Delta Waterfowl Foundation’s Atchafalaya chapter holds banquet

The Atchafalaya chapter of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation held its banquet Wednesday at the Morgan City Municipal Auditorium.
The event, which has grown through the years, is used as a fundraiser for both local initiatives and national work to keep the duck population thriving.
Bryan Leach, a senior regional director covering Louisiana, southeast Texas and south Mississippi for Delta Waterfowl Foundation, said the organization focuses much of its work on the Prairie Pot Hole Region, where ducks hatch and breed.
“Because Delta’s stance is if they don’t hatch, they don’t fly anywhere,” he said.
The Prairie Pot Hole Region is located in the United States in North Dakota, South Dakota and parts of Minnesota and Montana.
It also extends into Canada.
The work done in these areas affects local duck hunters, Leach said, because the ducks that are shot down here in the winter nest in the Prairie Pot Hole Region.
In the Prairie Pot Hole Region, Leach said the foundation, with “sound science,” has engaged in predator management for 18 years, hiring trappers to keep a handle on predators in specific areas that “doubles and triples the amount of ducks that comes off of that land,” Leach said.
The organization also has a program called Hen Houses.
“It’s basically a wood duck box program for mallards up north,” Leach said. “They love these little tunnel houses.”
They are working with Canadian landowners and farmers to form an Alternative Land Use Services program, Leach said.
He said the foundation has “really started to grow” in recent years.
While the foundation gives back 25 percent of the proceeds from events like Wednesday’s to use locally for youth programs, duck production, student scholarships and habitat projects, Atchafalaya Chapter President Charlie Solar Jr., said that they allow the national foundation to keep the monies generated.
“They know more than we know about the ducks,” he said. “They know where it needs to go.”
However, he said that the local chapter is looking into a wood duck program in the future.
Membership to the Delta Waterfowl Foundation is open to anyone. Those interested in joining can do so by visiting www.deltawaterfowl.org.