EP 461. Wisconsin Waterfowl

The Best Time of Year for Wisconsin Waterfowlers

Ramsey Russell: Whose responsibility is it for healthy waterfowl populations and habitat? Ultimately, who’s responsible? We’re talking about a resource that is continental in scale from Canada clear down to Mexico. But what about our own backyard? The world of duck hunting may be bigger than our own backyards, but to me, conservation is almost a grassroots type effort that starts right here, me and you working in our backyards. Joining us today is Bruce Ross, Executive Director of Wisconsin Waterfowl Association. How the heck are you, Bruce?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, I’m doing great. I’m excited to be talking to you. I’m looking out my window here in southeast Wisconsin, and it’s snowing. We were at 60° last week, and now we’ve got about 6 inches of snow on the ground. So I don’t know whether it’s spring or what, but there’s wood ducks flying by on the Milwaukee River. They’re looking for homes to start breeding. And I feel spring is pretty close. So it’s a beautiful time of year if you’re a waterfowler.

Ramsey Russell: Six inches of snow in Wisconsin and 70° Mississippi, that’s why I live in Mississippi, not Wisconsin, Bruce. I hunt with a lot of guys from your neck of the woods and you all have got a different genetic regards cold weather, what’s called a Mississippi boy ain’t cold for a Wisconsin duck hunter.

Bruce Ross: No, there’s probably something to that. I wasn’t born and raised in Wisconsin, so I may not have that genetic thing that you’re talking about, so I still get cold. But yeah, if you’re going to enjoy the outdoors of Wisconsin, then you have to have a greater tolerance for that temperature extreme. And you also got to have a good wife who’s going to shovel the driveway for you while you’re talking on a podcast with Ramsey Russell.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Oh, boy, I’m glad I don’t own a snow shovel, that’s all I can say. Tell me this. How did you end up in Wisconsin? You’re not from Wisconsin, how did you end up in Wisconsin? How long you been in Wisconsin?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, well, I’ve been here for 24 years now. I grew up in Pennsylvania, I went off to the Coast Guard Academy when I was 17 years old, I went kicking around the country every two to three years, moving to a new job with the Coast Guard. And I came to appreciate, I was assigned to Wisconsin all back in the early 90s, I was commanding an icebreaker. Yeah, talk about temperature differences. I was commanding an icebreaker in Lake Michigan, and I just fell in love with the people of Wisconsin. I think people are generally the same inside everywhere. But in Wisconsin, there’s this openness that helps you get to that inside quicker and I really enjoyed that. And I also like the accessibility of Wisconsin’s outdoors. So I mentioned I’m on the Milwaukee River, I can walk 100 yards and cast a fly to a really nice smallmouth bass. I’m 20 minutes north of Milwaukee, or I can drive 20 minutes and I can be duck hunting. And so Wisconsin is a great state for outdoors men and women.

Ramsey Russell: Did you grow up a duck hunter, Bruce?

Bruce Ross: I did not. We’re going to talk about the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, it’s celebrating its 40th anniversary right now, I’m celebrating my 40th anniversary of duck hunting, and that’s just coincidental. But I graduated from the Coast Guard Academy with some buddies who were outdoorsmen and introduced me to duck hunting. And as I said, I kicked around the country every 2 to 3 years, and I couldn’t deer hunt, because you need some association with people and the land. But I could duck hunt everywhere I went. And so that kind of became my thing. I enjoy the dog work that’s associated with it, and I just enjoyed talking to ducks and seeing them respond so that, like so many waterfowlers, it somehow got its hooks in me. And so 40 years later, here I am running an organization that’s trying to give back to the state’s waterfowlers.

The Land of the Long-Tails

Ramsey Russell: What is it like duck hunting in Wisconsin? Like, how do you hunt? What’s the average, what would be a typical setup? What species are you targeting in?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, well, hey, it’s a great state from a variety, from a perspective of what kind of waterfowling do you want to do? I bet you we can find it here in Wisconsin.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Bruce Ross: So, I’m a marsh hunter, I belong to the oldest duck club in Wisconsin, The Nippy Nock Club. We’ve got a few hundred acres of marsh that we maintain, and so we see all the puddle ducks occasionally, some divers in there, and it’s a cattail marsh. And so it would look very familiar to a lot of your listeners. But if I go out, if I head 30 miles northeast, I can jump in an open water boat that has layout boats and do sea duck hunting. Not only shooting, Scott, but we’ll see long tails, if you want to shoot a long tail, come to Wisconsin. It’s shocking the variety here. Great redhead hunting up in the northeast corner on Lake Michigan. Don’t forget Mississippi Rivers on the western border of Wisconsin. So tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of canvasbacks filter in through pool 9 on the Mississippi. Layout hunting in a field, incredible goose hunting. I think we take the most geese of any state in the nation in Wisconsin. If you’re a marsh hunter, if you’re a field hunter, if you’re an open water hunter, if you’re a Mississippi River hunter, I mean, we’ve kind of got it all. It’s pretty amazing.

Ramsey Russell: When did you all season start and end that far north?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, there’s always a debate on that, right? Because the tail end of the season, you can never quite predict when water is going to freeze up. But once it freezes up, obviously it pushes the ducks through. So the start of the season, we start with teal, and in 1st, September, generally run 9 or 10 days of teal season, the goose season opens up around then. It closes for a couple of weeks until the beginning of October and then we start into the heavy season, and we’re broken up by north and south. So the north will start a little earlier than the south, and it’ll close a little earlier than the south because, again, they’re freezing up sooner and the ducks are pushing out, so they want to take advantage of that.

Ramsey Russell: Fantastic. I have Canada goose hunted over on the west side, and that was my check, a waterfowl hunted Wisconsin. But I’ve always wanted to get back up and do some of that marsh hunting. Because you all still have quite a few marshes, don’t you? That’s still a big deal up in Wisconsin.

Bruce Ross: Yeah, I would say the majority of our members, the majority of our 63,000 license holders. Yeah, we are like number 3 or number 4 in the number of licenses sold in the nation, that’s hard to believe, first time I heard it. It’s very significant. And so, there’s a lot of waterfowlers, but probably most of them are marsh hunters. And so, again, look very familiar to your listeners if you’ve hunted marshes at all, whether you’re pushing a canoe or you’re running a twin engine mud motor rig, you can find all of that here in Wisconsin.

Ramsey Russell: What is Wisconsin Waterfowl Association?

Bruce Ross: So Wisconsin Waterfowl Association or WWA, is an organization that’s been around for 40 years, it was started in 1984 as a voice for the state’s waterfowlers. So the founders, who are still alive right now, amazing, so I can collect this history from them. They thought that the state policymakers, the legislators, and the administrators up in the Department of Natural Resources weren’t listening to what the concerns of the waterfowler were.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, that sounds familiar today.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. Right. And that mission has not shrunk in those 40 years, that’s still a very strong mission for WWA. We can talk about it, but we’re working right now on a sandhill crane hunt in Wisconsin. The population certainly is strong enough, but it’s a touchy subject for a lot of politicians, and it’s a subject that it’s tough for a lot of citizens who don’t hunt to understand how that’s a good thing, how that could be a good thing. So trying to bridge that gap between hunters and non-hunters and to try and offset the anti-hunting component is a very significant part of what we do with WWA.

Ramsey Russell: Do you have a lot of anti-hunters in Wisconsin?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, it’s tough to put a number on that. But, yeah, there’s certainly groups that I don’t think many of them will say they are anti-hunting, but they don’t fully appreciate what hunters have historically and currently are bringing to the table. And maybe if they’re vegans, I can respect that position, they’re very consistent in their approach. But if they’re not vegans, harvesting an animal that has grown free and wild, clean protein, that’s something that everyone should be encouraged to do. But, yeah, it’s tough to put a number on it. I guess I kind of went off there, but it’s tough to put a number on the number of anti-hunters. But they pop out not as anti-hunting, but generally as trying to promote emotional components of taking the life of an animal.

Ramsey Russell: It’s just interesting. It’s always interesting to me that here we are in this modern era trying to conserve wildlife, conserve waterfowl. We’ve got a maybe more non-hunting that doesn’t understand an anti-hunting component throughout the United States and world. It just blows my mind that just 2 or 3 generations ago, all of our ancestors were out there chopping heads off of chickens and scalding hogs in the fall. You know what I’m saying? I mean, we all live like that, just recently.

