Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Southern Region Conservation: Wetlands, Water Control & the Future of Duck Habitat (Ep 768)

Transcript

Southern Region Conservation: Wetlands, Water Control & the Future of Duck Habitat (Ep 768) · Ducks Unlimited Podcast

• 0:04
  Jerry Holden: Almost none of that water control existed, and so you would waterfowl hunt based on the vagaries of the river levels. And there wasn't anybody to blame about whether you had or didn't have water. Once you have control, you have the onus of control. Yeah. Right?
• 0:19
  And and that's where we find ourselves today.
• 0:22
  VO: Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jerad Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU Podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 1:28
  Mike Brasher: Hey everyone, welcome back. I am your host on this episode, Doctor. Brasher, and this is the second in our series of discussions with our directors of operations from each of our regions. They they lead incredible teams of conservation staff that are responsible for the work that we do as an organization that benefits ducks and a whole host of of other things. We're gonna go south today to the Southern Region, and we have joining us on the line is the senior director of operations, Jerry Holden.
• 2:05
  Jerry, it's great to have you with us, man.
• 2:07
  Jerry Holden: Man, it's an honor to be here, Mike. I I really appreciate you turning the lights on and letting us talk a little bit about conservation delivery in the southern portions of the Central Mississippi and Atlantic Flyways.
• 2:21
  Mike Brasher: That's right. You cover all three flyways. You're the only are you the only region that covers three flyways? Or does the Glarro Glarro probably gets do they get over into the into the central? They might.
• 2:33
  Jerry Holden: Well, I don't know because they're they go as far west as Minnesota, and I believe Minnesota is a Mississippi flyway state.
• 2:38
  Mike Brasher: It is. So, you know, we're we're back here at national headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, and what I always emphasize to people is, and rightly so because it's the truth, the work that we do from a habitat on the ground standpoint, the people that interact with private landowners, with our state and federal land managers, those folks are in the regions. Those folks are in the regional offices. Each of our regions has a regional office, but we also have sort of field offices that are located in various areas of tremendous significance to waterfowl and waterfowl habitats. We've got one in well, you tell us where are the where are the field offices in the Southern Region?
• 3:24
  Let's just do it that way.
• 3:25
  Jerry Holden: Yeah. Mike, and you remember that Ducks Unlimited stood up conservation delivery as in a response to the gauntlet thrown down by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and the organization felt like we needed to really manifest habitat delivery in The United States and we had already been working in Canada and so they made the decision to put a regional office in near the Central Valley California in Sacramento, one in the South which is a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi, the Great Lakes Atlantic region, which is in Dexter, Michigan, and the one everybody thinks is the coolest in Bismarck, North Dakota, right in the middle of the Prairie Pothole.
• 4:06
  Mike Brasher: What about our what about your field offices though? You've got some field offices around the Southern Region, which is where a significant chunk of our field staff are. Like, I used to live in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I know there's one there, but where are some of the others?
• 4:19
  Jerry Holden: Yeah. That's right, Mike. Thank you. I I did miss that question. The field offices that we have more of them in the Southern Region than we do in other places, but they are Rosenberg, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston because the terminus of the Central Flyway is so important to waterfowl, Lafayette, Louisiana because it's at the terminus of the Mississippi Flyway, Hanahan, South Carolina which is on the Atlantic Seaboard and near the low country, and then we have Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Monroe, Louisiana which are Mississippi Alluvial Valley delivery hubs for our afforestation work primarily.
• 5:01
  Mike Brasher: And then you also have some fields I guess you would call them folks that work in the field a little bit more than than well, may just work a little bit more in the field that are located there in Jackson as well. Right? You have maybe one or two people that that do get out in the field a fair bit there. Is that right, or am I
• 5:19
  Jerry Holden: You bet. The the largest part of our engineering hub is here in Jackson, and we do we have we have the Mississippi Alluvial Valley engineering hub is primarily here in Jackson with a node in in Monroe and a node in Jonesboro, Arkansas. And so this this is a regional administrative headquarters, but it's it's also the delivery center for some of the MAV work, most of it.
• 5:44
  Mike Brasher: Jerry, I'm gonna take an opportunity here to kinda go back to that list of of field offices because a big organization like Ducks Unlimited, one that has has been as successful as we have, been around for almost ninety years now. The duck head is prominent. We have a Ducks Unlimited magazine. Hunters are our biggest constituent, our biggest supporters. They brought us to where we are.
