EP 580. Saving North America’s Birdlife and Habitat

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to Mojo’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today we are collaborating with Ducks Unlimited. Joining us in the studio is Mr. Mike Brazier, and we’re going to delve into the alarming decline in not only duck but all bird populations, and we’re going to pivot into the role of hunter-funded habitat conservation. Mike, how the heck are you today?

Mike Brazier: I’m doing great, Ramsey. It’s always good to be on the podcast with you. I appreciate doing this.

“It’s easy for us duck hunters to worry about our ducks, and you’ve been living under a rock if you don’t realize that in the past few years duck populations have declined for reasons we’re going to talk about.”

Ramsey Russell: Likewise, I love to have smart people like yourself on here to help me go through some stuff. And the reason I reached out to you, Mike, is because Ducks Unlimited, you all’s social media platform is where I first came across the research we’re going to talk about today. And it was in the form of a very, very well-done graphical chart showing different bird cadre of bird species and their relative decline in the past 50 years. And it was jaw-dropping. I’ve read and heard on the internet that migratory birds weren’t doing well. And, for those of you all listening, waterfowl ain’t the only bird to migrate. In fact, most of them migrate. And I’ve read and seen, like over in Europe, migratory birds are really not doing well. But I did not know that since 1970, North America has lost 3 billion birds. And we’re basing this on a 2019 State of the Bird Cornell Lab report that then shook the world with this alarming decline. It’s easy for us duck hunters to worry about our ducks, and you’ve been living under a rock if you don’t realize that in the past few years duck populations have declined for reasons we’re going to talk about. Mike, what’s behind the loss of nearly 3 billion birds since 1970?

“It’s habitat, habitat, habitat. If you study wildlife, you study birds. The foundational element to sustaining populations is habitat.”

Mike Brazier: Ramsey, it comes down to one simple thing. I say it’s simple, one multifaceted thing. Overwhelmingly, the loss of bird populations, like so many other wildlife populations, is the loss of habitat, the conversion of habitat, the degradation of habitat due to all sorts of reasons in the places that are important to those birds or other wildlife populations. It’s habitat, habitat, habitat. If you study wildlife, you study birds. The foundational element to sustaining populations is habitat. There are a number of drivers behind the decline, the loss and conversion of habitat. And that’s where we can get into a lot of the details. But if you don’t have the habitat, you don’t have the populations. In some places, if you go back far enough, even here in North America, you can point to unregulated harvest. And we’ve had that conversation before. Yes, you can overharvest any wildlife population out there. But since 1918, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act here in North America, regulated harvest has not been implicated in the decline of any bird population.

Ramsey Russell: I know habitat loss is the ultimate driver, but what about issues like pesticide use, climate change, urban sprawl, collisions, house cats?

Mike Brazier: Yep, all those types of things, Ramsey. Rachel Carson, in her classic book Silent Spring, chronicled the decline of certain bird populations at that time. Some of that was attributed to widespread use of some chemicals that we now know probably should not have been used. DDT had some pretty systemic effects on certain birds. And you stop the DDT, and you see a recovery of raptor populations. No better example than bald eagles. We see those things in so many places now. So there’s a lot of different messages in that little story alone. If you’re able to monitor the bird populations, if you’re able to study the populations, and when you study something, you get data, and you’re able to diagnose a problem, you’re able to implement a solution, and voila, you can, in that particular situation, reverse a declining trend. That is a special case where we saw a pretty acute effect of a pesticide. And those types of things, when you identify them, you’re like, okay, well there’s our solution. But as you’re pointing out, when it comes to the conversion of these important habitats, there’s so many different things that will contribute to that. Heard someone recently use this phrase, death by a thousand cuts. That’s so appropriate in our studies of birds and other wildlife. It is urban sprawl, it is conversion for agricultural uses, it is rising sea levels, it is changing environmental conditions, warming sea temperatures that are changing prey bases, which are not necessarily eliminating habitat, but they’re degrading the quality of that habitat. Because habitat by definition is a place that provides certain resources for an animal to meet its life cycle needs. And so when you take away the food, you’re effectively taking away that habitat or that area’s habitat. So a whole host of things contribute to habitat loss and bird population declines.

Ramsey Russell: One thing that graph depicted, waterfowl were doing relatively better than all the rest. And we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But on the one hand, it was like cadres of birds, but on the other hand, it is how those cadres of birds were related specifically to habitat. You know, if we’re talking about habitat loss, that to me really pointed out, made a very good point about where we should be concerned in terms of habitat. So I’m going to start off this way and ask you to differentiate between generalists that could utilize all those different habitats versus specialists. Because if you start looking at specific species that were talked about in that paper, the ones that were hurt the most were very specialized within their habitat.

