The following organizations have provided funding for this Into the Outdoors television series.

I know that the wetland may not look like much, but it's actually home to hundreds of different species of wildlife with a mix of grass and water.

It's a great home for both land and marine animals, and it happens to be the home of one of my very favorite groups of animals.

Oh, what group of animals is that?

Waterfowl is a group of different waterbirds, so that includes swans, geese and ducks.

They're usually characterized by having webbed feet.

They're really strong swimmers and they have waterproof feathers.

Besides being really, really fun to watch.

Their story is actually one of the coolest success stories in American conservation.

Yeah, because as weird as this may sound, hunting has actually helped improve duck populations and preserve wetlands.

How is that even possible?

Well, we'll keep discovering together as we go further into South Dakota and as we learn about how to play an active role in waterfowl conservation.

Hold on tight.

As we go Into the Outdoors.

(music) “Grab your gear and” “Lets explore.” “As we discover” “The wild outdoors.” “Science.

Discovery.” “Is what we do.” “You can make our Earth.” “A bright and better planet.” “By joining us.” “In this wide open space.” “Into the Outdoors.” (Music) On today's hunt, we're taking Audrey and Hudson out on a youth duck hunt.

Hudson's 12 year old it's his first duck hunt.

And then Audrey, my daughter, who's 12 years old, and she's on her second season of duck hunting.

My whole family.

We've hunted waterfowl my entire life, and I'm trying to pass on the tradition to my daughter.

All right.

So, guys, we're going to be heading down to basically straight south of us.

We're going to be wrapping around a wetland looks like a great morning and a nice wind and nice, cool weather.

So it should be good shape.

Okay.

So Audrey, Hudson, and their dads are going out on a hunt to hunt waterfowl.

But what does that have to do with conservation?

Good question.

It all starts with the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan, or NAWMP is a cooperative plan that manages both waterfowl and their wetland habitats across the North American continent.

Why did this plan come into existence in the first place?

Back during the days of European settlement in America, wetlands in the United States disappeared as a direct result of development.

By 1985, nearly 53% of wetland in the US had been destroyed.

This caused populations of waterfowl to plummet.

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan was then signed into existence in 1986.

Under this plan, wetlands became protected from further destruction and helped reverse the decline in bird populations.

Even to this day, several years ago, a human user was identified as a co-equal goal with habitat and populations.

We're managing not only waterfowl populations but also hunter populations, managing hunter populations.

What does Rocco mean by that?

I think he's about to tell us.

Let's listen.

Waterfowl hunter numbers have been declining in many states, including South Dakota.

Really for the last 20 years, we've lost about 50% of our duck hunters since the late nineties in South Dakota.

And one of the barriers that's been identified through numerous surveys has been identification of waterfowl and complexity of regulations.

In order to successfully navigate current duck regulations, as they've always been, is that you have to be able identify ducks before you pull the trigger, which they're flying.

Some of the main things are size silhouette even things like how many birds are in the flock.

All those things are pretty specific, and it takes a lot of experience to get the nuance of identifying ducks at a distance or on the wing in general.

And it's especially difficult up here in the Dakotas or in the northern part of the flyway or in the early fall.

Ducks are generally brown.

They're not in their breeding plumage yet.

So you don't have the normal cues where you would say, okay, that has a green head.

It's a mallard that has a pointy tail.

It's a pin tail.

You don't have that this time of year because they haven't grown those feathers yet.

I've been duck hunting for 25 years now, and it's certainly still a challenge for me in the first half hour of daylight to try identify ducks.

Ah so, because it's really hard to identify a bird while it's flying before you could shoot it.

Some hunters may not even want to try duck hunting.

Exactly, which leads to less people being involved in the sport and ultimately less dollars going towards conservation.

So we've got about an hour before shooting time, so we're not in a big hurry.

So you guys are going to be using your marsh seats in this and this goosefoot, which is this weed right here.

So guys, what I'm trying to do here is place two main areas of decoys with a pocket.

