USA vs. Canada Policy

Shawn Swearingen for SPLIT REED

Cover Photo: Ray Beaulieu

The birds we love to chase migrate with little concern for the invisible borders of states and countries. We are able to see firsthand how wintering habitat is managed but what many of us don’t see, unless you are a wildlife biologist or farmer, is the spring and nesting habitat. A new study is helping wildlife biologists understand these areas further and give non-profit groups additional data in advocating for sound management. Stay with me, it might get a little wonky but I will try to answer a few questions and in the end, you’ll see how it impacts the birds in the fields and timber, and shine a light on the pintails as well.

Where are the areas of concern?

Management of the spring nesting areas sprawl across two countries and their respective states in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) [U.S. & Canada] and the Boreal Forest area [Canada]. We are going to focus on the PPR and the complex issues of it. To help the countries manage habitat across the borders as well as educate the decision makers on best practices, the non-profits like Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl are crucial. However, what makes the spring and nesting habitat so interesting is that much of that habitat in the PPR is beneficial to other species and can be advocated on behalf of by groups like Pheasants Forever for example. The edges of the marshes like cattails provide cover for upland species, song birds and many other native wildlife.

The PPR ecosystem is of particular concern for us this year given the large-scale drought that has impacted much of the region. While the importance of water goes without saying, it is also imperative that these shallow marshes go through dry cycles for the health of vegetation and small invertebrates. In addition to these marshes, the edges of them and the bordering fields are critical to monitor. The recent study by Buderman et al. (2020) highlights these areas in the PPR and how the uses in each country impact the nesting results.

What are Canada and the U.S. agencies doing differently?

The U.S. has a robust slate of federal programs for habitat conservation not counting all of the work state governments do and the non-profit programs available. In the past 10 years, we have seen the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act along with the re-approval and appropriation of the Farm Bill and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA). These federal programs allow the continued funding and preservation of wetlands and critical nesting habitat in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The program and acreage totals can differ by state and region but the CRP is almost always additive for increased nesting habitat and winter cover. Canada, on the other hand, does not have a similar Farm Bill that would be beneficial to agricultural operations but also conservation land use. It also does not have an agency charged with the operation and enforcement of habitat/conservation easements like here in the U.S. either. “Having no farm bill and the easement program that started well after the U.S. is the largest difference between the U.S. and Canada. Plus the U.S. has had a dedicated funding program in duck stamps going directly to wetlands.” provides John Devney, Senior Vice President of Policy for Delta Waterfowl. “Where you have the USFWS beginning small wetland conservation easement programming efforts in the 1960s, Canada really did not start similar efforts until the late 1990s.”

As many are familiar with, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is the leading authority in U.S. regulations for waterfowl and corresponding habitats. However, many of us probably don’t realize that there isn’t a reflective agency in Canada that has the breadth and size of regulations of the USFWS. Rather, the habitat is managed at the provincial level. There is the Candian Wildlife Service but it does not have the man-power, budget nor regulatory authority, and habitat mission as seen in the U.S. Therefore, it is up to non-profits like Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited Canada, and others to assist in education and coordination between provinces and the larger Canadian government.

The three provinces of importance in the PPR are Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Alberta has had a wetlands policy that protects wetlands for the past 7-8 years. These wetlands programs help stop the development and drainage of wetland acres. Because of the program in Alberta, 1000 acres of wetland restoration happen in a year. Manitoba recently passed its own wetland regulations that will protect seasonal and semi-permanent and permanent wetlands habitat. According to Scott Stephens, DU Canada’s Director of Regional Operations – Prairie and Boreal Forest, more data and statistics will be coming to see how many acres will be preserved due to the halt of drainage and development. The critical province of habitat concern is Saskatchewan, where the practice of draining wetlands is still encouraged by the provincial government. “With the work being undertaken in Manitoba and Alberta, hopefully, that will put pressure on Saskatchewan for moving forward with wetland preservation,” conveyed Scott.

What are the differences on the ground for ducks?

As mentioned before, the Buderman et al. study underlines how these differences between the U.S. and Canadian provinces impact the birds and their habitat in the PPR. Through the study, there is a clear line of demarcation along the 49th parallel of how nesting habitat is fairing, and it is in favor of those birds nesting in the U.S. For pintails, it is both agricultural land uses and wetland availability that are impacting their numbers. In the 70s and 80s Canadian farmers used the practice of “canned fallow fields”, allowing a field to not be worked every two to three years. A third of the cropland in the PPR was idle every year which led to the addition of millions of acres of nesting habitat. Pintails and other wildfowl nested in the short grasses of the previous cropland. During the late 80s and into the 90s this came out of practice, which had also faced some challenges such as erosion. Now with tillage starting around May when pintails would typically be in nests, these acres were no longer a part of the habitat equation. Across this same time period there were also losses seen in wetlands but at not as high of a rate to be the sole driver in the diminishing of pintail numbers.

As an example of some outside-of-the-box thinking during that time, DU Canada worked with farmers to encourage winter wheat planting, in addition to the development of more productive and hardier seeds. These crops planted in the fall of the prior year provided ground cover to limit erosion through the winter months but would also provide for the short grasses in spring that pintails were searching for. Roughly 1 million acres of winter wheat were planted in Canada in 2010 but has declined gradually since then with the more efficient harvesting and production of grain.

In the times of drought that we are experiencing this year or the limit of acceptable nesting habitat, pintails will travel further north and away from the PPR to last out the summer months in the Boreal Forest. “Pintail harvest limits are adjusted by latitude. When water is on the PPR and the pintails are nesting at these ‘lower latitudes’, the allowable harvest is higher under that implicit understanding that the further north that pintails settle from the prairies the less productive they are going to be,” states John Denvy.

What does the future hold?

As if the Canadian federal government anticipated the writing of this article, they announced on July 23rd an investment of more than $25 million over the next three years on projects that will “conserve, restore and enhance critical wetlands and grasslands in the Prairie provinces”. Fourteen projects will receive funding from the Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund for carrying out initiatives. The largest chunk, $19.28 million, is going to DU Canada. Their effort to conserve and restore wetland and grassland habitat will include the conversion of cropland to grassland. “How do we translate and quantify what we’ve done for 80 years to non-traditional supporters to the support of waterfowl?”, asks Scott Stephens. By promoting the cross benefits the needed habitat provides such as reducing runoff and increasing carbon capture. In the end, with any luck and Mother Naturing willing, the efforts will create more and healthier habitats for pintails and other waterfowl.

In the U.S. the challenges for the future come in the form of funding and the differing demands on lands. In addition to competing for land uses, the other large hurdle in habitat preservation and restoration is the conservation funding available at the state and federal levels. Almost a third of Delta Waterfowl’s research funding goes to the affirmation of previous studies and their methodology. Because of this work, additional papers and studies are being released that will give waterfowl advocates fresh data to let decision-makers know on both sides of the 49th parallel to help conserve needed habitat.

Despite the differences between policies, what we need is as much of the habitat on both sides of the border to be functioning, in order to have healthy duck populations. We need all of it because, without it, populations will decline.

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