Mike Brazier: Yeah, well, so we’ll touch briefly on these ecological terms here that you appropriately brought up, a generalist versus a specialist. And there is no better, since we’re talking to a waterfowl crowd, I’ll use duck examples. There is no better example, I’ll do two of them. No two better examples of generalist species in the waterfowl world than the mallard and the Canada goose. Those species have adapted to use pretty much any habitat type, any type of vegetation, any location, any type of wetland to acquire the resources that they need to survive and reproduce. That comes in the form of food, that comes in the form of cover, that comes in the form of places to nest. Mallards will nest in your flower garden. Canada geese will nest on a golf course. Both of those species will nest in elevated nesting structures. They will eat pretty much anything they can. So they are generalists. That is why we see those two species being so resilient in the face of all the different pressures they face. At the other end of the spectrum are specialists, which typically have either very restricted range, they’re found in very few places, or they have very specialized diets. In a lot of cases, it’s a little bit of both. There’s some examples we could point to. If we wanted to look at sea ducks, let’s say a king eider, very restricted in its distribution. It probably has some fairly specialized dietary requirements. But for a species that a lot of people are going to be a bit more familiar with, I would consider on the gradient of a specialist the redhead. It’s a specialist in its foraging habits. You will find them in a number of places, but they are typically going to specialize on submerged aquatic vegetation. And if you get down on the Texas coast or into the Laguna Madre of Mexico, they will specialize on shoalgrass, on the rhizomes of shoalgrass. So those birds are typically a bit more sensitive to threats to their habitat, whether that be all the different resources found in a limited geographic area or impacts that may be affecting one particular item that is important to their survival, whether it be food or nesting site. So was that kind of what you’re looking for?

Ramsey Russell: It is, because I think it leads right into, the more specialized something is, the more dependent on its particular habitat.

Mike Brazier: Exactly.

Ramsey Russell: What bird species should we be most concerned about right now?

Mike Brazier: Let’s back up just a little bit. I want to provide a bit more context to this State of the Birds report, if that’s okay.

Ramsey Russell: Yes.

Mike Brazier: You mentioned the 2019 study. That was a paper that came out in the journal Science. The lead author was Ken Rosenberg. He’s retired from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. That created a groundswell of interest and made headlines all over North America. About 3 billion birds estimated to have been lost from the combined bird populations in North America since the 1970s. So that was independent of the State of the Birds report. The U.S. State of the Birds report, which the 2025 version was released just, I think it was two weeks ago, is a short document produced every two to three years by a consortium of bird conservation organizations, state, nonprofit, some federal organizations have contributed to it in the past. It is under the auspices of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative. Every two to three years, it provides a renewed analysis of the trend in bird populations and also tells some success stories. It identifies opportunities. It’s designed as a concise report that provides a snapshot of the status and trends of bird populations while also conveying key conservation messages and conservation needs to really anyone who’s going to read this, but it’s targeting some of the decision makers, whether we think about our legislative bodies or the administrators of our different wildlife agencies. It’s a way to keep birds front of mind for those making decisions about habitat conservation. Because, Ramsey, you know as well as I do that when we conserve habitat for birds, we are conserving habitat for many, many other types of fish and wildlife. We are also improving the natural world around us and the livelihoods and economies of people. It’s one of the other things that this report does. It highlights the economic significance of bird populations and bird-related activity, whether we’re talking about hunting, bird watching, or so forth. I do have some numbers that we can throw out here later on to highlight some of those important statistics. So, that’s what the State of the Birds report is. In it, it has this graph you referred to, documenting the trend in these different groups of birds since the 1970s. It categorizes birds based on their dominant habitat association. For example, we’ve got grassland birds, arid land birds, shorebirds, eastern forest birds, western forest birds. Waterfowl are treated a little bit special here, if I’m being honest. We have a group of dabbling and diving ducks, we have sea ducks, and then we have water birds. All of those are wetland-dependent species, but we kind of separate those out because there are some important trends to differentiate there. So across all of those bird groups I mentioned, grassland birds are the ones that have declined the most since the 1970s. When you look across all the grassland bird species accounted for in this report, they’ve declined by 43% since the 1970s. Contrast that with dabbling and diving ducks, which are at the other end, they have increased 24% since the 1970s. Although there’s another message in here, which I’m sure we’ll get to. There have been some recent declines from the record levels of seven to nine years ago. So grassland birds, shorebirds, those types of birds, are ones that have seen some of the greatest declines.

Ramsey Russell: Well, you speak of grassland birds, Mike, and 34% decline. They were one of the hardest hit.
Mike Brazier: 43.
Ramsey Russell: 43% decline. Wow.
Mike Brazier: Yeah.

“Explain why Ducks Unlimited’s wetlands restoration has succeeded and what lessons can be learned or adapted to non-hunting species like upland birds. Why are grassland birds being hit so hard? 43% decline.”

Ramsey Russell: Let me say it this way. Explain why Ducks Unlimited’s wetlands restoration has succeeded and what lessons can be learned or adapted to non-hunting species like upland birds. Why are grassland birds being hit so hard? 43% decline.
Mike Brazier: Ramsey, I’ve done a number of interviews since this report was released a week and a half ago. We’re recording this, what is this, like the last week of March right now? So this report came out in mid-March, early March. I’ve done a number of interviews on this. But I’m glad I had the opportunity to talk with you because I knew you were going to ask some of these questions to really get into some of these details. And so, as I started out, it’s about habitat loss. When you look at grasslands in North America, many people will refer to them as the most threatened ecosystem, certainly in North America, if not the world. I don’t have the statistics on me. I could probably look in here and find them, but I don’t know how many millions of acres of grasslands have been lost. Actually, I’m looking at the report now. More than 320 million acres of grasslands once existed across the U.S. I don’t know what that number is now, but there are estimated 1 to 2 million acres of grasslands lost, converted, in North America, or maybe in the U.S., every year.

“So it’s coordinated, large-scale, well-funded conservation that is targeting a shared objective. For so many years, that has been waterfowl and wetlands.”

And so there’s a number of reasons for the conversion of those grasslands. So it’s habitat loss that is driving that. Now, one of the things that you picked up on there is that, well, ducks use grasslands too, right? A lot of people will say, hey, ducks are grassland birds too. But what’s happening with waterfowl is quite a bit different from what we’re seeing with grassland birds. I think there are a number of reasons for that. Some of it’s going to relate to the ecology of the species. But more important than anything else is waterfowl have been a focus of continental-scale, collaborative, well-funded conservation for over 100 years. We can go all the way back to the start of it all with the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, foundational legislation which regulated the harvest of these birds to make sure we weren’t overharvesting them. Then came other pieces of legislation, such as the Duck Stamp Act, the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act, that’s the full technical name, which provides vital funding for the acquisition and protection of wetlands and other habitats for migratory birds through the National Wildlife Refuge System. There have been a number of other funding structures, the Pittman-Robertson, that’s the 11% excise tax on firearms, ammunition, archery. Those funds go back to the states to help with a lot of wildlife management, many of which are spent on conservation that supports waterfowl and wetlands. And then you can look at things that have been more recent, such as the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, which is a federal program dedicated to conserving, restoring, protecting wetlands, not just in the U.S. but also some of that money gets spent in Mexico and Canada. For good reason, because, as you know as well as anyone, Ramsey, waterfowl do not recognize our political boundaries. The ducks produced in Canada are the ducks that we shoot every year down here. The birds that go to Mexico are the birds that then travel back through the U.S. and then go to Canada to breed. So it’s an international resource. The other thing that echoes that recognition is the North American Waterfowl Management Plan of 1986, which formalized that agreement between our three countries, Canada, U.S., and Mexico, to collaborate on landscape-scale conservation in support of waterfowl. That meant doing the science to understand what the ducks and geese need, then mobilizing all of our agencies and organizations to pull in the same direction and deliver the habitat where waterfowl need it, in the right places, at the right time. So it’s coordinated, large-scale, well-funded conservation that is targeting a shared objective. For so many years, that has been waterfowl and wetlands.

Ramsey Russell: Why are these grassland habitats in North America, in the United States, worldwide, why are they so particularly vulnerable?
Mike Brazier: That’s a good question, Ramsey. I’m not going to profess to having the best answer. There’s still millions of acres of grasslands out there, but they’re being lost at an alarming rate, being converted at an alarming rate. In some sense, you can look at this and say, well, we’ve already seen the conversion of a lot of the other vegetative communities, let’s say bottomland hardwoods, and those things were converted many decades ago. You ask the question of why that might be, like, well, that’s a valuable resource from the standpoint of timber production, the timber that was pulled off of there. But then, once you pull the timber off, you reveal that super productive soil, and it has then provided the foundation for a lot of the crops that are grown in the U.S. to support our people and our economies. In some sense, we’re probably looking at this and saying grasslands are some of the areas that were the last to be converted to some of those agricultural uses in that way. And I know you’ll appreciate this, we don’t want to point a finger at anybody and say you’re doing bad by converting something. We’re not pointing the finger at farmers saying they’re the problem or anything of that nature. What we do understand is there are some places that just aren’t very productive from an agricultural standpoint. I think farmers would even tell you that, I know they would, because there are a lot of these programs that we can put in place, like the Conservation Reserve Program, to take out marginal cropland and put it back into a more natural vegetation state. Farmers signed up for that because it was so difficult to make, it’s so difficult for farmers to make a dollar, period. But then when you’re working on marginal farmland, it becomes even more challenging. So it’s a matter of trying to find the appropriate voluntary incentives or supporting alternative land uses that will keep some of that grass on the landscape, where it can be used by the landowner, by the rancher, by the farmer, to contribute to their personal bottom line, while still serving as that valuable grassland bird or other wildlife habitat. That’s the ultimate challenge, how can we all make the best use of the land that we have out there, especially when we’re talking about some of these native grasslands that remain.

Ramsey Russell: You talked about bottomland hardwoods. It’s one thing to go out with equipment and root rakes and everything else and convert a bottomland hardwood forest to an agricultural field or to a parking lot versus prairie grassland. It’s ready-made, disk, plow, smooth, and lay the pavement or plant the crops. Now you mentioned earlier that ducks are grassland species. Elaborate on that because what I’d asked you pre-show, what I’d asked you is, are these the same grasslands that our beloved ducks are nesting in? It shocks me. To this day, it shocks me how far a mallard or pintail or green-winged teal or wood duck will build a nest and produce a clutch. How far and remote from the nearest water source they are. But they really are grassland species in this regard, aren’t they?

Mike Brazier: They are. So many of the ducks that we shoot down here, that we hunt and that we see, the dabbling ducks in particular, are ground-nesting birds. Wood ducks are cavity-nesting birds. Most folks are going to know that. We’ve got species like canvasbacks and redheads, which will build a nest in cattails. They’ll make a little cattail platform and they’ll nest literally over water. That’s where you will find a redhead or a canvasback nest, and a few other diving ducks kind of do the same thing, but closer to the edge of the wetland. But a lot of our dabbling ducks, green-winged teal, blue-winged teal, mallards, pintails, shovelers, wigeon. Which ones am I missing? Did I say gadwall? They are ground-nesting birds, Ramsey. I remember the first time I traveled to North Dakota in Canada. I remember the first time I found a duck nest on the ground. I was like, that is so freaking cool. This is a bird that I had previously only seen either in the air or on the water. And now I’m seeing this hen duck on a nest on the ground. And I’m thinking, man, she is so vulnerable.

Ramsey Russell: How far wielded from water?

“Yet, there may be some that will nest up to a mile away from the nearest wetland. And you’re thinking, why do they do that? Why do they make some of these decisions?”

Mike Brazier: Well, it varies. It depends. There are some instances where you’ll find them right next to the wetland. And it’s going to vary a little bit based on which species we’re talking about. Some will nest a little bit closer than others. Yet, there may be some that will nest up to a mile away from the nearest wetland. And you’re thinking, why do they do that? Why do they make some of these decisions? I would say the majority of them, well, it’s going to depend on the landscape that you’re in. You get in some of these landscapes where the wetland density is so high, then you’re looking at 100 meters, 200, 500 meters from the nest to a wetland. But then there could be some other areas during a year when there are fewer wetlands as a result of a drought that they’re going to be nesting much farther. And so, whether they’re choosing to nest a mile away from that wetland, or if they’re nesting in the location where they nested previously that, let’s say it would have been wet that previous year and they would have been 200 meters from that wetland, are they being drawn all the way back to that nest site despite there not being wetlands around in that particular year? I don’t know. I’m just kind of thinking out loud as I’m answering your question. But bottom line, they will nest, in some cases, up to a mile away from the nearest wetland.

Ramsey Russell: That’s great.

Mike Brazier: Can you imagine that?

Ramsey Russell: No, I can’t.

Mike Brazier: Within 24 hours of hatching, those little ducklings are on the ground, walking from that nest bowl to that wetland.

“You never would have dreamed that a duck would be that far removed from the water. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make.”

Ramsey Russell: I know that wood ducks are cavity nesters. And the reason I threw that in there when I was thinking about remoteness from wetlands is, in downtown Starkville, a mile off campus behind the old bagel shop, which puts you on a map, was a half a block, maybe walking distance, from Little Dewey’s Barbecue was a great big sycamore tree. And every year, a hen wood duck made a nest in that sycamore tree. But I mean, it’s civilization. It’s a parking lot. It’s neighbourhoods. And if you looked at the old map and, like, well, how far am I from water? Where is she taking these birds? It would have been ¾ of a mile or more to the nearest creek. Well, five feet from where, five or ten feet from where those little wood duck fuzzballs would have hit terra firma from that tree, was the storm drain. And best I could figure, she was probably producing in that tree, jumping down that storm drain, walking ¾ of a mile to a creek. And I’m thinking, man, this is, maybe so. You never would have dreamed that a duck would be that far removed from the water. That’s the whole point I’m trying to make. But are these the same grasslands? When we start talking about these imperiled, is it the same type of habitat that we’re talking about, the same type grassland?

Mike Brazier: It is, Ramsey, with maybe an exception. When you think about the grasslands of the central and southern Great Plains, let’s say from the Panhandle of Texas north to, let’s say, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, those areas, that portion of the central grasslands, are not characterized by high-density wetlands. There are some wetlands out through there, but it’s not the prairie pothole region. The prairie pothole region, of course, is the duck factory here in North America. And that’s because it has the combination of grass and wetlands. So there are sort of two parts to this. Yes, the grasslands in the prairie pothole region are the same grasslands that support grassland songbirds, and they’re also the same grasslands and wetlands that support ducks. But then when you get into some of the areas farther south, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, etc., you don’t have that rich, high-density wetland-grassland mosaic. And so that’s why those areas, of course, aren’t as important to breeding ducks because they don’t have the wetlands. But they are still important to that broader suite of grassland songbirds, which do not have as strong a need for the wetlands the way waterfowl do. So yes, they’re the same, but a little bit different depending on where you are geographically.

Ramsey Russell: How important are private lands in terms of habitat loss and recovery, especially in agricultural regions?

Mike Brazier: Oh, that’s critical. That’s where the vast majority, and when I say vast majority.

Ramsey Russell: 70%, maybe 3%?

Mike Brazier: No, no, no. I would say, if you’re talking about grasslands, where are grasslands public versus private, man, I bet you it’s north of 90%, if not 95%, for grasslands. Because there just aren’t that many, in the central grasslands, I bet you it’s north of 90, if not north of 95, is where the majority of the grasslands are on private land in the U.S., and maybe in North America as well. Probably North America, across the U.S. and Canada. And of course, there are grasslands down in Mexico too. I don’t want any of our listeners from that part of the country to think that we’re being dismissive of the grasslands of north-central Mexico, the Chihuahuan grasslands, I believe. That’s an absolutely spectacular place as well. But yeah, private land is where the overwhelming majority of grasslands are. And that’s why the work that we do, and every other bird conservation organization that cares about grassland birds, it’s absolutely crucial to work with private landowners again to find those mutually beneficial solutions. What are the landowners’ interests? How can we develop conservation programs that match those interests and then still keep those grasslands in the state that will benefit birds and all the other animals?