What Hunters Bring to the World of Wildlife Conservation

One of our jobs is to help not only bring new hunters, waterfowlers into the fold of the community, the waterfowling community, but to help accelerate them from trigger puller to passionate conservationists. 

Bruce Ross: Yeah, no, I saw some data just the other day. It said there’s only between 9% and 10% of the population that are hunters here in Wisconsin. So at the other extreme, there’s anti-hunters, but there’s this large segment of the population in between those two extremes that we need to do a good job of educating the benefits of what hunters bring to the table in terms of wildlife conservation, habitat conservation, and the financial wherewithal we contribute to that out of our own dime, willingly to do those things because we care about the resource in ways that are very visceral, very much in the gut and in the heart. Aldo Leopold, Ramsay, you heard of Aldo Leopold?

Ramsey Russell: I have.

Bruce Ross: Aldo Leopold is a Wisconsin native. There is an Aldo Leopold foundation that promotes his works. And people who call themselves conservationists, read his works and then don’t fully appreciate that he started as a hunter. He came to his ecological philosophy and approach through his connection not only with the land, but with his connection with the animals that lived on it as a hunter. And so our job, one of our jobs, I talked about our advocacy mission with Wisconsin Waterfowl. One of our jobs is to help not only bring new hunters, waterfowlers into the fold of the community, the waterfowling community, but to help accelerate them from trigger puller to passionate conservationists. So I call that the Waterfowlers Ark, and we WWA have programs all along that arc to help encourage advancement from the guy or the gal who just goes out there to shoot a bunch of ducks to the guy or the gal who goes out there and recognizes that caring about the habitat, the life cycle of the bird, that’s as much about being a waterfowler as pulling the trigger and carrying a full strap home.

Ramsey Russell: The Waterfowler’s Ark. You talk about Aldo Leopold, his land ethic was monumental. Anybody that’s not read A Sand County’s Almanac should, especially if you’re a hunter and you’re right, a lot of nature lovers will read his books and promote his principles, not understanding that he was coming from a hunter’s perspective.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. And so that’s part of the education opportunity between the hunter and on the other extreme, the anti-hunter. How do we help them understand with an increasingly smaller percentage of hunters, and therefore a smaller voice, how do we help them understand those tremendous benefits that you and I understand, but they may not that the benefits to the land, that’s a conundrum. But that’s something we all have to be working at. So how we act out in the field on a one on one basis is critical to that continued education to make sure that that heritage, that waterfowling heritage is here next year, the year after that, a decade, a generation from now.

Ramsey Russell: How important is Wisconsin as a nesting area in production to North American populations?

The Importance of Private Lands in Wisconsin’s Waterfowl Conservation

So you down there in Mississippi, you’re probably killing some of the ducks I raised up here in Wisconsin. And we’re working on that. Another one of our missions with Wisconsin waterfowlers is to work on habitat and important to nesting.

Bruce Ross: Yeah, we’re considered a contributor to the flyway, right? So you down there in Mississippi, you’re probably killing some of the ducks I raised up here in Wisconsin. And we’re working on that. Another one of our missions with Wisconsin waterfowlers is to work on habitat and important to nesting. So we have 3 ecologists and we’re looking to grow that, and we’ve grown that recently. 3 ecologists who go out to both private lands and public lands to find restoration, hydrological restorations to create that, not necessarily that big, wide open hemi marsh that you might expect to see, but those small nesting areas, those small ponds, sometimes ephemeral ponds associated with uplands that are important to nesting. So some people question why we would work on private lands. Well, 75% of lands in Wisconsin, 85% of restorable wetlands in Wisconsin are on private land. So if we ignore that, we’re doing a disservice to the fall flight. So we’re trying to put more ducks on the landscape through both our private program and just over the last couple of years, we’ve developed a program with the state DNR to do the same thing on their 1.4 million acres.

Ramsey Russell: 1.4 million acres state land. And what are you all doing for them?

Bruce Ross: We are finding properties to restore, hydrologically restore. So a lot of the lands in Wisconsin, it’s big farming community, those marginal farm fields that were drained, ditched, and tiled, they’re still wet. And maybe they’re not effective farmlands. They got sold to the DNR at one point along the way, but they never got restored. So those tiles and those ditches are still draining what were originally wetlands. We’re finding them, we’re plugging those ditches, we’re building some berms, we’re breaking the tile and we’re putting the wet back on the land.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, 1.4 million acres. Is access a problem up there? Cause that’s a lot of state land. Is hunter access a problem like it is the rest of the world?

Bruce Ross: Depends who you talk to. But, yeah, I think if you surveyed Wisconsin waterfowlers, right now, one of the top one or two concerns complaints would be hunter access. And that sounds like a lot of property, and it is. But where are our population centers? Where are our hunters at? And it’s a little bit further away for them to get to those 1.4 million acres in the northeast or northwest corners of the state. So, yeah, access is always going to be an issue, I think, especially as more and more lands that farmers used to allow hunters onto get snapped up by private entities or we haven’t treated those farmers well as visitors on their land, and they just stop saying yes.

Ramsey Russell: What are some of the habitat projects you all get into outside of nesting? Could you go deep on what specifically kind of projects you all are doing on private land versus public land?

Bruce Ross: Yeah. And so let’s talk private lands first. And we’ve been doing that for 35, almost 40 years of our existence. And we will encourage people to come to us with the properties that they may own and say, look, I want to put a wildlife scrape here, or I think there’s an opportunity to plug this ditch. We’ll come out and we will survey that property, we’ll work with that landowner for their goals, what do you want to accomplish here? We’ll develop a design for that property. We’ll work them through the permitting process. And if it is something that we want to bring some money to, if it’s the right type of project, we’ll actually help that landowner with some of the funding for that property. We encourage. In fact, it’s important to us that landowners have some skin in the game because then they’re going to maintain what they just invested in. But we do that all kind of –

Ramsey Russell: Kind of like a cost share program.

Bruce Ross: Yeah, but beyond the actual restoration, all the first things I talked about from coming out, surveying the property, developing the design, and working on the permitting with them and shepherding it through that very complicated process that’s all done for free, that’s part of what we WWA bring to the table. And then we can that money that maybe, if it’s the right type of project, the Wisconsin State Waterfowl stamp funding, we get some funding through that. We get some funding through NACA, North American Wetlands Conservation Act, I’m sorry, I kind of drew a blank on that first word. And we get funding through that. We match that funding against our state duck stamp funding, and we match it against our membership funding, and we leverage it 3 or 4 times that way in order to stretch that dollar out as much as possible. But that funding is important to encourage that landowner to actually make that investment. We can talk a little bit about the public lands here if you want as well.

Ramsey Russell: Yes, please.

Bruce Ross: Okay. So about 2 years ago, we began discussions with the Department of Natural Resources to help them with that 1.4 million acres. So we will work with each wildlife area that the state owns. The DNR owns has a wildlife biologist, so we’ll work with them. What are the areas on your property you think have restoration potential? We’ll look at overhead surveys, computer assisted design, and come up with some ideas for their consideration. And there’s an approval process to go through to actually do work on their land, so we’ll work through that. They have to get permits, too, because it’s federally regulated in many instances. So we’ll do the permits and then we’ll arrange for the contractors and bring some money to that table as well. That’s what we’re doing. We’re just getting started on that, all of these projects, from initial idea to earth moving, takes sometimes a year or two. So putting that hole in the ground or putting more wet on that land takes a while. And it requires some expertise that the DNR doesn’t really have capacity or bandwidth to address.

Ramsey Russell: So they can contract out to you all to get actual habitat on the ground.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. It’s kind of neat. And I would like to thank every one of your listeners because they are contributing to this at some level. The money that we are paid for, that we are paid with by the DNR to undertake this contract with them, we get paid 75% of what we put into it. So we’re still bringing 25% to the table. But the DNR, 75% is paid for through Pittman Robertson funds. That excise tax that you and I are paying when we buy shotgun shells or a shotgun or outdoor gear like that, that comes back to all of the states in some form or another on a percentage basis. And that’s how the Wisconsin DNR is using some of that funds to help put that wet back on the land.

Ramsey Russell: You all must be doing something right, if you all have been existed since 1984 for 40 years, you all must be making some huge head waves in this movement.

Fundraising Efforts of Wildlife Conservation

Time and money is what we hunters can bring to the table.

Bruce Ross: Yeah, well, I think it’s up and down. Like I said, I’ve been here for 5 years, and I came aboard right at the beginning of COVID right. So a lot of our fundraising comes through banquets and events where like-minded people come together and have fun, spend a little money on raffles, and contribute to the cost that was less possible during COVID because of all the restrictions that were going around. But we actually found COVID to be very good for our fundraising, and people want to see that their dollars are making a difference. And so my job is not only making that difference, but making sure they understand that they’re the ones who are funding that difference. So one of the things that we do is the idea that not everybody wants to just throw dollars at the issue with a younger demographic, one, they don’t have the money, but they want to make a difference. They’re passionate about the environment. We try to give them opportunities, and we’re organized to support this, to let them get out in their local marshes and hang wood duck boxes and contribute to those woodies that you’re seeing down there in Mississippi and put up nesting tubes and take down invasives. And we’re also building handicapped accessible blinds so that they are more accessible to those who are differently abled. So we are very much a grassroots organization, and I think that’s helped us survive those 40 years.

Ramsey Russell: Is it hard to get young people involved at the volunteer level? I mean, like you say it, you bring up a very good point that a lot of older people have more money than time, a lot of younger people have more time than money. Time and money is what we hunters can bring to the table. But I’m just asking, in this modern day and age, how easy or difficult is it to get the younger demographic to engage in conservation?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, it’s not easy. There’s so many distractions. And there’s not this, with the shrinking number of hunters and the urbanization of our country, there’s fewer and fewer opportunities to get out and feel viscerally what a sunrise is like when those ducks are whistling overhead. So, yeah, it’s a problem once they get hooked, they seem to be hooked for quite a long time until maybe families get in the way, kids come along. But getting that first hook set is a challenge. And we have a program called the Waterfowlers Academy, that looks not so much for kids. Our target audience is 18 and north because, one, they have money, things we were talking about before they have money, they have time. Maybe they’re interested in clean protein and field to table sort of considerations. And we want them to have the wherewithal to take the knowledge we give them in our learn to hunt programs and carry that on to being able to do it by themselves with their friends and buddies. But it’s work. So we have a social media team that really pushes out through our social media channels, interesting and attractive posts that tries to keep them engaged and keep them part of this virtual community. We have a very active newsletter, and then we have these on the ground habitat things that go all year round. So, yeah, it’s tough, but we’re tackling it.

Ramsey Russell: How many state waterfowl associations are there nationwide? But I’m just trying to imagine the world. I’ve got an upcoming podcast with California Waterfowl Association, who I know a lot about. Wisconsin Waterfowl Association. I’m just trying to imagine a world that there’s a waterfowl association that can put my time or money or both to use at the grassroots level. Gosh, what a wonderful world we’d live in if these opportunities existed throughout the lower 48.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. Ramsay, I just don’t know the number. I will say, when I came aboard 4.5 years ago, 5 years ago, I kind of did that research, and I did not find a lot, but what I did find was California Waterfowl Association. And I think of them, they were a benchmark, in my business world, that would be called the benchmark. They are the gold standard of state based waterfowling organizations. And I tried to learn as many lessons as we can from them, but we serve a different demographic. We are very much more grassroots. I don’t want to say blue collar, but certainly don’t have the deep pockets that an organization like CWA has going for it. I wish I did, because it would make things a lot easier. But they’re an impressive organization, doing a lot of good work out there. But we have a different demographic and a different waterfowling style. So what they do there is not a perfect fit for what we do here. So that’s why I think, to your point, there’s some value in looking at it from a state based level, what fits, right. How do you get engagement, how do you get the funding? How do you get the programming that’s going to really match the ethic, the personality of the state?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I mean, because duck hunting culture in the Deep South versus the Midwest versus New England versus California is totally different. And we’ve all got a lot of conservation needs and waterfowl needs right here in our backyard. And what do we do? What do I do? Heck, yeah, I support Ducks Unlimited. Heck, yeah, I support Delta Waterfowl. Heck, yeah, I support my state and federal agencies that are helping us. But at the same time, I need more to do, I need more to support and here comes a state agency to the rescue. I thought you had told me, did you tell me that there was a young group, some young people you talked to somewhere, they were looking at forming an organization like this?

Encouraging the Next Generation of Hunters

I got a call a couple weeks ago from a couple of fellows down in Iowa, northeast corner of Iowa, and they’re active members of Ducks Unlimited, but they thought they could do more, and they wanted to keep it more local that maybe than national or international.