In the middle is where we're going to put the motion decoys.

That's an area that we want the ducks to land.

So we're going to set each hunter basically in front of one of the groups of decoys.

And then in the middle is where we'll actually be trying to shoot the ducks.

A really key point about our hunt this morning was that we were on a state managed game production area.

Those areas are purchased directly through licensed dollars as part of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

Remember earlier when I mentioned that more people being involved in duck hunting leads to more conservation dollars?

Yeah.

Taxes from the sale of hunting licenses, firearms, ammunition and gear all go towards raising money to preserve wetland areas like the one Hudson.

Audrey and their dads are at.

I see.

Although people hunt waterfowl.

The money raised from that tax helps preserve the waterfowl's habitat, which in turn helps maintain healthy bird populations.

Purchasing a license is one of the best ways that you can engage in the North American model of wildlife conservation.

Those license dollars go directly toward conserving habitats and managing those populations, and that ties directly to the two tier license system.

Two tiered license system, what in the world is that?

Relax.

We'll cover that in just a bit.

Let's check back in with the group and see how they're doing.

Hudson, you're going to be down here, and I'm going to stand right back here in the edge of the trees.

We set the decoys up, and at first light, ducks started to fly and they did not stop.

(Duck Call) Okay get ready, guys.

(Music) (Duck Call) Birds coming in to the left.

(Duck Call) Here's two, here's two.

There you go.

Nice.

Nice shot, Hudson.

Yup.

Thought I was just going to hit one, but instead I hit two, and I was shocked.

Nice shot.

It was exciting to have my dad with me while I shot those two ducks because they were my first ducks.

Two blue winged teals.

Yup.

Better get.

hidden again.

(Music) Nice.

Nice.

There you go.

You got one!

I was really excited and it was really awesome because it was my first duck of the season.

I think I really liked watching my dog go out to get the ducks.

She just did a really good job.

Dang, Audrey and Hudson are pretty good shots.

Yeah, but more importantly, they're taking their time choosing when to take an ethical shot and making sure they practice proper gun safety.

Good point.

Guns are no joke.

They should always be properly handled even if they're not loaded.

Hey, Gracie, on a side note, are we ever going to find out what this two tiered system is all about?

I'm glad you asked.

I believe Rocco can break it down for us.

This is the first weekend that the two tiered system is being implemented, and I'm really excited to be able to watch the kids actually use it.

Basically, you have two choices at the beginning of your duck season.

You either choose Tier one, which is the traditional license, which is six ducks, all the species and sex restrictions.

Or Tier two, which is a three duck option, which makes it so you can just shoot three ducks of any sex or species without any other restriction at all.

You can shoot at any mix of any species of waterfowl during the regular duck season.

It's just that many of those species have specific regulations attached to the species.

So things like Canvasback, Redhead, Scaup all have specific limits within the six duck limit, which makes it challenging if you don't know your ducks.

Everybody's been very supportive of this proposal of this evaluation plan, and it's really gratifying to be able to take my daughter out this morning and use this system, this regulatory system that I helped develop.

(Music) There you go.

Good job.

Come here.

Good girl.

I think it was really cool that my dad created this and I get to try it on the first weekend.

It feels awesome to be one of the first kids to do it, mainly because it just takes the stress off of having to identify the duck.

The two tier system relieved a lot of pressure from myself, and it just made it so much easier for Hudson to be able to shoot.

And it gives him an opportunity to just hunt.

Having Matt along, who is experienced hunter but not really experienced duck hunter bring his son Hudson with was really nice because he was able to share that experience with his son without having to worry about him first.

Going out and learning his ducks and allowing Hudson to grow into the sport at his own pace.

You can shoot one more, you ready Hud?.

(Duck Call) We had ducks coming in from the left.

(Duck Call) (Music) Good job Hud.

We watched Hudson shoot his first ducks today.

