Living Shallow Lake Enhancement & Wetland Restoration Initiative - Phase VIII

This Phase 8 of Ducks Unlimited's ongoing shallow lake enhancement and prairie wetland restoration conservation program will strive to enhance 860 acres of shallow lakes and grasslands, and restore 210 acres of wetlands and grasslands, primarily in the Prairie Pothole Region of SW Minnesota. DU partners with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) and Minnesota DNR to design water control structures with fish barriers to enhance degraded shallow lakes and restore drained wetlands on public land and under easement. Water control structures are used to conduct temporary water level draw-downs to rejuvenate shallow lake ecology and productivity for wildlife. Structures are constructed by private sector firms hired by DU and are managed by FWS or DNR. Adjacent grasslands will be restored/enhanced to buffer wetlands.

Shallow lake enhancement and wetland restoration are top priority actions in all major conservation plans for Minnesota. Our work addresses the habitat goals identified in North American Waterfowl Management Plan, Minnesota's Prairie Conservation Plan, and Minnesota's Duck Recovery Plan which calls for the active management of 1,800 shallow lakes and restoring 64,000 wetlands to Minnesota's landscape. This work is time-sensitive because complex shallow lake enhancement projects take several years to design and implement, and because wetland restorations are critically needed for breeding waterfowl.

Healthy and abundant wetlands are required to sustain breeding and migrating waterfowl. Minnesota has lost approximately 90% of our prairie wetlands and 99% of native prairie grasslands around them. This has had a profound negative impact on breeding ducks and other prairie wetland wildlife here. