The National Wildlife Refuge System's - Small Wetlands Program
A Half Century of Conserving Prairie Habitat

Visit refuges.fws.gov/smallwetlands50

The Service will celebrate and highlight its Small Wetlands Program in 2008, the 50th year of its existence. The Small Wetlands Program was established on August 1, 1958, as an amendment to the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act of 1934 (also known as the Duck Stamp Act), that authorized the Service to acquire Waterfowl Production Areas, small wetland and pothole areas, and interests for the benefit of migratory waterfowl. The Service has focused its acquisition efforts on the breeding grounds in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Upper Midwest.

The Prairie Pothole Region, a 300,000-square-mile area in the Upper Midwest and adjacent Canadian provinces, contains some of the most important waterfowl and grassland bird species habitat on the continent. The wetlands and virgin grasslands in this glacially-created landscape are among the most endangered habitat in the country. Although the region accounts for just 10 percent of North American waterfowl breeding habitat, it produces nearly half the continent’s total waterfowl. Additionally, the Service estimates that nearly 30 percent of waterfowl produced in the U.S. portion of the Prairie Pothole Region are tied to habitats permanently protected by the Small Wetlands Program.

The Prairie Pothole Region also provides valuable habitat for a large proportion of the total U.S. populations of many grassland bird species that are concentrated in the area during the breeding season, such as Sprague’s pipit, chestnut-collared longspur, Baird’s sparrow, LeConte’s sparrow, and Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow. Grassland bird species are in trouble, if not in significant decline, pressured by habitat loss, predators, changing farming and ranching practices, and fire suppression.

More than half the wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region have been drained for agriculture or development. Wetland losses escalated dramatically in the late 1950s as a result of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) subsidized wetland drainage program. Many farmers took advantage of the cost-share offered by the USDA to drain the “nuisance areas” from their fields.

During the program’s history, Wetland Acquisition Offices have purchased more than 36,000 separate fee and permanent easement tracts that make up the lands administered as Waterfowl Production Areas, as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. These include more than 29,000 permanent easements, covering 2.1 million acres, and approximately 7,000 fee tracts, totaling more than 677,000 acres.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep pace with the loss of the prairie wetlands and grasslands because of new incentives to landowners to convert grasslands to cropland—particularly row crops that can be converted to bio-energy products—which in turn is having a negative impact on breeding waterfowl. Research indicates that waterfowl breeding success drops by more than 50 percent when grasslands are converted to cropland. Current land use pressures due primarily to growth in the biofuel industry have further increased the need to conserve wildlife resources in the region.

In August 2008, the Small Wetlands Program will celebrate a half century of successfully conserving wetlands and grasslands in the Prairie Pothole Region and nurturing and sustaining waterfowl, other migratory bird species, wildlife, and other environmental resources.

What can you do as an employee to help make this celebration a success? Buy a Federal Duck Stamp and tell people how important these stamps are in ensuring healthy populations of all migratory birds, and supporting our nation’s fish and wildlife heritage.