Bruce Ross: Yeah, I got a call a couple weeks ago from a couple of fellows down in Iowa, northeast corner of Iowa, and they’re active members of Ducks Unlimited, but they thought they could do more, and they wanted to keep it more local that maybe than national or international. And so they called to pick my brain about, how do you start a state based waterfowling organization? I think I gave them my 2 cent worth, but I’ve never started a state based waterfowling organization. But I gave them a couple of things about, we are 501C3 that’s a good first start. But in order to get that 501C3, your nonprofit certification, you need to have a mission. What’s your mission? What are you trying to accomplish? And you need to think hard and deep about what that is so that you can both attract the people to that mission, and then hopefully, the funding that comes along with it. And so it’s very entrepreneurial. How do you start a business? Well, you have a business plan, and that’s what I encourage them to think through.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, I tell you what I would encourage, if they’re listening, I would encourage those guys in Iowa to start this. I would encourage anybody listening that’s wondering how they can improve their lot right there in their own backyard to start this thing, not at the exclusion of other conservation groups, but as a ground zero form of organizing that and then putting it into bigger efforts. It all starts at home.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. I think one of the challenges, any organization of any scale, whether it’s Ducks Unlimited at the international scale, Delta at that same level, or a WWA at the state level, you can’t put projects in everybody’s backyard, yet every waterfowler wants one in his backyard, right? So there’s always that tension between, as an organization, where do I invest my money? Hopefully where it’s going to have the most impact. That may not always be where the person who just gave you $10 wants to see you work his project. So that’s a reality. And the closer you get to that watershed or backyard, I think the more satisfaction you can get from your endeavors and maybe the more impact you can get from that effort.

Ramsey Russell: You mentioned earlier about some of the wood ducks coming down to Mississippi, and I’ve actually shot a banded wood duck from Wisconsin that was banded in Wisconsin.

Bruce Ross: Well, there you go.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Part of you all’s environmental reef is waterfowl banding? Are you all active in waterfowl banding up there?

Bruce Ross: No. Well, one of the things WWA tries to do, I mean, we’re small enough to do this, like, we’re the Avis. We try harder, right? We’re not number one, we try harder because we’re very much a grassroots organization. Because we’re small, we can be fairly nimble in trying to match volunteer interests and passion and energy with organizational needs. And so from a duck banding perspective, we don’t at the WWA level, do any duck banding, but we work very closely with the DNR to match volunteers that may come to us with where the DNR is doing that banding. And so it’s a great opportunity for kids 7 to 70 to get out and touch a duck and put a band on it, and know that you’re sending some jewelry somewhere along the flyway. And so that’s part of the uniqueness. I love Ducks Unlimited, it was a state volunteer of the year for Ducks Unlimited a few years ago, I love them, I continue to support them. I love Delta. They’re like us. I see us as more of a small Delta than a small DU, because Delta is very much a hunting organization, and our foundation was based on having a waterfowl hunter voice, but love them. But we can kind of flex maybe a little bit more than those large machines can flex to meet that need.

Ramsey Russell: I did. I saw that on your webpage about becoming involved with the waterfowl banding, and I cannot think of a – when we talk about reaching the middle ground, when we talk about reaching non-hunters or anti-hunters or hunters themselves during the offseason, to go participate in a banding project, just to put your hands on it, and what a fun way to give back to this sport is just putting your hands on live birds that you throw up in the air and turn loose again. It’s just always a very fulfilling weekend to go and do that, to put hands on nature without having shot at first.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. And of course, that’s the front end of science, right? The reason these ducks are banded is so that we can determine some information when those bands are harvested then about where that duck has been, how many years it’s been. And so that science is advancing, and part of what WWA does is a very small level advance that through either some funding, through a program, we have a Waterfowl Hunters Expo, which is a kind of a neat topic, too. But some of the funding that comes through that Waterfowl Hunters Expo is used to support science. And that science could be putting a GPS transmitter on the back of a duck so you can get real time information. And that goes to the DNR and helps contribute to that effort. We have a program with a couple of professors at UW Stevens Point who take harvested scaup, they’re particularly interested in scaup, but they’ll take other ducks as well, and they dissect them, and they tease out what parasites are in the gut of that duck so that they determine from those parasites where that duck has been. And so we have this really neat relationship where the end result is a nematode or a ringworm or something like that. That is going to tell us a little bit more about the health and the travels of that duck.

