Coast-to-coast Conservation Thanks to Delta Waterfowl

Electronically tracking individual skunks in California to learn how they hunt ducklings in their nests – to studying whether trapping predators such as skunks has an impact on brood survival in North Dakota – to understanding why the number of duck hunters is declining in the Central Flyway – to figuring out how to implement a revolutionary waterfowl habitat program currently being demonstrated in Ontario.

That’s the range – both in terms of geography and topics – of the student research projects currently underway across the North American continent thanks to Delta Waterfowl.

Delta’s research program was launched in the 1930s and counts among its founders Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife management. Since then, Delta has supported the work of hundreds of students as they conduct research that is crucial to waterfowl and waterfowl hunters in every corner of the continent. Many of these students go on to become some of the world’s foremost waterfowl conservation experts.

Find out more here about how Delta’s support for these efforts is helping protect waterfowl populations now and far into the future.

Save Your Favorite Stream

Know of a stream in your neck of the woods that could use a helping hand? Maybe a clean-up or some other tender loving care? You could get some help from OutdoorLife magazine. Submit your project idea to OutdoorLife Save-a-Stream Project by Tuesday, June 30th and you could receive a free kit and have your story published in the magazine.

For the Outdoors and Our Rights to Enjoy Them

When it comes to the outdoors, there’s a lot to be negative about, isn’t there?

Against this development. Opposed to that legislation. Flinging mud at a particular group or individual. It’s easy to be anti- nearly everything – always poking holes in the ideas of others, finding fault with every initiative, forever hurling stones at those with whom we disagree.

Thankfully, there’s also a lot to be positive about. Things like constructive Congressional action this week on the Clean Water Restoration Act to restore protections for prairie potholes that provide critical habitat for waterfowl and other wildlife – legislation vigorously supported by Ducks Unlimited.

Or the ideas Subaru’s Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers shared this week at the Manice Education Center in Florida, Massachusetts with outdoor educators who lead wilderness courses for urban teens.

Or the Trout Unlimited volunteers who celebrated the organization’s 50th anniversary recently by holding a nationwide stream clean-up to make trout waters healthier for fish and other wildlife – and the people who enjoy them.

These are the people and organizations I want to be affiliated with, the ones I want to be like. In part because they’re just a lot more pleasant to be around. But also because they’re the ones actually moving forward on initiatives to protect the outdoors and our opportunities to enjoy them.

Sure, when well-meaning opponents succeed in defeating something-or-other, that can be a victory. But it’s also almost always just a continuation of the status quo: they may have stopped us from going in the wrong direction, but they didn’t really take us anywhere, either.

I want to be on board with people who have the better ideas, the bigger dreams and the determination to keep working at them. That’s the purpose of this blog: to promote the efforts of individuals and organizations working to protect the outdoors and our rights to enjoy them - whether that's hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, climbing, camping, kayaking, photographry or whatever. The people I'm talking about live at that place in the wilderness where the two trails – conservation and outdoor sportsmanship – converge.

It’s a place where I want to live, too, and this is the perfect way for me to do achieve that. Launching and maintaining this blog gives me the opportunity to combine my professional expertise as a communicator about sustainability issues with my fervent love for the outdoors and for hunting, fishing, hiking, camping and canoeing/kayaking. I’m kind of pumped about what’s ahead. Stay tuned.