DComeaux wrote:SpinnerMan wrote:DComeaux wrote:Put the money in pumps for the pot hole region and other traditional nesting grounds rather than mid flyway feed lots.
We can't afford to pump enough water on 5 million ponds scattered over the 100 million acres or whatever the PPR consists to make a difference. Ducks scatter when they nest and only concentrate when they migrate. Even with them concentrated, I'm just skeptical that there is enough flooded corn to make that big of an impact on the 41 million ducks. While duck hunting is big, we are talking about 10's of millions of ducks, most of which don't even eat that much if any corn.
Where there's a will there's a way. We put a man on the moon, so they say.
The money and effort put into feeding these birds (short stopping) can be transferred to the nesting grounds. Though, I don't think it's as popular with these self proclaimed hunter "conservationist". Pft!
To build the infrastructure to pump water on 5 million ponds over 100 million acres. We are talking about billions, probably10's of billions. And that is just to buy all the pumps, drill the wells, build the pipelines, etc. And how many decades would it take to get all the environmental approvals? After that, you have to feed the beast. That's a lot of labor and fuel to pump all that water and maintenance the equipment, again billions more per year.
Sure we can do it, theoretically. But the cost would be astronomical.
And the reality is that it is good for most of these environments to dry out once in awhile.
If you want to supplement duck numbers. Just build a giant hatchery. We do this for pheasants, chukars, quail, etc. Just produce a 10 million mallards and you can turn them all loose far up north. Increase the bag limits so we kill an extra 10 million mallards and everybody will be happy.
BTW, my best guess is those guys that are spending $0.0001B on flooded corn operations are giving wildly more to conservation than you or I simply because they have a crapload more money than you or I. But you want to put them out of business, but expect them to keep donating to help you kill a few more ducks. I don't think so. They will switch over to pheasants or deer and stop donating all together if they are put out of business.