• 6:06
  We're dedicated to them. They're dedicated to us. Yet there are people that that criticize Ducks Unlimited. We're not we're trying to say don't criticize us. We, you know, we understand that comes with the territory, but there are some people out there that think we don't care about the Gulf Coast.
• 6:23
  I will draw people's attention to the fact that we actually have two field offices along the Gulf Coast, one outside of Houston, one in Lafayette, Louisiana. We also have two field stations or field offices in Louisiana, itself, one in the northern part of the state, one in the southern part of the state. We care about those places because they are important to ducks, they are important to geese, they are important to the people that care about those things, and and I just wanted to clear up any misconception about how Ducks Unlimited views those areas. Am I right?
• 6:56
  Jerry Holden: Yeah. That's right, Mike. Ducks Unlimited organized the regional offices, and then the regional offices organized the field offices around where ducks needed habitat. And the logistics of of the kind of work that we do means there's boats and ATVs and all pickup trucks, and so we needed the people to be as close as possible to where the work needed to be done. And so you're right.
• 7:22
  The that map of where we have our staff located is also a map of importance to waterfowl.
• 7:28
  Mike Brasher: That's right. And so that's why you see what you do and why we have the people where we have them. So, Jerad, we have a number of things that we wanna talk with you about. I've got a list here, and you're you know of a few of these things, but we wanted to start with just a look back on the 2526 waterfowl hunting season there across your region. There were some places where it was pretty good, some where it wasn't so good.
• 7:51
  But what were the highlights that you took away from that season?
• 7:54
  Jerry Holden: With with the persistent drought in the Prairies, we get slightly more older waterfowl, a little more educated waterfowl. And so when you when you get in a situation like this, you get some fair amount of hunter dissatisfaction. I would say that you're right. It was really spatially discontinuous this year. There were people that did really well and people that didn't.
• 8:19
  It's interesting in our line of work when someone has a good season, they just go quiet.
• 8:24
  Mike Brasher: That's right. And when
• 8:24
  Jerry Holden: and when they have a bad season, they can be a little vocal. Yeah.
• 8:27
  Mike Brasher: And you get some of those every year. You get some in in both of those categories every year, and it's because, like we say all the time, these birds have wings. They can fly. They can find the places that are better off for them during a given year, and and oftentimes, that's not the same place year after year after year after year. Ducks will create losers, and ducks and geese will create winners from year to year and and over longer periods of times, and and that's just the way it is with migratory animals of any type, and and birds are at the the the top of the list there in terms of the ones that can frustrate us most with how quickly they can adapt to differences across that landscape.
• 9:10
  That's what you call it, spatial discontinuity? Yes. Can you define that? What does that mean? Just things are different from one place to the other?
• 9:19
  Jerry Holden: Good job. That's exactly right. Things things are different from one place to another. One of the things that was really interesting about this past duck season is anecdotally, it seemed to me that there was a a lot of northern pintails in in like, I live and hunt in Mississippi, and there were a lot of pintails and maybe less mallards, but that's that's just from a few observations. Right?
• 9:43
  It doesn't really carry very well through the population, but it it it was notable the difference between this season and previous ones, and then we saw a lot of pintail.
• 9:52
  Mike Brasher: Jerry, I wanna transition, talk about some of the conservation work that you're doing. When you look across the Southern region, there is a tremendous diversity of landscapes, ecosystems, habitat types. If you wanna talk about the hypersaline lagoon system in Laguna Madre of South Texas, all the way over to the sort of estuarine coastal marshes of the South Atlantic, then into the rice fields and flooded timber of Arkansas and Mississippi, and probably a host of other types of wetlands, wetland ecosystems in between. It's a vast landscape. There's a lot of managed wetlands across those landscapes, on public land, on private land.
• 10:37
  We have a of places to work on and a lot of different types of work to do, and so this is an opportunity for you to talk about any new or high priority conservation programs that you and your staff are working on or are particularly proud of that have come about here over the last few years?
• 10:57
  Jerry Holden: Mike, I would think that the thing that I would would want the audience to have visibility on is how intensely we use engineering. The Ducks Unlimited and particularly Ducks Unlimited Southern Region uses engineering to help with the coastal resilience. Because waterfowl are really dependent on those co coastal systems at the terminus of the flyways for the Central And Mississippi in particular, that it just it just means that in those field offices we're talking about, we have a lot of engineers and people that support engineering to do the kind of work that is necessary, and that work is unfortunately expensive and difficult to do. But society has slowly seemed to wake up to the fact that our coastal systems are not just for waterfowl. That's what brings me to the dance, but there are myriad benefits.
• 11:53
  And so I just I would want the the audience to know that that our engineers and engineering is really one of the central things that people look to DU to provide well in engineering along our coast for coastal resilience and waterfowl.
• 12:10
  Mike Brasher: Jerry, we work a lot with natural the resources conservation service Through the conservation title of the Farm Bill, there's an awful lot of programs that are available to private landowners to do wildlife waterfowl enhancements their properties, and we consider NRCS, USDA, to be one of our biggest partners. For people that that hear about us working with NRCS, are there maybe clear up some misconceptions on what that looks like, what that relationship looks like, and and kinda describe how we act as a as a partner in helping them implement the programs that they have available.
• 12:54
  Jerry Holden: So one of the things you said that's super true, the NRCS and the and the farm bill that provides the funding had become perhaps the most important funder for conservation activities. And to answer your question, how we do that is we've increasingly over the last several decades become more and more of the boots on the ground for those folks. We are the folks at the farm and ranch gate trying to help the NRCS programmatic dollars make it on the ground in a in a meaningful way for conservation and for waterfowl and for those landowners. And so that that that changes happen gradually, but it but it's clear. Ducks Unlimited has quite a few staff whose principal job it is to to implement natural resource conservation service programs.
• 13:47
  Where you find an NRCS practice that that has waterfowl benefit, that occurs in a geography that are important to waterfowl, you often find DE right there.
• 13:57
  Mike Brasher: And and that takes many different forms, especially in the Southern region. We've had some other episodes where we've talked about the relative amount of work that we do on private land and public land, and we've described and defended how and why we work on private land, and it dates back kinda to what you said or what you introduced, Jerry, with the the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in 1986. The entire waterfowl management community across North America came to the realization that if we want healthy, abundant populations of waterfowl across this continent, we cannot focus just on public land. We will con we have and will continue to to work in in abundance on public land, state land, federal land, in all different ways, but we also look for opportunities to work with landowners that that that own the the types of landscapes, the wetlands, agricultural lands that can also provide a habitat to support waterfowl at the levels that we need them to, and and that's where a lot of our NRCS work comes into play. Again, just sort of clearing up some misconceptions, people see us working on private land.
• 15:11
  They think, oh, well, you're taking all of my dollars that I'm giving you and then giving it out to these other people, these private landowners. That's not it. That's not really how it works. We, as you said, act as a facilitator for helping those private landowners connect with a lot of those federal dollars, and those landowners typically have to bring some of their own money to the table in the form of some type of cost share or match. So I just wanted to clarify a little bit of that.
• 15:38
  Some of those programs through NRCS are focused on rice production. Some of those programs through NRCS are focused on reforestation or afforestation in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Then there are some of those programs that are focused on helping private landowners sort of enhance or restore natural wetlands, for lack of a better term. So any any context to add to that, you know, because you work on these areas and you have these conversations every day.
• 16:08
  Jerry Holden: Yeah. So the the DU mission is really centered around waterfowl abundance, and in order to do that and and on a continental scale, we have to use every possible tool to help waterfowl meet their annual life cycle needs, and and so that's why we we we work on private lands because we we can't get there by only working on public lands. And yet we, at any given moment, probably have a dozen land transfers somewhere in the process. We're trying to add to the body of the public trust to give more people more opportunity to act in a consumptive or non consumptive ways. And so we're what I'm babbling about is we're trying to do all the things all the time because the mandate of the mission is so large, that's how you have to respond.
• 17:04
  Mike Brasher: Jerry, across that that sort of portfolio of programs and different types of activities, what are some of the ones that that you wanted to highlight? I mean, I could think of several and offer them up, but I want you, who oversees that entire region, to identify those that you're that that need some highlighting here.
• 17:23
  Jerry Holden: Yeah. So, Mike, I would say that the thing I already mentioned, the sheer amount of coastal resilience engineering we're doing from beneficial use of dredge material to shoreline stabilization via via rocks in Texas or terrace fields in in Louisiana or shoreline stabilizations in in Virginia. You know, coastal resilience is a problem because sea level rise is real, storm intensity and frequency is real, and there's that that puts a squeeze on waterfowl. You have development on the dry side, on the landward side, people are putting in subdivisions in in Walmart parking lots, and then the on the west side, the seaward side, you have sea level rise and storms and and salinity intrusions and all the things, and that puts a squeeze on waterfowl. So I'd really like to highlight that that that squeeze is a thing that Ducks Unlimited really worked hard on for a whole bunch of species that are not just waterfowl.
• 18:26
  They bring us to the table, but we provide tons of community benefit, fisheries benefit. Ducks Unlimited often doesn't get or take credit for the stacked benefits that we provide. Another thing I would like to say is that we are one of the largest land trust in The United States. I've come to a place where I think that we will only have the land that we deliberately decide to preserve, and I used to think, there's there's lots of open space. Okay.
• 18:54
  Some of it can be developed, but increasingly that appears to be not be true, and so that act of protecting land so that it is there to provide those natural goods and services is a second really important part of what we are and what we do. And the third thing, and we covered this already, but is it is being the leader in direct to consumer conservation, and the consumer in this case will be the land owning public. Like, Ducks Unlimited puts a lot of energy into that ag extension work as well because it gives us scale, and that scale is really important because it the danger zone for us is to do a lot but not enough to manifest itself in healthier waterfowl populations.
• 19:39
  Mike Brasher: Jerry, a couple of things to follow-up on there. It was interesting that you mentioned the importance of our work to to fisheries. Your your colleague, Jeff McCreery, highlighted that whenever he was talking about the work that we do in the Western Region, and I think he even sort of characterized us as being among the leaders in recovery of several endangered fish species, and because of the work that we do on wetlands and wetland systems that those fish species also depend on, we don't have as many endangered or threatened species that we're working on as closely in the Southern region as far as I'm aware, but maybe that's I mean, we'd like to keep it that way, and so we wanna continue to do the right kind of work that benefits not only waterfowl, but all the other animals that depend on those systems. So I forgot the other thing that I was gonna say. Oh, it just came back to me.
• 20:34
  You mentioned that you've arrived at a place where you it sounds like it's fair to say you have developed a greater appreciation and value for the role that permanent protection, voluntary, you know, incentive based permanent protection, either through some kind of acquisition and transfer to a public entity or through a conservation easement and doing. And really, I mean, I can appreciate that, and I can see that, and it really my guess is you would you would say that the degree to which you think it's important really depends on the time horizon through which you're viewing it, because I think there was a famous artist one time that said, forever is a mighty long time, and that's what we're talking about, is forever. Whenever you roll that clock out far enough, there will be some kind of threat that will come knocking on the door of pretty much any place that we can put our feet on out there on the landscape.
• 21:37
  Jerry Holden: That's right, Mike, and and so those easements, the ones that we hold have this tail of liability as we, as an organization, have to enforce the terms of the easement so that the wildlife values are protected, so that's definitely a negative. But on the the upside of that, as we continue to consume the natural landscape, it becomes more and more precious. Right? It's a supply and demand argument. I read a book recently by an author named Will Harris who said that as a country, we have consumed all of our wilderness.
• 22:12
  That's not quite true, but we consumed most of it, and he was making the argument that we are now consuming our morality. And as a waterfowl professional, like, we need rurality and wilderness in order to have waterfowl populations. Like, it's just not okay to get rid of all the wild things in wild places.
• 22:35
  Mike Brasher: I'm gonna I'll offer just for folks that that may have missed it. When you say rurality, that's not a term that everybody uses in in in common, you know, everyday discussion. So you're so let me translate. You're talking about rural spaces, country spaces, and not wilderness, but the areas where now most of us live, when I say, yeah, we live out in the country, that's a rural location, and so you're talking about this idea that we are now consuming some of those spaces, and if we do not pay attention, we will lose those in appreciable amounts from the places that we hold dear, and there's a lot of value in those rural places. Am I right?
• 23:22
  Jerry Holden: That's exactly right, Mike. That was a beautiful translation.
• 23:25
  Mike Brasher: I do what I can, Jerry. We are gonna take a break, and we got a couple of other things to talk with you about, and then we're gonna pose to you the same questions that we posed to Jeff, to to kinda close out. So stay with us, folks. We'll be right back.