Audrey gained a lot of a lot of experience and just watching Audrey kind of gained confidence through the day and know she was struggling at the beginning with shooting and and settled down and finished strong.

So that was really fun to watch.

So now we're going to go help Audrey at Hudson collect the wings.

We're going to clean the birds and get them prepped for the table.

We're going to share some more stories and recap the day.

With the traditional Tier one six duck option.

A wing from harvested birds may also be required to be sent in for federal collection efforts to estimate harvest.

If using the Tier two three duck option, a wing from each duck harvested must be sent using the games and parks provided envelopes as part of efforts to estimate harvest.

Harvest data is crucial to basically knowing what duck production was that particular year.

We basically use hunters to sample the population to give us an idea of age ratios, harvest rates, survival that can come through things like wing collection, which is what we're doing here today for the two tier experiment.

Also things like banding data.

The number of ducks killed and retrieved.

How many did you shoot today?

Three.

So that's all we got to do for that.

And you just to keep track of every other hunt we do this year.

And at the end you total these up, and you mail it to us.

To me actually.

I learned some different kinds of ducks.

I learned the blue winged teals, I learned the green winged teals, and I learned the shovellers and like what they look like.

And I learned about how to tell the ages apart too, with their tail feathers.

You know we talked about the tail feathers and how they were notched and kind of ratty looking.

These are all very nice.

Have a nice pointy tip, very high quality feathers.

Mhm.

Um, and so, you know, it's an adult and then you look at one of the other things is the bill and what do you see on that bill?

Spots.

Spots.

That's a pretty good indicator of a female duck.

What we're going to be doing is actually taking the duck wings from the ducks we harvested.

We're going to be putting them in envelopes and sending them into Game, Fish, and Parks because we are actually analyzing the harvest composition of the folks that choose the three duck option and comparing it to the harvest composition of folks that have the traditional bag limit.

Those wings will be sexed, aged and ID'd and then used for analysis.

And it's a really neat opportunity for folks to help make this system operational in the future.

(Duck Call) Duck hunting is a great activity for young kids and families to try.

And it's a safe activity because you're not walking with guns.

You're sitting in one place.

It's very controlled.

There's numerous public hunting areas.

The water hunting opportunities are almost endless.

One of the big misconceptions about duck hunting is that you need thousands of dollars of decoys and equipment to do it.

All you need is a dozen or two decoys, a call and a pair of waders.

And you can be successful duck hunting in South Dakota.

The only other main cost is the license, which is an expense.

But it's also vital to the conservation of birds and wetlands and their habitat through the North American model of wildlife conservation.

Those dollars go directly to conserving habitat and managing populations.

If you think your your child has any interest in duck hunting.

Get a dozen decoys and a pair of waders and give it a try.

It's not nearly as hard as a lot of people think, and especially if they are inexperienced.

I would recommend it, at least in South Dakota, where we have this option right now to utilize a three duck option.

It's a really fun way to connect with the outdoors and a fun way to to connect with your family.

What a great way to get outdoors and get involved in conservation efforts.

Getting a hunting license and purchasing a duck stamp are both great ways for you to personally contribute to public wetland conservation.

Public lands are an important piece of wetland conservation, but public land alone can't sustain duck populations.

Rocco taught us how important the Central Flyway region is for ducks, and a large part of the Central Flyway is the Prairie Potholes region.

What is the Prairie Potholes region?

The Prairie Potholes Region is a unique mix of grasslands and wetlands that stretches across Canada and the United States border to Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota and in Iowa and Nebraska.

This region was formed 10,000 years ago as the glaciers melted and left these shallow pools of water.

Now these wetlands are home to hundreds of species of wildlife.

Sounds like this region is pretty important for wildlife.

That must mean it's protected through funding from hunting licenses, right?

Well, yes and no.

A large part of this region is protected by conservation efforts, but also a large part of this region is owned by private landowners.

Okay.

So what does conservation look like on private land?

That's a great question.