Ramsey Russell: That leads me into the very next question, Mike. Ducks Unlimited is the leader in wetlands habitat conservation, bar none. How does the Ducks Unlimited model scale beyond just wetlands into critical habitats such as grasslands? Let me ask it another way. How does the Ducks Unlimited model and some of the federal funding go on to private lands to produce more ducks beyond wetlands?

Mike Brazier: Well, we work, fundamentally, Ducks Unlimited, the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, other conservation organizations, have decisions rooted in a scientific understanding of what the birds need. And you can’t be successful in conserving bird populations without understanding what they need from a habitat standpoint, or whatever else may be limiting their population. And so that’s where it all starts, with data collection, science, analysis of that data, and understanding what’s going on with different species in different places at a given point in time. And so we work where ducks and the information that we collect from ducks tell us we need to be working and delivering the type of habitat that we need to be doing. And it starts with wetlands, from a kind of habitat-type standpoint, of course, because we’re talking about waterfowl. But it’s different types of wetlands. Also, it’s boreal forest, which is this mass up in northern Canada, which is this multi-billion acre landscape, this mosaic of evergreen forest and semi-permanent and permanent wetlands. It is bottomland hardwoods here in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. It is rice agriculture in the Central Valley of California or the Gulf Coast or the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Or it is coastal wetlands on the East Coast or on the Great Lakes. So it’s a lot of different types of habitats that support waterfowl. And that’s why we have people in all of those geographies. You can’t work, I don’t know how many people realize this, but here I work at National Headquarters. And whenever we give tours of National Headquarters, and this is a good point that’ll sort of drive home the way Ducks Unlimited thinks about our work, when people come for a tour here at National Headquarters, which people are welcome to do, and they walk through the different parts of the building, they will find the vast majority of our membership folks are here. That’s not our field staff, not our regional directors, and all the folks that support the banquets. But like our membership staff, all of our accounting, all of our HR, a vast majority of our communication folks, they’ll all be here. A lot of our media folks will be here. But when we get to the Conservation Department, there’s only like 10 or 15 of us back there. That’s because our conservation staff, which consists of both biologists and engineers, are out in the field. They’re at our regional offices across the U.S. They’re at our field offices that are in some of the higher-priority landscapes, such as coastal Texas, coastal Louisiana, New York, the places in the Great Plains, and then other places in the Central Valley of California, in the Pacific Northwest. Our people are in the field where we need to be doing our work. And so that’s the way you scale it, Ramsey. It is a commitment to being where we need to be. And where we need to be is where the ducks tell us we need to be.

Ramsey Russell: Federal Duck Stamp programs generated over a billion dollars for wetlands and habitat conservation since 1934. And I remember a statistic that, unlike a lot of taxes, 98% of Duck Stamp dollars is earmarked specifically towards habitat and production grounds. And I know they put a lot of this on National Wildlife Refuge. You’ve established that private lands were so important. And a lot of how those Duck Stamp dollars end up on those critical private lands is through perpetual easements.

Mike Brazier: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Which is all to say this, Mike. How vital is hunter-funded conservation, or as our buddy Heath Hagee called it, crowdfunded conservation? How important is that in reversing the trends we’re seeing in these bird declines?

Mike Brazier: Well, it is. Those types of programs are why waterfowl continue to be recognized as a conservation success story. Populations of waterfowl are still up 24% since the 1970s. Yes, we’re down about 30% from the record highs of 2015, but it’s still a conservation success story. And it is because of those types of programs. The Duck Stamp program, which has contributed over a billion dollars. And the way it does it, it’s not a regulatory thing, it’s not a heavy-handed thing. The money, as you’ve talked about, goes in some cases to acquire additional property for National Wildlife Refuges, in some cases to fund permanent easements on critical waterfowl habitats in the prairies, specifically grasslands and wetlands, those very things we’ve talked about. But they’re voluntary. Nobody is forcing any landowner to do this. But there is a payment made to the landowner through the Small Wetlands Acquisition Program. There’s a legal agreement in place to maintain those wetlands and grasslands. I’m not going to get into the specific elements of the agreement, but otherwise, you can’t drain the wetland and you can’t convert the grassland. Those are kind of the most basic things. It’s ensuring that wetlands and grasslands remain in that condition in perpetuity. And it’s done through those voluntary permanent easements purchased with Duck Stamps. And those places produce ducks that then migrate every year and that we see over our decoys. And in the process, those wetlands and those grasslands are supporting pheasants, supporting other songbirds, supporting these grassland birds that we’ve talked about. They’re supporting a lot of these other wetland birds, whether we’re talking rails, some of which are hunted species also, and all these other charismatic water birds that use those areas. So the Duck Stamp and the way that money is used, incredibly efficient, is one of the reasons why waterfowl continue to be a conservation success story.

Ramsey Russell: The North American model is state and federal agencies, programs, public donations, and NGOs such as Ducks Unlimited. As a manager and a biologist, Mike, do you ever worry that this model is being threatened as hunter numbers decline?

