I'm more of a social and money guy bobo. The work I do for the ducks is just as important because I help fund the smart science guys that figure out what projects are worth doing who then tell the worker bees what should be done. Different people have different skills and abilities and it takes all kinds.

Find a few of the smaller DU chapters and spend some money on raffle tickets. You will rake on guns, coolers, and prints.

I wonder which alter ego this could be

This is what DU needs to understand. If they continue their "conservation" process and expand waterfowl habitat and vegetation, I am all for paying them to do that.

Other than that, I don't want them having my money and doing something irrational with it.

What do you think will happen with the government funds earmarked for conservation if DU stops competing for those federal grants? Do you think The Nature Conservancy would be a better steward of your taxpayer dollars?

I understand your issue. My point is that any organization that is using money donated or provided by the fed to do good things for ducks is ok as far as I am concerned. I benefit from their efforts.

What do you think will happen with the government funds earmarked for conservation if DU stops competing for those federal grants? Do you think The Nature Conservancy would be a better steward of your taxpayer dollars?

I understand your issue. My point is that any organization that is using money donated or provided by the fed to do good things for ducks is ok as far as I am concerned. I benefit from their efforts.

I'm sure the feds would refund our taxes if they didn't spend the money on WRP. They are trustworthy like that.

DU isn't competing, they have basically become the WRP program on the Tax payer dime. The Fed doesn't have their own money, they use tax payer money.

We are now in year 25 of the WRP program. The changes DU have pushed through are very eye opening

I should have been more clear, I was referring to the federal government and not the federal reserve. The funding we are speaking of comes in the form of income and estate tax benefits related to those who donate conservation easements to land trusts. The only way I know that we could reduce the amount of tax funding would be for congress to pass laws that effect the tax deductibility. I think conservation easements have broad based bipartisan support so that is not likely.

Number of Conservation Easements: 105,883
Total Acres: 22,204,790
Last Update: October 2014

I think The Nature Conservancy accounts for about 15 of the 22 million acres.

You missed the lobbist part. So your basically saying the DU damage is done so just roll with it? You should really familiarize your self with the new program as it sits under ACEP.

Restoration cost are up to 75-100 percent now depending on the easement you choose.

Hell you can put it in a permanent easement get paid out 100% of the value and goverment picks up, up to a 100% of the restoration tab and you still retain access rights!!!!!

So essentailly a wealthy LLC or Inc could buy 1000's of acres of wetlands for free and control all acces as thier personal hunting property on YOUR dime and it reduces their tax liability!!!!

Send Markstar a check...DU needssssss your business!!! Lol

All this talk about what DU does, what they don't do, funding "smart science guys", blah blah blah. A lot of it is nonsense.

Here's your tax dollars at work... asignificant amount of DU time and resources is used to further hunting. I used to think that was a good thing. Over the course of the last 15 years or so, I began to realize DU was popularizing duck hunting to such an extent that it was bringing unskilled, marginally skilled, and/or irresponsible hunters to area lakes that saw duck hunting as nothing more than a chance to learn how to hunt, to kill something cheaply, without the expense of a lease. Unfortunately, a lot of these hunters are irresponsible. Most of us have encountered these folks, they are hunters that lack patience, setup next to someone else, that think it's ok to drink alcohol on the hunt, to litter, to shoot birds working someone else's decoys, shoot ducks that they can't identify, much less tell you the limits on specific birds. The list is long. Anyone who's been hunting long enough and has stepped foot on any public area in the U.S. in the last few years can see that the explosive rise in duck hunters has had a detrimental affect on habitat and quality of hunts, not in numbers of birds killed, but in the increased number of incidents we've had to deal with due to the large number of unskilled and irresponsible hunters.

The assumption that the money given to DU gives DU the moral high ground to argue that it's purpose justifies it's means, despite having zero first hand knowledge how money is allocated or spent other than what is read on the web or heard from others, is flawed. I know a TON of waterfowl hunters in NA. I know a TON of DU committee members. Aside from folks killing a banded bird (and who typically don't care about anything other than having a band), I can count on one hand (myself included) the number of hunters that have actually worked on field studies and assisted biologists.

On a personal level, I can tell you where I've seen hunters show concern as a steward of our lands by picking up trash at the multitude of public hunting sites I've hunted at, and it's rare. Who's the conservationists? A person who feels good about themselves because they bought DU raffle tickets or a membership with the assumption it funds "smart science", or a conscientious hunter who leaves the land better after a hunt? It's a rare occasion to see someone buy a bunch of tickets for something just to donate their money to a cause.

DU provides a mechanism to get tax deductible donations. That serves a valid purpose, if that money is going to be donated by private interests, I'm glad to see it donated for waterfowl conservation. What I don't like is DU lobbying our federal government to get my tax dollars to further their agenda, nor do I agree with promoting hunting to such an extent that it fills every square inch of public land with hunters beyond the capacity to hunt safely. Promoting hunting is OK. When it becomes self serving? Not OK.

The $83 million DU received in one year from our federal government would be much better spent acquiring habitat, not paying a farmer for taking X amount of rice fields out of cultivation, paying to put in an irrigation system to flood private fields, or digging ponds on someone's land.

I think you are describing programs administered by the USDA that provides financial assistance directly to private landowners to "restore, protect, and enhance wetlands through the purchase of a wetland reserve easement."

Maybe we are talking about 2 different things

B, maybe now they'll get it....

I was on a business trip last spring and the hotel parking lot and that of the adjacent mall had ducks and geese nesting on every patch of grass around the hotel and on the grass islands in the parking lots. There were literally hundreds of birds.

I wouldn't be surprised to see DU claim that parking lot as one of their "breeding habitat" success stories.