More Room for the Birds: Million Dollar Grant Slated for Waterfowl Habitat Expansion

By Howard Yune, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.

Apr. 29–Federal funding will soon help restore nearly 5,000 acres of waterfowl habitat in the Mid-Valley, one of the main havens for birds migrating through western North America.

The $1 million grant to the California Waterfowl Association will let the nonprofit group create new wetlands in the Upper Butte Basin, as well as overhaul a section of the Delevan National Wildlife Refuge in northern Colusa County.

Twenty restoration sites in Yuba and Sutter counties, controlled by landowners and community groups, also will receive a share of the grant, which the group will mix with its own matching funds.

Members of California Wildlife hope the grant, which the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife approved in March, will buy more time to bolster wintering grounds for the nearly 30 waterfowl species that migrate from Canada to Mexico and in between — a haven that farming and development have chipped away for generations. “The current protected acreages are pretty stable, or increasing,” said Chadd Santerre, a California Wildlife senior biologist in Biggs. “But California has seen historic losses compared to what we used to have.”

California Wildlife estimates the Golden State has lost about 90 percent of its wetlands — bringing the total down to 450,000 acres — since entering the Union in 1850.

Restoration is expected to last two years, with most repair work set from June to September. Work will include building perimeter levees to hold in water, repairing water channels and gates, and creating sunken and elevated spots for different bird species that favor deeper or shallower water.

Draining and paving in expanding cities has erased numerous rest and breeding grounds for the migrating birds passing over the Central Valley. Meanwhile, the Mid-Valley’s largely rural character has left much of its land still open to waterfowl — especially in the well-watered rice fields of Colusa and Glenn counties.

But for Rocque Merlo, a Durham rice farmer and California Wildlife member, expanded farming could present its own threat to bird habitat — especially as rising grain prices encourage more planting.

“I feel our pressing need here is for nesting habitat,” said Merlo, who with his father manages about 14,000 acres of wetlands for duck-hunting reserves. “With the increasing grain prices, there’s going to be more pressure to grow crops. That’s going to take away nesting areas for waterfowl.”

The combination of salmon angling and duck hunting is a reliable visitors’ draw in the upper Sacramento Valley, but a looming state closure of the angling season threatens to cut out one prop from the area’s tourism base. Any erosion of bird habitat would seriously threaten the region’s other mainstay, according to Pat Kittle, whose Colusa supply shop, Kittle’s Outdoor & Sport Co. ,draws three-quarters of its fall revenue from hunting equipment.

“The possibility is real; anything could happen,” he said. “If we see a closure on the waterfowl you’ll see a closure of our doors.”

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune at 458-2121, 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.

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Copyright (c) 2008, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.

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