Let's head back to South Dakota to take a look at what private organizations like Ducks Unlimited are doing to help preserve private wetland habitats.

My name is Randy Meidinger.

I'm a regional biologist with Ducks Unlimited.

Been working for the DU for about 20 years now.

So the Prairie Pothole Region is just a very, very diverse landscape with the mix of grasslands, uplands and wetlands interspersed.

The species richness there's hundreds of different birds, grassland birds, shorebirds, waterbirds, ducks, game birds, mammals, deer and amphibians.

It's just incredible.

There is and there's an equal amount of grass and forbes species out there.

There's hundreds of different species of forbes out here as well.

It sounds like wetlands are full of wildlife, but why are they so important for ducks?

The shallow wetlands are really important for ducks to get the aquatic invertebrates early in the year to the where they can get the insects they need to create their clutches.

And as the hens incubate their eggs and hatch the clutches the more seasonal type wetlands that are a little bit deeper, those have warmed up enough where there's a lot of bugs and stuff for the for the broods to take off.

Sounds like a really healthy ecosystem to me.

So what's the catch?

So some of the threats to the landscape out here of the wetlands in the grassland are tillage, plowing up native, native prairie, sod and draining of the wetlands.

With growing populations, farmers are expected to produce more crops so that you and I have food to eat.

But some of these farming practices can hurt the native wetlands.

We need the farms and we need the wetlands.

So how can we have both?

A good place to start is to identify what farmers, ranchers, conservationists and wildlife all have in common.

They all have a shared interest in grass and water.

Farmers and ranchers need them to support their crops and livestock.

Conservationists want to protect it for the sake of environment and wildlife.

Wildlife relies on grass and water for their food and shelter.

So it's important to make sure that grass and water are managed properly so that everyone can continue to utilize these great resources.

I'm Brad Schmidt I've been on the regional grounds for DU and have been with DU for about two years now.

What we see is a lot of conventional tillage.

So I mean, you see a lot of black dirt that's tilled up annually.

Every every fall and every spring.

When we do that, as we're treating our soils almost like a catastrophic event because we have microbes and fungi and everything, they're living in that soil that help us transfer nutrients to plants and bring up water to plants, everything like that.

So when we go through and do these tillage events, what we're doing is it's it's a natural disaster to that soil.

Soil is full of microscopic life called microbes.

These are things living in the soil that are so small that you need a microscope to see them.

These microbes, such as bacteria, are essential for the health of the soil and the plants.

Since plants are rooted in soil, they rely on the soil around them to provide the nutrients they need to live and grow.

These tiny bacteria live on or inside live plant roots and can help the plant absorb nutrients.

They even protect the plant from disease or drought.

However, when the soil is tilled, the live plant roots that the bacteria we're living on are ripped up.

Without a home, these bacteria die and the health of the soil is depleted.

So it's harder to grow the crops we need for food.

We're all connected with soil because every single thing that we need to survive food, air and water all originates from the soil.

So if we're not taking care of the soil and thinking about soil first, we as humans and it's not even just the ducks that aren't going to have existence anymore, it's going to be us as well.

So I think one thing that we forget about is as humans are not invincible.

We're an animal just like everything else is.

So we have to think about what we're doing in this world that's going to impact for generations to come.

(Music) I'm Jim Faulstich, a rancher from central South Dakota.

I've lived here all my life.

My folks established this ranch back in the thirties and forties.

We had to change.

We knew what we were doing wasn't sustainable.

So we've changed our priority from being predominantly all about production at whatever cost there is to the environment, to placing natural resources, and to managing not only our operation, but the landscape.

Ducks Unlimited has done various research studies showing different types of grazing systems.

And grazing strategies are beneficial not only to the ducks but also to the livestock producer and it's better for the habitat.

You have an increased species richness and species diversity out there, so it's just a great partnership working with the ranchers out here.

It's great to see organizations working with farmers and ranchers to come up with sustainable farming solutions to protect the wetland habitats.

Ducks Unlimited has many different partnerships.