• 23:48
  VO: Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
• 24:04
  Mike Brasher: Welcome back everyone. I am here with Jerry Holden, our senior director of operations for the Southern Region. Jerry, I wanna kind of make a transition to a specific sort of a project or significant specific and significant development that occurred here recently, and it relates to this the the easements that we were just talking about. I believe it happened somewhere over in South Carolina. I believe it's the Clarendon is what how I've kinda referred to it here and leading up to this conversation.
• 24:40
  But I want you to sorta unpack that the what that was, who was involved, the level of significance, why we are so honored to be involved
• 24:50
  Jerry Holden: in that. Well, I'll probably the who was involved would be difficult, but what it is is really special. So more than 4,000 acres of Coastal South Carolina that an area highly susceptible to development. And the the owner Jim Kennedy decided along with his family that that property should be protected in perpetuity and he chose to entrust Ducks Unlimited with a fully donated conservation easement on that property which will as long as Ducks Unlimited and The United States exist, will it will remain the kind of thing it is now and produce the wildlife and open space values that it currently does. And and so Ducks Unlimited, at least I'm honored that Jim Kennedy and family chose Ducks Unlimited to do that.
• 25:44
  It is a heavy responsibility to steward a piece of property like that, and when we get an easement, we have responsibility to the wildlife values and the the wild things and wild places there. And so that means there'll be DU staff on that property most every year for however long perpetuity lasts. It's a really good thing to protect a piece of property like that because of its scale, because it has, if I recall correctly, more than a 100 miles of of coastline, and it's a that's a fairly estuary rich system over there. So obviously, there's lots of fisheries benefit as well as waterfowl benefit to that, but it stands out because it was the highest donated value of any easement in DEU's history. It wasn't the biggest acreage, but that that land could have been beautiful subdivisions, and now it will not be.
• 26:41
  Mike Brasher: I think we'd also wanna kinda give a shout out to Alex Taylor and and Cox Enterprises for the role that they played in that. Huge, huge conservation sort of ethic that Alex and Cox Enterprises is bringing to the table. And I would say he sort of learned under under the tutelage of of someone that knows a little bit about that in terms of Jim Kennedy, and and we're honored to to continue that relationship. And have have you been able to get over there? I suspect you were there as part of that that sort of announcement, that ceremony.
• 27:15
  Do you have have you spent much time around there?
• 27:18
  Jerry Holden: I I have spent time around it, but that would be my first time. I was at the ceremony, and it was my first time actually on the property. And it is one of those things that once you see it, you understand that that that it's majestic and, like like, national parks deserves deserves our protection as a society.
• 27:39
  Mike Brasher: And it's also significant because it's in that landscape, that South Carolina Lowcountry where in the Ace Basin where there was a lot of other protected land through a variety of conservation easements, the South Carolina, what is it, the land bank. Did I get that right? South Carolina Land Bank?
• 27:59
  Jerry Holden: That's right. South Carolina Land Bank is a state enterprise that helps to partially fund bargain sale easements, and they're due credit to the governor and the leadership of the state of South Carolina being really focused on land protection and the people that started the Ace Basin task force some thirty five years ago that said that this the whole place, the low country of South Carolina was important and deserved to not be developed into oblivion, and it was the vision of those people that that helped us get to where we are today. And you're right. Ducks Unlimited is not the only partner. The Nature Conservancy, Open Space Institute, DU, we we all have a piece of that.
• 28:44
  But but together, we've done something truly significant.
• 28:47
  Mike Brasher: Jerry, you know, there are a lot of states in your region. We could go around to each of them and tell exciting stories. There was a substantial easement that that we were involved in a few years ago down in Florida. We covered that in some in to to some extent on previous discussions. There's, like I said, there's a host of things that you could point out in every state that you visit.
• 29:10
  But I also but I wanna come over to Arkansas because it remains the epicenter for mallard duck hunting in North America. It has some iconic duck habitats. Some of those kind of suffered as a result of, I don't wanna say mismanagement because that's not really it, it's just sort of an imperfect understanding of the consequences of some type of management activities. Those things are sorta coming home to roost now, and and we're trying to help out with remedying some of those along with our our partners, and and I'm specifically talking about, you know, green tree reservoirs, those managed flooded timber areas in Arkansas. And so tell us about some of the work that's going on there and why it's so important and what our role is.