All About the Wisconsin Wing Shooting Program

But the wing shooting program is an attempt to make sure that hunters aren’t overshooting their skillset or the ability of their weapon to kill a duck, ethically.

Ramsey Russell: Crazy world we live in. Can you tell me a little bit more about the Wisconsin Wing Shooting program?

Bruce Ross: Yeah. I can, although I’d rather tell you about the Waterfowl Hunters Academy. But the wing shooting program is an opportunity. I will say that our website is less than great. That if anybody out there in your listener group who likes to work on websites and wants to work with us to help build a better website, boy, I would be all ears. Please give them my contact information and send them our way that can be done digitally from anywhere in the country, a little unpaid advertising right there. Thank you very much, Ramsey. But the wing shooting program is an attempt to make sure that hunters aren’t overshooting their skillset or the ability of their weapon to kill a duck, ethically. So it’s about a half a day worth of talking about shooting style, actually looking at profiles of ducks at various distances, learning the ballistics of steel and increasingly other nontoxic pellets, and trying to make sure that we send people away from those opportunities with a better appreciation of just how far they can ethically kill a waterfowl.

Ramsey Russell: And what’s this academy you were telling me about?

Waterfowlers Academy: Building a Stronger Hunting Community

So, Waterfowlers Academy is a kind of a brand term for WWA that really encompasses everything we do on that waterfowlers arc I was telling you about. It’s learned to hunts. We have a Pitman Robertson grant that looks at trying to bring in underrepresented communities to the waterfowling.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. So, Waterfowlers Academy is a kind of a brand term for WWA that really encompasses everything we do on that waterfowlers arc I was telling you about. It’s learned to hunts. We have a Pitman Robertson grant that looks at trying to bring in underrepresented communities to the waterfowling. We talked earlier, about 9% of the population is here in Wisconsin anyways, is the hunting population. That voice is getting smaller and smaller. How do we bring women and people that don’t look like you and me, Ramsay, maybe persons of color? How do we welcome them into the waterfowling community so that we can sustain the heritage, so that we have a strong voice when it comes time to policy decisions? And so we have a grant that helps us do that through social media, attracting the right audiences. And but it doesn’t stop there, it’s intended to go through that entire Waterfowler’s Arc. So we have a newsletter that, that every month, if you haven’t signed up for the newsletter yet, Ramsey, I’ll put you on the list with your email and you can look at it. And like rebuilding our website, you don’t have to be sitting in Wisconsin to read our newsletter. Be glad to get your members on that, your listeners on that as well. But everything to encourage that progression from trigger puller to passionate conservationist. How do you learn more about where and how ducks do what they do? What’s the importance of habitat? What about recharging on the migration, that sort of thing? And then ultimately, hopefully, we find some support for our efforts also that people become members or volunteers and maybe sustainers of the work that we’re doing here in Wisconsin. Again, so we can send some banded wood ducks down your way, Ramsey.

Ramsey Russell: Come on. You know it’s a 63,000 license holders in the state of Wisconsin. I heard recently from a guest on the podcast that only 75% or that as many as 75% of hunters in North America don’t even vote and well, apply that 63,000, we’re talking at a woefully small amount of, and 63,000 is really kind of, to bar from what you just said, 63,000 is really kind of a small voice in the world of waterfowl conservation anyway, in a state the size of Wisconsin, and it’s just a very daunting time for me. We need more habitat, we need more budget, we need more information, not less, not less hunter participation. It’s got to be challenging to try to manage this waterfowl organization when we hunters are becoming fewer and fewer and a smaller and smaller voice.