One of our most important partnerships is with private landowners.

Private landowners hold most of the habitat in the Prairie Pothole Region, and that's crucial to work with these individuals.

We're very fortunate as an organization to have passionate conservationists that invest in our programs, and they fully realize that we're impacting the landscape for waterfowl.

But they really appreciate how we do it by partnering with private landowners, government agencies and other nonprofit organizations.

We can't do it alone.

We need the partnerships and together we're going to make a difference for future generations.

So we've we work in partnership with some federal agencies to secure conservation easements that prevent grass from being killed and the wetlands from being drained.

Those easements still allow the landowner to utilize that land.

You can still graze it, cut it for hay.

You can if it's farmland, you can farm the wetlands when they're dry.

You just can't can't artificially drain those wetlands.

Wait, wait, hold on.

I don't think I quite understood that.

What is a conservation easement and what does it have to do with conservation of wetlands?

A conservation easement is what makes protecting private land possible.

It's an agreement between a private landowner and a conservation organization.

So what exactly do you mean by private landowner?

A Private landowner is anyone who owns land.

So that could be a farmer, rancher, a family, or whoever.

The landowner agrees to let their land be used as a conservation area for that unique environment and wildlife that relies on it.

This doesn't mean that the land is now a park or open to the public in any way.

The private landowners still own their land.

They just agree not to do certain things on it that might hurt the environment.

Like draining the wetlands.

These agreements are a great way for landowners to keep their land, but also help preserve it for the wildlife that lives there too.

My family and I decided to do a conservation easement with Ducks Unlimited.

You know we sat down as a family and started to understand that this is, you know, this isn't going to be open for the public, that it would still be for the family.

And that was the biggest thing for us, you know, is it's kind of a getaway place that the family can enjoy from grandparents down to grandkids.

And the biggest reason we decided to go with that was because also being able to preserve the ground, increasing the forage, I think it's done all of that so far.

Oh, I see.

It's kind of like you're volunteering.

Your backyard as a safe place for plants and wildlife.

It's still your backyard, but also a conservation area for the environment.

Exactly.

Conservation easements with private landowners are vital to protecting the natural habitat for the wildlife sake, but also ourselves.

From a wildlife habitat standpoint, wetlands are very important.

It's also important to recognize that wetlands play a vital role in things like improving water quality.

They're great filters to it to improve the quality of water that flows through a wetland.

They can help with flood control and wetlands recharge the groundwater, which is very important here.

And they're also just great places to go and recreate.

That's right.

Not only do wetlands help improve water quality and protect against floods, they also act as a carbon sink.

That means that they store carbon from the atmosphere by holding it in their plants and in their soil.

Holding a lot of carbon helps restore the soil's health.

This can help lead to better crop growth, resistance from drought and even protection against erosion.

Who would have thought that dirt played such a big role in keeping our planet healthy?

I mean, that is one of our huge priorities and goals is to to help educate our our urban consumers, and recreators how important what we do in managing grasslands is.

And I think the younger generation is going to appreciate where their food comes from, water quality, carbon sequestration.

And it's all important.

And there isn't anything that does it any better than well-managed grasslands.

(Music) Well, there you have it.

Wetland habitats aren't just important for waterfowl and other wildlife.

They're also important for us, too.

That's why it's so important to continue protecting wetland habitats on both private and public land so that we can preserve this environment for future generations.

Yeah, you're totally right.

This habitats aren't just weeds and puddles.

They're actually full of life.

And I admit, it has been pretty cool learning about wetlands and conservation with you today.

And you know what?

You should try visiting a wetland habitat next time you head Into the Outdoors!

(music) “Grab your gear and” “Lets explore.” “As we discover” “The wild outdoors.” “Science.

Discovery.” “Is what we do.” “You can make our Earth.” “A bright and better planet.” “By joining us.” “In this wide open space.” “Into the Outdoors.” The following organizations have provided funding for this Into the Outdoors television series.