• 30:02
  Jerry Holden: So you did a good job of explaining that, like, the the creation of the green tree reservoir system has has been a wonderful thing, and the folks who did it didn't really understand that stress that that they were putting on the forest by allowing fostering water to come on too early because the trees had evolved had evolved for a late winter, early spring flooding cycle as nature would have done, but then we as consumptive users wanted to have that water early before duck season and certainly by opening of duck season so that we could enjoy the bounties of harvest. And so AGFC, to their everlasting credit, realized that this the the red oak species in in those WMA systems were being stressed, and over the decades, there were less of those mass producing or food producing trees for wildlife and more or less desirable species and they had to do something about it. And so the engineering that we spoke about earlier is one of these core competencies and so AGFC, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, came to Ducks Unlimited because we partner with them all the time and said, you know, can we help with the engineering on those to give them more control over dewatering those systems and watering those systems so in a way that isn't harmful to the forest.
• 31:31
  And so that that is a large task. It will take multi decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but it's really the only way to have the habitat that Arkansas is famous for persist across generations because failing to do so would work great now, but it wouldn't work great for very much longer. And so the AGFC leadership and the state leadership was brave enough to do a thing that is hard sometimes for the public to sit with that the hey, we need to dewater this in order to to have the forest be healthier, and so it's it's really the right thing to do for waterfowl and in the long run, the people of Arkansas, but it's it's a difficult thing to do now. It takes a lot of money and it takes a lot of discipline to do that. And the paradox here is that pre 1945 or so in the in the era before the second world war, almost none of that water control existed.
• 32:37
  And so you would waterfowl hunt based on the vagaries of the river levels, and there wasn't anybody to blame about whether you had or didn't have water. Once you have control, you have the onus of control. Right? And and that's where we find ourselves today. But the the state and Ducks Unlimited will help them to our ability to do so is doing the right thing by seeking to manage those forest systems in a more sustainable way.
• 33:06
  Mike Brasher: Yep. The work that we're doing today is not necessarily for the people that are isn't it's not most important for the people that are hunting it right now and have been hunting it for forty years. It's the people that we want to be able to hunt it forty, fifty, eighty years from now. Oak trees don't grow fast. It's not like moist soil managed moist soil unit.
• 33:27
  Oak trees take time, and that's that's just the reality of the situation, but that's what makes them so special, and that's why you don't find that situation in in very many places, and and we're committed to helping helping our partners preserve that. Jerad Jerry, I wanna I wanna transition to a closeout here. I've got two questions that I posed to you and Jeff in a in a text message. I wanna give you an opportunity to respond to it for your region. What do you think people would be most surprised to learn about the work that we do in the Southern region?
• 34:05
  Jerry Holden: There are many great answers to this, but I picked one and thank you for giving me time to ponder it. I think the thing that would surprise people the most is that in Texas on the coast, we have become the state of Texas' preferred deliverer of coastal resilience. They have a master plan as well like Louisiana does, but Ducks Unlimited is their go to deliverer for coastal resilience and that means that for those central flyaway ducks at the end of their migration, we are we're a big deal and I don't think that the the public fully appreciates the scale at which Ducks Unlimited is able to work in places like that.
• 34:55
  Mike Brasher: And that that the scale at which we operate is bigger now than it was twenty years ago. Right? Probably bigger than it was five years and ten years ago.
• 35:02
  Jerry Holden: That's right. It keeps increasing because humans are funny creatures. You can understand that a crisis is coming, but you don't really react to it till it shows up on the front porch. And and hurricane frequency and intensity, flooding, sea level rise, all these things are are are approximate threat, and the coastal denizens of Texas understand that.
• 35:26
  Mike Brasher: Yeah. So thank you for that, Jerry. Having lived along the Gulf Coast for a number of years, I can I can appreciate the work that that's going on there, and I saw sort of the the evolution of our involvement in in some of those larger projects? And it's it's something that you have to think about. Like, do we have the capacity to deliver on these bigger projects?
• 35:45
  And and you have and your staff have have demonstrated that if we if we didn't have it, we've had the ability to build it, and and that's where we are, and we're seeing, the rewards of of those activities. The final question here for you, Jerry, is what is your favorite story to tell? It could be internal to Ducks Unlimited. It could be external to your neighbor, to anyone else. What's your favorite story to tell about something that happened in your region over the past year or so?
• 36:18
  Jerry Holden: Again, there are many of these, most of which are not for our audience.
