie near Audubon.

Wetland and upland loss in the northern tallgrass Prairie Pothole Region of western Minnesota has been extensive, with an estimated 99 percent of the prairie plowed and more than 90 percent of wetlands drained. More than 55,000 wetlands have been drained in and around Hamden Slough.

Restorations and management on the refuge will provide significant resting and nesting habitat for waterfowl and many species of non-game migratory birds. The refuge's diverse vegetation is highly attractive to wildlife, with 212 species of raptors, waterfowl, and other migratory birds recorded in the vicinity of Hamden Slough since 1991. The area was described by John J. Audubon's niece in 1871, and older local residents recall it as an historic bird-viewing area with some of the most productive wildlife wetlands in western Minnesota.

Bisson Lake and the numerous restored wetlands are an avian haven. In 1993, Bisson Lake flooded, attracting thousands of waterbirds and the first recorded sighting of American avocets in Becker County. Black terns and northern harriers were confirmed as nesting on the refuge in 1998, and one pair of marbled godwits remained throughout the summer. As its moniker implies, the "refuge" has become just that, a refuge—and there's more to come.

For more information, contact Mike Murphy, Refuge Manager, Hamden Slough Refuge, 21212 210th Street, Audubon, Minnesota 56511, (218) 439-6319, mike_t_murphy@fws.gov.

Hamden Slough Project Partners

Ducks Unlimited, Inc.
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Red River Water Management Board
Buffalo-Red River Watershed District
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
North Dakota State University
Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Incorporating Reptile Needs into Wetland Restoration
by Mike Wolder, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

In 1996, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) acquired 448 acres of laser-leveled ricefields adjacent to Colusa National Wildlife Refuge in California's Sacramento Valley. Tract 24 represented an 11 percent increase in land and an opportunity to significantly increase wildlife habitat. Refuge staff immediately began working on a habitat restoration plan, emphasizing habitat for wintering waterfowl, other migratory birds, and endangered species.

Concurrently, the U.S. Geological Survey, Biological Resources Division (BRD) had started a research project at the refuge on giant garter snakes, a threatened species endemic to the valley. Study objectives included obtaining life history and habitat-use information that was largely unknown.
During 1996 to 2000, BRD and refuge staff collected data using snakes implanted with radio transmitters and mark-recapture techniques. The snakes were found to be relatively abundant on the refuge, especially in the wetlands and canals adjacent to Tract 24. They used a variety of wetlands and some uplands throughout the year, but preferred permanent or semi-permanent wetlands and canals as their core habitats. Many of the snakes extended their range into nearby ricefields in the summer, returning to the refuge in the fall to hibernate in canal banks and other upland sites.

The timely coincidence of research and land acquisition provided refuge staff the opportunity to incorporate newly discovered site-specific information about the snakes into the habitat restoration planning efforts. The resulting plan directed the development of Tract 24 into a complex of wetland and upland habitats, including permanent wetlands (about 25 percent) that will benefit the snakes as well as other species. It also included a new water delivery system to Tract 24 and 2,000 other wetland acres on the refuge, thus securing a quality water supply. Fieldwork was completed in the summer of 1999, and the wetlands were flooded soon after.

One of the most satisfying aspects of the restoration has been the monitoring effort. The refuge's on-going monitoring program appended Tract 24. Since then, data collected have provided baseline information and allowed the evaluation of migratory bird and other wildlife responses to the new habitat. In addition, the Service, through the Cental Valley Project Improvement Act and Quick Response Program, funded a continuation of BRD research to assess the response of giant garter snakes to the restoration.

In just over a year, as the habitat has developed, research and monitoring data indicate increasing use by a variety of wildlife, including giant garter snakes, wintering and breeding waterfowl, migrating and breeding shorebirds, and many other species. Such evaluation of habitat restoration is often not conducted but provides critical information that will help future conservation efforts by ensuring that restoration funds are being spent efficiently.

For more information, contact Mike Wolder, Wildlife Biologist, Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, 752 County Road 99W, Willows, California 95988, (530) 934-2801, mike_wolder@fws.gov.