Mike Brazier: I do, Ramsey, and this gets to that previous question about hunter-funded conservation. The Duck Stamp is just one of those. You don’t have to be a hunter to purchase a Duck Stamp. I like to always emphasize that. You can go to duckstamp.com, purchase a Duck Stamp, you can go to a post office, purchase a Duck Stamp. $25. 98 cents out of each of those $25 goes directly to conservation. So, waterfowl hunters are required to purchase that. They’re required to purchase a license. License sales are also a key funding mechanism for our state wildlife agencies, which provide access to the places that we recreate, that we hunt, where we fish, where we hike, where we kayak, whatever it is. You don’t have to be a hunter. There’s another thing that I told somebody else the other day. They were asking, one of these interviews I did, how can people contribute? There are three easy ways to contribute. So buy a Duck Stamp or two or three or four. Join a conservation organization. Or buy a hunting license. You don’t have to be a hunter to buy a hunting license. If you appreciate what your state agency does in providing access to some of those locations, you can buy a hunting license. Most of your state wildlife agencies are funded principally on the revenue that comes from hunting and fishing licenses. So three very easy things. So hunters are at the center of all three of those things. Yes, when we talk about the loss of hunters or the loss of societal support for hunting, basically what we’re hearing is that our very system of habitat conservation, wildlife conservation, is also being threatened by those very things. Because if you lose hunting and lose hunters, our current model will not exist. And with it will go billions of dollars for conservation that supports bird populations, wildlife populations, fish populations, and every person that enjoys or uses those. The other thing I’ll point out here, and this is in the State of the Birds report, there is a little section at the back that talks about how when we conserve birds and bird habitats, we’re also strengthening American economies. It’s been estimated by a recent study that $108 billion is the amount that was spent annually on birding trips, such as food, lodging, and equipment. That doesn’t include hunting. You can add another two or three billion dollars to that when you factor in bird hunting. And then you add on top of that all the other kinds of hunting, and there are tens of billions of dollars in addition to that. 1.4 million jobs related to birding trips, equipment expenditures. And it’s even greater than that when you throw hunting into that. $38 billion in tax revenue generated from birding activities. So the total economic output from birding only, this isn’t hunting, but birding only, $280 billion. You’re getting north of $300 billion when you throw in hunting of different types as well. So hunting, outdoor recreation centered around birds and bird habitats and how they support other wildlife populations, it’s big business, man. And when we see a decline in hunters, along with that goes a big chunk of the money, the jobs, the tax revenue that I just talked about.

Ramsey Russell: You don’t have to be a hunter to participate in this crowdfunded conservation model.

Mike Brazier: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Mike. If you’ve got any suggestions for how to message a non-hunting public, an urban society that is otherwise removed from nature, how can we communicate to them the need for them to, whether they buy a hunting license or not, somehow contribute and participate meaningfully in this conservation model? It’s not going to just fix itself.

Mike Brazier: It’s not. I don’t know if I’m ever effective in communicating this, Ramsey, but the one thing that I know for certain is that we can’t be working against one another. Somebody that cares about fish and wildlife and the wild places that we have conserved with the billions of dollars that hunters and hunting-related activities have contributed, we can’t say that we don’t need those things. We can’t say they’re the problem. We can’t be working against one another. The people that aren’t hunters, that don’t have an interest in that, that’s fine. I have a lot of those folks that are my friends, that are my family, and that’s fine. But what we can’t do is be arguing against one another and saying we don’t need one or both of those groups. We have to work together. The threats to our wildlife, to our birds, to the habitats they depend on are too great for us to be fighting about this and saying we don’t need you. Because the fact of the matter is, we need it all. We need everybody participating and contributing in their own way. Whether it is through one of those three ways that I talked about earlier, purchasing a duck stamp, joining a conservation organization, or buying a hunting license, or whether it be through voicing, making your opinions and your interest known to your political representatives. All those types of things are important. So my message is probably always one of, we can agree to disagree on why we value these different things, these wild places, but let’s not try to tear one another down. Let’s find a way to work together because, at the end of the day, wild places, wild things are what provide us enjoyment, and there should be enough space for all of us to enjoy it in our own way and in our own place and time. But it’s going to take all of us contributing in many different ways to allow that to continue to happen.

Ramsey Russell: Exactly.

Mike Brazier: That’s not an elevator.

Ramsey Russell: No, I agree. I agree with you entirely. Most people that don’t hunt are just non-hunters. They just don’t hunt. There’s an outlying bunch that is anti-hunting. Do you believe that, in the past, I have reached out to some of these anti-hunting organizations, and they don’t even dignify my inquiry with a no. And I was telling the story in a duck blind one day, and somebody said, “Why the heck would you want to interview an anti-hunter anyway?” I said, “Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute, because we can agree, me the hunter, them the anti-hunter, we can agree that we both like wildlife. Now can we find some common ground beyond that to contribute meaningfully to habitat conservation?

Mike Brazier: Yeah, you would think so. You would think so. And have you been able to have any conversation?

Ramsey Russell: No, I wish. I wish. I’ve tried. Not to argue. I don’t want to argue with them, and I don’t like seeing talking heads argue. I just want to try to find some common ground because now the non-hunting public, I get. You weren’t raised into it. You don’t do it. You don’t have opportunities to do it. But I think if I agree with what you say, that if you can show them the value, that yes, we may be talking about a decline in a bird, but that is literally the canary in a coal mine. It does affect humanity. I think they can get on board with that.