• 36:22
  Mike Brasher: Mike Leave those out. Yeah.
• 36:23
  Jerry Holden: So I'll pick I'm gonna pick something that I that I just wish I wish we got more appropriate credit for and that is the thing I've already talked about which is Ducks Unlimited's tireless effort to acquire land and move it into public land status with state or federal agencies in every state where you find us working, is all of them, so that more people have access to wild things and wild spaces or consumptive use if that's their choice or maybe they're birders. But Ducks Unlimited, in in the post COVID era, when others step back from that opportunity, we step forward towards it. And there are example after example after example where Ducks Unlimited is helping to expand the public land base for the American people. And I just wish that, you know, while we're out there in the court of public opinion getting lambasted for not doing enough for waterfowl, and I acknowledge we don't do enough for waterfowl. I wish I could do 10 times more.
• 37:25
  I wish we got appropriate credit for the work that we do for the kind of people that can only afford to give us $35 in a membership, but yet we're providing that kind of value for
• 37:37
  Mike Brasher: it. And for those that may not be aware, those kind of projects that you're talking about where sometimes we'll play a role in helping a federal or state, let's say a federal refuge or a state WMA, you know, acquire or add to their their sort of management estate. Those are not easy, quick projects or procedures. The easy thing for Ducks Unlimited to say is like, yeah, those things are too complicated. They take too long.
• 38:05
  There's too much red tape. We don't wanna be wrapped up in that. Fish and Wildlife Service, state WMA, state agency, you're on your own. That would be the easy thing because these things can take years, and they can be frustrating, and and and sometimes there's these even some uncertainty on exactly when it's gonna get resolved and when things are gonna be finalized. The easy thing would be to not do those, but that's not what we do, is it?
• 38:30
  Jerry Holden: That's right, Mike, and that's because of the thing you pointed to earlier, which is the time horizon at which you're thinking about the benefit. When we do that kind of work, it is extremely durable, and it will provide benefits for generations, which as we have less less wilderness or rurality and more built spaces, those places become more precious over time. Jerry, I'm gonna wrap it
• 38:55
  Mike Brasher: up here. I'm gonna thank you for your time. I'll let you get back to the rest of your day. Always enjoy connecting with you. Always enjoy talking about the great work that you and and your entire staff are doing.
• 39:06
  You know, the you're the leader of this group. They're the ones that are out there in the mud and the weeds and the and the the mosquito infested swamps and wetlands once summer rolls around. They're the ones that are boots on the ground at the farm gate making those relationships. I know you cherish your staff, every single one of them, every single place where they work. They make you look good.
• 39:31
  Let me just say that. And I and I'm sure you would agree with that, but kudos to you and your entire staff for all the wonderful work that y'all are doing in helping Ducks Unlimited grow and helping us grow the impact that we're having on on ducks and geese and the habitats all across, all across your region.
• 39:47
  Jerry Holden: Yep. Thank you, Mike. It's an honor to to help this to serve this staff that we have, make a difference for waterfowl, and to work with the volunteers of Ducks Unlimited that donate selflessly their time and their treasure to this mission. It a a life in Ducks Unlimited is is an honorable thing to do. It is a privilege to help us try to make a difference for waterfowl on this continent and to get
• 40:12
  Mike Brasher: to work with awesome guys like you. Well, I'll say the same to you, Jerry. And that's a great reminder for me to tell people, if you're looking to get involved in Ducks Unlimited, if you're looking to deepen your involvement in Ducks Unlimited, go to ducks.org/events. Find a fundraising banquet near you. There's lots of those out there pretty much throughout any time of the year.
• 40:36
  Spring can be a popular time for a lot of those. And get out, meet some like minded people, figure out how you can help. Special thanks for our volunteers that are responsible for pulling off all those fundraising events and banquets across the country. I hope to see y'all at one of those. So thank you, Jerry.
• 40:54
  Thanks, everybody, for joining us. A very special thanks to our guest on today's episode, Jerry Holden, senior director of operations for Ducks Unlimited's Southern Region. Also thank our producer, Chris Isaac, for the awesome job that he does getting all these, episodes organized, edited, and then out to you. To you, the listener, we thank you for sharing an interest in waterfowl and wetlands conservation with us. We also thank you for your commitment to wetlands and waterfowl conservation.
• 41:24
  VO: Thank you for listening to the DU Podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 41:47
  Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay tuned to the Ducks.