Tract 24 Restoration Partners

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Ducks Unlimited, Inc.
California Waterfowl Association
California Department of Fish and Game

Living in the Past
by K. Douglas Blodgett, The Nature Conservancy

Until 2 years ago, a parcel of land along the Illinois River in Brown County, Illinois, known as Spunky Bottoms had been in row-crop agriculture for nearly 80 years. In the early 1900s, this tract along with other backwater areas of the river supported one of the most productive inland commercial fisheries in the United States. The Illinois River Valley was also one of the premier waterfowl hunting areas of the Midwest, supporting both commercial and recreational markets.

These conditions became historical footnotes when agriculture advanced into the region during the first half of the 20th century. Approximately one-half of the river's floodplain was isolated from the river by levees, mostly for row-crop agriculture. Excessive sedimentation from urban and rural development degraded remaining backwater areas. As these productive, diverse habitats disappeared so, too, did the floral and faunal communities that depended upon them.

The Conservancy and its partners decided to undertake the task of restoring and reconnecting the Spunky Bottoms floodplain to the river to retrieve the historical biological diversity that had been lost. In 1998, they received a $524,556 North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant to help with the $2 million purchase of 1,157 acres of former floodplain habitat.

Several feeder ditches pass through the property to a main ditch that parallels the levee. Prior to acquisition, two diesel pumps had received heavy use to remove accumulated rainfall and levee-infiltration water. When the partners acquired the land, management changed. In January 1999 pumping was reduced, allowing water to stand on the acquired property but keeping it off the neighbors'. By July, flourishing wetland plant communities had developed from a still viable, 80-year-old seed bank hidden in the soil.

Partners added 6,300 Root Production Management trees (see story on page __) and seeded 110 upland acres with 20 prairie species. One-and-a-half years later, 17 of the prairie species planted were identified. Amazingly, big blue stem and Indian grass had reached heights of 7 feet. Wildlife communities lost no time in making use of the new habitat. To date, 149 bird species, including waterfowl, water birds, raptors, and songbirds, have been recorded.

There is one more step, albeit a giant one, to completing the Spunky Bottoms project: reconnecting the wetland to the river. To that end, a feasibility report is being developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the river, another manifestation of the Conservancy's long-term goal of recreating the historic Illinois River Valley floodplain has occurred. The Conservancy purchased a 7,600-acre parcel 50 miles upriver. Lessons learned from Spunky Bottoms will be applied there.

While it is generally acknowledged that living in the past is not a productive way to spend one's life, Spunky Bottoms partners have found a way to bring the past into present that enriches not only their lives but also the lives of anyone who enjoys the wild things that once again live at or pass through Spunky Bottoms.

For more information, contact K. Douglas Blodgett, Great Rivers Area Director, The Nature Conservancy, 220 West Main Street, Havana, Illinois 62644, (309) 543-6502, dblodgett@tnc.org.

Spunky Bottoms Project Partners

The Nature Conservancy-Illinois Chapter
The Wetlands Initiative
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Natural Resources Conservation Service
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Illinois Natural History Survey
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
University of Illinois
MacMurray College
Zahniser Institute for Environmental Studies at Greenville College
Grand Victoria Foundation

When Captains Lewis and Clark traveled through the Rocky Mountain region during their exploration of the western United States, they found that the region contained more "beaver and common otter, than any other streams on earth." Unfortunately, beaver have been extirpated from over 24 percent of the streams in Wyoming due to overtrapping, disease, and conflicts with landowners. Even in the streams where they are currently present, they have often been reduced in numbers to the point of being ecologically absent.

Beaver habitat is very important in the Rocky Mountain region where less than 2 percent of the area is considered wetlands and yet over 80 percent of the wildlife species are dependent on these habitats during some portion of their life cycle. As an example of the importance of these habitats, we estimate that the removal of beaver has caused a subsequent reduction in habitat for approximately 250,000 breeding waterfowl in Wyoming alone. In addition to improving wildlife habitat, beaver ponds can also provide stock-watering sites, improve water quality, store water throughout the year, and subirrigate valuable riparian vegetation.

