California Coast & Ocean

Common Ground

Aldo Leopold, known as the father ofwildlife ecology and quoted frequently in environmental publications, was an avid hunter who once said that his first love was hunting with his dog. Many early members of the Audubon Society, too, forged their commitment to birding because of what they experienced while hunting; in fact, the society's founder was George Bird Grinell, editor of Forest and Stream, a hunting magazine.

The move to protect Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks in perpetuity was led by hunters disgusted with the market hunting they witnessed in those areas. Many of the current wildlife refuges--such as Gray Lodge in the Sacramento Valley, Joyce Island in the Delta, and the Imperial Refuge in the Sonoran desert, where hunters and birders alike may still enjoy their sport on public land--were once private duck hunting clubs. They were purchased by the State with hunting license revenue, beginning with Los Banos in 1929, and Gray Lodge in 1931.

Today, perhaps no entity is more active or generous in its commitment to wetland restoration than Ducks Unlimited (DU), an organization that raises millions of dollars from its membership each year to protect, conserve, and restore habitat for migratory waterfowl and countless other species. Despite my deep involvement in the conservation community, it was only through DU's magazine that I learned why the pintail population has plummeted: conversion of the northern Great Plains to agribusiness enterprises. DU spends millions every year to preserve duck habitat so that its members may continue to enjoy shooting some of these ducks. But the benefits of the organization's work go far beyond ducks.

Before Hurricane Katrina, coastal Louisiana was losing 25 square miles of wetland per year--that's equivalent to more than a football field every 38 minutes. After disaster struck, DU leapt into the receding floodwaters, committing $18 million to wetlands restoration there. It remains one of the leading forces bringing money to the table and looking for ways to stem the tide of devastation there by restoring wetlands, the natural buffers against hurricanes. After all, as in Thailand, where wetland destruction exacerbated tsunami flooding, in Louisiana the loss of coastal wetlands removed a buffer against the ravages of storm-driven waters.

Here on the West Coast, DU, the California Waterfowl Association, and others are helping to orchestrate funds and support for some of the most important wetland preservation and restoration projects. Among these is the restoration of thousands of acres on San Francisco Bay. Yet among the projects described in Audubon's 2005 Annual Report, in 27 states only one partnership with conservationist hunters is mentioned--a 1,700-acre wetland restoration project in Arkansas with Ducks Unlimited.