Bruce Ross: Yeah. There’s a couple of directions to go with that, Ramsay. One of them I’ll start with is the idea of hunters are not valued in society to the degree that they used to be, despite greater contributions today than ever. And one example of that is as the voice of waterfowlers in Wisconsin, we are encouraging a legislature to look at establishing an ethical and sustainable sandhill crane hunt, right. And that’s a very touchy subject in a state where the International Crane Foundation has its headquarters. I don’t expect any organization like ICF International Crane Foundation that has, as their website, www.savingcrains.org, to ever be supportive of a sandhill crane hunt, right? That’s not what they’re about. But I would hope that they could find some way to not fan the flames of hunters and anti-hunters on such a subject. So we’re hoping that we’ll be able to work with them, to really focus on the science, which, of course says that population is 3 or 4 times what the Fish and Wildlife Service says is the minimum level at which you can sustain a hunt. But there’s only 10% of us that understand what hunters bring to the table. How do we communicate with those others and help educate them? The other thing, I would say 62,000 is not a lot, but it is in the scheme of things, but it’s something to celebrate. And one of the things that WWA does is try to celebrate that through something we call the Waterfowl Hunters Expo. We’re working with Delta, we’re working with DU, we’re working with other organizations. Our motto is working together for the Wisconsin’s Waterfowlers. And we started that 3 years ago, we had 2600 people through the door the first year. We got 5000 through the door last year, only two iterations later, we’ve got national brands that are beginning to come to our table, so they can put the latest and greatest gear in front of our families that come. 30% of the people who come through the door are women, another 10% are dogs. And then there’s somewhere in between those numbers are kids. So we have a youth zone that tries to have some fun with waterfowl through 10 or 16 different events, includes everything from archery and pellet shooting to painting decoys. We put on national decoy carving contest. We got shooting ranges you can try, a shotgun. We got dog races you can try. We had 400 dogs come through the gate last year. Not a single fight that I’m aware of. So that’s growing and that’s part of our education effort. If we can get more people through the door, not just waterfowlers, but people say, hey, that looks like fun over there. And we create an opportunity for them to come in and learn a little bit about what hunters do, that’s a win, and that’s part of what we’re striving for there.

Ramsey Russell: When and where is that Expo?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, August 24th this year it’s only a one day event, this year it’s in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in the middle of the state, we chose it, trying to hit the maximum number of those 62,000 waterfowlers. But we’re fine, we’re drawing people up from Chicago and over from Minneapolis, and it’s at the tail end of the summer, so it’s a couple of weeks before teal season. And that really has the people who are coming in the waterfowlers are coming through those doors pretty hept up to see the latest and greatest gear and start thinking about and living that waterfowling lifestyle.

Ramsey Russell: It’s fantastic. I sure have enjoyed our visit. I’m glad to see somebody doing something at the local level. I really am. I’m glad to see it. And I wish I could somehow encourage everybody to get involved at the local level, to organize and to borrow what you all are doing up there in your own backyards. I think that’s where it starts. What do you see as the greatest threats to Wisconsin Waterfowling, habitat loss?

Threats to Waterfowling: Habitat Loss

Bruce Ross: Well, I think it’s going to be a long time before the population can decline. Of course the population can decline with the loss of that habitat, but I think the greatest threat is misunderstanding, not appreciation of what the hunter is doing and what we bring to the table. And as that 9% shrinks to 7% or 6% or 5%. Excuse me, that’s terrible. I mean, in the middle of the podcast where the guests can’t talk. So, again, apologies for that. But where that 9% shrinks to 5% or 6% or 3% or 2%, pretty soon you’re out of business.

Ramsey Russell: Right. Well, Bruce, I sure appreciate you coming on board and telling us all about Wisconsin Waterfowl Association. Any parting shots? Anything else to add?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, no, I’m sorry. Just trying to keep your guests from hearing my coughing in the background. So, no, I’ve enjoyed the discussion, it forces me to think about what it is we’re doing, why we’re doing it. And I enjoy organizational development. And so I think I enjoy what we are doing with Wisconsin Waterfowls and trying to grow our impact. And anybody who’s excited about leaving a stamp on their backyard or their wetlands or the sport that they love, there’s some opportunities out there if you have the energy and if you have the vision, and you can gather a few friends together. So the more we work together, I think it’s going to be better for all of us.

Ramsey Russell: And how can the listener engage Wisconsin Waterfowl Association?

Bruce Ross: Yeah, thanks for asking that question. We have a website at Wisducks.org, and you can sign up for a newsletter there. You can become a member and then learn on a monthly basis the sort of things that we’re doing to make a difference in the state.

Ramsey Russell: Thank you, Bruce. Greatly appreciate it. Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of Duck Season Somewhere. Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. See you next time.