Many landowners in Wyoming are beginning to realize the importance of beaver in the management of their lands and would like to introduce them to streams where they have been extirpated. Using a mail survey, we identified over 3,000 kilometers of streams where land managers felt that beaver could be used to improve habitat. Beginning in 1994, we transplanted over 240 beaver to 14 release sites located throughout Wyoming. While predation and emigration losses were initially high (usually over 70 percent), we successfully established beaver at 13 of these sites. At each of these sites, beaver have constructed dams and lodges and have successfully reproduced. In most instances, the beaver have constructed multiple dams andthe offspring have moved throughout the drainage to modify their own habitat. As a testament to the value of these areas to wildlife, we have observed waterfowl at all of the introduction sites along with moose, elk, deer, muskrats, non-game birds, and various species of fish.

While beaver can cause problems where they are in conflict with human activities, they can be beneficial where they are used to maintain or improve riparian habitat. In the arid mountain west, there are many opportunities to use beaver to improve habitat and create wetlands while ensuring that they do not conflict with other land uses. The initial stages of this project have been completed, but future transplants are planned under the direction of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

A $24,000 North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant helped to fund this project as did its many partners, who added $291,800 to achieve their goals. Their actions and those of the numerous landowners who allowed us to trap and transplant beaver on their properties advanced the habitat goals of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan's Intermountain West Joint Venture.

For more information, contact Mark McKinstry, Research Scientist, Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, P.O. Box 3166, Laramie, Wyoming 82071, (307) 766-5491, markmck@uwyo.edu

Beaver Introduction Project Partners

Wyoming Game and Fish Department
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
National Rifle Association
Cabela's
Jack's Plastic Welding

Returning to Leopold's Wisconsin Wetlands
by Kurt Waterstradt, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Recently, the Nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. The South-central Wisconsin Prairie Pothole Initiative serves as tribute to this inspirational piece of conservation literature by bringing bird conservation partners together to restore and protect the Wisconsin wetlands that Leopold described.

Historically, south-central Wisconsin's dominant natural systems were an undulating mosaic of oak savanna, tallgrass prairie, and wetlands. In the early 1800s, travelers through this pristine countryside recorded sights never before seen: prairies consumed by raging wildfires, waterfowl blanketing wetlands, and landscapes with vast Aopenness.@ More than 170 years have passed since these accounts were put to paper, and not surprisingly, things have changed. Agriculture, silviculture, and urban sprawl have fragmented the open landscape, disrupting the natural events that had maintained it for centuries and affecting all that had relied upon it for survival.

The initiative's partners are taking us back to a wilder time with the same fortitude and discipline of the pioneers who once passed through the State. Partners rallied to match a $1 million North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant with more than $3.3 million dollars to protect and restore 5,860 acres of the wetlands, tallgrass prairie, and oak savannah in south-central Wisconsin. Straddling Wisconsin's Transition Zone, the project area receives more than 32 inches of annual precipitation, enough to maintain protected and restored wetlands. Migrating and breeding mallards, American wigeon, and redheads are among the many waterfowl species that will use these habitats.

Prairie and oak-savannah restoration will provide nesting cover and afford protection from predation, factors limiting nest success for many of this region's grassland nesting species. Prairie restoration will concentrate on mimicking tallgrass prairie habitat on a patch scale that meets the life-history requirements of a variety of grassland birds. The assortment of seasonal seeds that are now available to conservationists will allow the grassland restoration to provide greater diversity and structural heterogeneity for dicsissels, bobolinks, and eastern meadowlarks and provide the early Agreen-up@ required to attract nesting waterfowl.

Partners also will reduce brush and woody vegetation where oak-savannah remnants exist in close proximity to wetlands. Red-headed woodpeckers, savannah sparrows, and brown thrashers are only part of the guild of species that will benefit from this effort.

This project contributes to the North American Waterfowl Management Plan's Upper Mississippi River & Great Lakes Region Joint Venture habitat goals and helps to protect regionally important migratory bird resources. By broadening our partnerships to include conservationists from the other bird plans, we are readyCmake that more than readyCto meet the migratory-bird resource-management challenges of the future.

For more information, contact Kurt Waterstradt, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wisconsin Private Lands Office, 4511 Helgesen Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53718, (608) 221-1206 extension16, kurt_waterstradt@fws.gov.