Mike Brazier: And the other thing I realize is a lot of this is like there’s emotion tied to our positions. We’re all guilty of that. But we have invested more resources, more intellectual capacity into understanding the effect of harvest on bird populations in North America than maybe any other group of wildlife on the planet. Fisheries is probably an exception, there’s a ton of work that goes on there. But we are absolutely 100% committed to making sure that harvest is not causing population declines. And I think we have shown that. And so I think that’s what gets lost a lot of times. Folks just think hunting is just out for the experience of killing. And any hunter will tell you, no, that’s not the case. We enjoy all the different aspects of hunting. And I don’t know, it’s about more than that. And we do not want to hunt if we know that hunting is going to contribute to a decline in the population. That’s not what we’re about. Hunting is the pathway through which we have grown to enjoy the resource and everything else that those opportunities give us, from family, to friends, to social experiences, to getting away from the stress of daily life. It’s so important to us for so many reasons. And it is antithetical to think that we would support hunting if we know it is going to be contributing to a decline in the population, because that would be self-defeating. And I think that is why so many hunters do support the science-based management of harvest. There’s always going to be disagreements. There’s always going to be people questioning, “Why can’t we do it this way? Why can’t we do it that way?” Those questions are good. You know why people ask those questions, Ramsey? It’s because they care. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t ask the questions. So we have to keep asking the questions, but we have to be respectful about all that. And that’s a great thing when we can achieve that.

Ramsey Russell: I agree. I agree entirely. And one thing I will say, as an ardent supporter of Ducks Unlimited, I think that you all have done an incredible job building conservation partnerships outside of the hunting community. I’ve seen you work in agriculture. I’ve seen you work in a lot of different areas for the greater good. It just reminds me, I went to a big Ducks Unlimited banquet last year in Washington D.C., and on a Tuesday or Thursday night, there were 750-something people. And you step out and look, and boy, there’s the Capitol. And as I made the rounds and talked to people and sat with people before, during, and after the event, the face of conservation today is way, way bigger than just us duck hunters.

Mike Brazier: It is. It really is. And Ramsey, that’s a good opportunity for me, kind of coming back to this State of the Birds report. People can read this State of the Birds report at stateofthebirds.org. It’s the 2025 U.S. State of the Birds Report. And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge all of the other different folks that contributed to this. I’m not going to name everyone, the different organizations that were involved in this. On the back, no fewer than 50 scientists across North America contributed to this. No fewer than 20 organizations contributed to this. It was my honor to serve as the co-chair of the State of the Birds report committee with Dr. Amanda Rodewald from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. All sorts of other organizations here, from Audubon to American Bird Conservancy and the Wildlife Society, Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Shout out to Bradley Wilkinson, who is the coordinator for the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, who works as an employee of that Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. So that represents all the different state organizations that are wrapped up in this. And just a true honor to work alongside Amanda. And since I kind of have the ability to do so here, I’ll thank the three people that helped me with the waterfowl and wetland spread here. That’s Dr. Josh Vest up there in the prairies, Kate Martin, the coordinator for the Sea Duck Joint Venture, and Dustin Brewer, he is with a university, Lake Superior State University, I think, right now. So a big thank you to all of those. Ramsey, one thing that maybe I would let people know, when they look at this report, if they look at that graph, they will not see geese or swans. That is because we started pulling these data together about two years ago to produce this report, a year and a half or so ago. And at that time, the data sets, depending on which one you looked at, were painting a more complex picture for some of the trends in geese and swans, let me just say. So we wanted to pause a little bit and make sure that we had a good handle on some of the nuance involved in what’s happening with goose populations across North America right now. So they’re not in here. They have been a tremendous success story, and there’s some indication of recent declines. We want to make sure we get the message right, that we get the data, that we have a few more data points in our pocket before we talk about what’s happening. So for the next State of the Birds report, ’27 or ’28, we can expect geese to be a bit of a focal point there, if I have anything to say about it.

Ramsey Russell: Mike, I can’t have this conversation about State of the Birds and declining bird populations without asking you or bringing up this one topic. Ducks have long since been hailed as a conservation success story. But in the recent State of the Birds report, and just increasingly public knowledge, duck numbers are now dropping. I mean, they’re declining. They’re doing better than some of these other bird cohorts, but they’re declining as much as 30% since the year 2017. What’s going on?

Mike Brazier: Well, yeah, so this was a really unique opportunity to tell a story here. I’m going to back up again. So I’ve been involved with the State of the Birds report for a couple of reports now. When you go back to that 2019 paper that you talked about, and in that paper, it lumped all waterfowl together. And when you do that, the dramatic increase in goose populations that was very prominent at that time obscured some of the other patterns affecting, let’s say, some of the sea duck populations. That was probably the biggest concern. But also there was concern that maybe we’re not capturing all the threats and risk that are still facing some of those dabbling and diving ducks that are so dependent upon the Prairie Pothole Region. Because, Ramsey, Ducks Unlimited has always and will always say that the Prairie Pothole Region is priority number one for us. It is the duck factory. It continues to be threatened by wetland drainage, wetland conversion, grassland conversion, etc. So waterfowl experts saw that 2019 report and said, “That doesn’t tell the whole story.” So in 2022, we made a strong case to change this report, not just waterfowl, but to pull out those different groups to geese and swans, dabbling and diving ducks, and sea ducks. And so that’s what you’ll see, all three of those groups, in the 2022 report. So for the 2025 report, I mentioned we left geese out of this one. You’ll see them come back here in a couple of years. We have dabbling ducks and diving ducks, and sea ducks are the two groups in here. Sea ducks are down 4% over the long term since the 1970s. There’s a lot of things going on with those different populations or species. But the question you asked about, Ramsey, down 30% from the record highs of 2015 or 2017, I forget exactly which it is, what’s going on there? I’ve heard people the past few years say, coming out of the hunting season, “Man, I’m seeing fewer birds over my decoys than I did five years ago or ten years ago.” And I’m like, well, dude, you ought to. Duck populations are down over that time period. They’re down because of drought. They’re down because of this period, Prairie drought, intense, prolonged drought, that we’ve seen across the prairies of Canada and the U.S. since 2017–2018. We’ve had about eight consecutive years where there’s been some degree of drought, moderate to extreme drought, across a good portion of the prairies. It’s been about that long since we’ve had the prairies get wet across the entire basis, and even longer since we’ve had that for multiple years. So that’s what’s driving these recent declines. But here’s the point we make in this report, that drought is occurring against this backdrop of continuing wetland loss, continuing grassland loss. Despite the successes that we’ve seen in duck populations over the past decades, we can’t let our foot off the gas. We can’t get complacent. Some people, after that 2019 report, Ramsey, were a bit complacent and were saying, “We’ve done all we need to do for ducks, we don’t need to worry about them so much anymore.” But there are others of us standing up, raising our hands, saying, “Wait, that’s not true, you all.” Conservation is a long game. It’s not just about what’s happening right now or what we’re seeing right now. It’s about what’s going to happen in 10 years, 20 years, and 50 years. The trends were clear, we still have to invest in conservation in that ultra-important landscape, and really all of our important landscapes. So this gives us an opportunity to tell that story. Recent declines are a product of this drought. And when rain returns to the prairies, we do expect duck populations to rebound. We know, however, that we have continued to lose grassland, we have continued to lose wetlands in that landscape. So when rains return, some of that productive capacity will have been lost. So the question becomes: How high will populations rebound? What are we going to see as we go into the future, even farther, if we continue to lose that grassland and wetland base? It’s pretty easy to figure that out. And one of the things I’ve told people with regard to this report, okay, we’re down 30% from record highs, imagine if the drought-induced declines in wetland abundance that we see on the prairies right now become permanent. Then the population level that we have right now, you can maybe think about that as sort of the max, the new high. And so to a duck returning to the prairies, it sees a dry wetland. It doesn’t care if it’s drought that caused that wetland to go dry, or if it’s consolidation drainage that caused it. It’s a dry wetland, it’s no longer functioning as a wetland. So this periodic dry-out offers us a lens through which to view a potential alternative future, where wetlands have been lost permanently. And I think everyone who loves ducks and duck hunting should look at this and say, “That’s a future I don’t want. I want to do and help the organizations do everything we can to ensure that those wetlands are protected in some way or another, through these voluntary incentives, whatever the case may be, to ensure they continue to function as wetlands for generations that come after us.” So it’s a lot of cool stories that we can tell through this report and the data that’s in it.

Ramsey Russell: Mike, I’m gonna wrap up on this question right here. If you could make a wish and secure one major wildlife conservation policy win in the next year, what would it be?

Mike Brazier: Wow. I would want stronger disincentives for wetland drainage in Canada. We have some, and I’m not talking about heavy-handed stuff. I’m talking about something that is reasonable. I’m talking about something that would convey the value of wetlands and that would help people see that there are alternatives to drainage, and productive alternatives to drainage. We have some policies in place in the States that offer some disincentive for draining wetlands and things of that nature. I think those responsible policies acknowledge the value of wetlands, and they provide a disincentive from draining them and keeping the values of those wetlands intact. Especially in Saskatchewan. That province is so important to ducks, but it’s also the one where we’re seeing some of the most dramatic actions to drain wetlands and consolidate wetlands. That would probably be priority number one for me, from how we can keep a North American landscape productive for ducks into the future. That’s the first one that popped into my mind. That probably is the one that would have the biggest impact.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, it’s scary, Mike. Ducks Unlimited was founded during the big drought, the Dust Bowl drought that collapsed world economies. And except for organizations like Ducks Unlimited and the Duck Stamp dollars and some of the programs we’ve got across the landscape, we’ve really done nothing but continue to drain and clear and convert dirt. To really kind of set ourselves up for a super drought one day. And it’s terrifying to think that where we are right now, after eight years of drought, could be the new high, the new season. I mean, that’s scary. Mike, thank you so much for coming on. You always share so much knowledge with us, and I greatly appreciate your time and thank you for coming on today.

Mike Brazier: I appreciate you, Ramsey. I appreciate the incredible questions, the insightful thought that you bring to this, and for helping to get this important message out to the people that care about it.

Ramsey Russell: Folks, thank you all for listening. Episode of Mojo’s Duck Seed Somewhere podcast with Ducks Unlimited Mike Brazier. I’m going to end it on this note, Go buy it. Go buy a duck stamp or three. Support Ducks Unlimited. What I’m saying is, don’t just throw some money in the offering plate, so to speak. Become a part of Ducks Unlimited and help raise even more conservation dollars. And Mike brought out a good point today. Most of you all listening buy a hunting license. Maybe we ought to buy a hunting license for somebody that doesn’t hunt. See you next time.