South-central Wisconsin Prairie Pothole Initiative Partners

Aldo Leopold Foundation
Ducks Unlimited, Inc.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Pheasants Forever, Inc.
Waterfowl USA
Madison Audubon Society
The Nature Conservancy
Private Landowners
Wisconsin Power and Light Land Stewardship Trust
Sand County Foundation
Wisconsin Waterfowl Association

Paradise under Construction
by Ben Ikenson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Mere mortals may not be able to move mountains, but by using material dredged from the Houston Ship Channel as it undergoes expansion, biologists and engineers in Texas were able to create a 6-acre, 12-foot-high island in the sea. The island was built in the Gulf of Mexico's largest estuary, Galveston Bay, and biologists hope it will become nesting habitat for hundreds of colonial waterbirds.

Located just 1.5 miles off the northern shoreline of the Bolivar Peninsula in the lower bay, the construction of what is now called Bird Island was completed in August 2000. The island is the first of its kind in Galveston Bay: built using dredge materials for the specific purpose of creating nesting habitat for colonial waterbirds. Black skimmers, roseate spoonbills, reddish egrets, gull-billed terns, and endangered brown pelicans are expected to be the benefactors.

Already, large numbers of terns, gulls, and pelicans are using the island. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Phil Glass came up with the idea of using dredge materials to create the island in 1995. "The construction of Bird Island shows that industry and environmental interests do not always have to be at odds," said Glass. "Perhaps, the success of this project can bring about future collaboration for conservation."

To create the island, dredged earth was pumped from along 5 miles of the bottom and sides of the existing Houston Ship Channel. A network of aquatic bulldozers, backhoes, and other machinery was used to form a land mass where the dredge material was deposited. On the wind- and wave-prevailing southeast side, a sand beach was pumped in behind an offshore breakwater to form a sheltered lagoon. Fifteen thousand tons of granite were then used to form a ring of stones around the shoreline's perimeter and the lagoon.

Finally, since different birds prefer different nesting habitats, biologists planted various grasses and tree seedlings. They mulched and watered the plantings using slow-release watering packets to help the plants survive.

"Eventually, this island of sludge may become a manmade paradise for Galveston Bay's waterbirds," Glass said. "It is far enough offshore to discourage predation by racoons or coyotes, yet near enough to future sources of dredge material to allow for periodic refurbishment of the island if necessary."

The Texas Audubon Society and biologists from an interagency group of state, local, and federal agencies will manage and monitor the island. The interagency group is also responsible for planning environmentally beneficial uses of some 180 million cubic yards of dredge material expected to be produced during the 50-year life of the shipping channel. Bird Island is just the first of several environmental topographical features that will result from the continued enlargement of the channel.

Other features—such as the creation of a 10,000-acre marsh on Bolivar Peninsula—will add more than 4,000 acres of salt marsh to the Galveston Bay ecosystem, making these collective efforts one of the largest marsh creation enterprises in North America.

For more information, contact Phil Glass, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Eocological Services, Clear Lake Field Office, 17629 El Camino Real, Suite 211, Houston, Texas 77058, (281) 286-8282, phil_glass@fws.gov.

Granting Sanctuary
by Craig LeSchack, Ducks Unlimited, Inc.

The National Audubon Society (Society) joined the Gulf Coast Joint Venture's Texas Prairie Wetlands Project (Project) to enhance wetland habitat on Sundown Island, located in Matagorda Bay 3 miles east of Port O'Connor, Texas. The island was created with dredge material taken from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Project partners installed a water well to provide a reliable source of freshwater to the existing 5 acres of wetlands and created an additional 5 acres of wetlands on the spoil island.

The State has leased the 25-acre island to the Society as a wildlife sanctuary. More than 17 species (40,000 birds), including brown pelicans, roseate spoonbills, and black skimmers, nest on the island. Several species of waterfowl make a stopover on the island during migration, including blue-winged teal, northern pintails, redheads, lesser scaup, and canvasbacks. It's no wonder that locals refer to Sundown Island as "Bird Island."

The Project is a partnership of Ducks Unlimited, Inc., Texas Parks and Wildlife, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The partnership provides financial and technical assistance to landowners for wetland habitat conservation on private lands in 28 coastal and rice prairie counties in Texas.

For more information, contact Craig R. LeSchack, Regional Biologist, Ducks Unlimited, Inc., 1402 Band Road, Suite 200, Rosenberg, Texas 77471, (281) 232-6898 extension 4, cleschack@ducks.org.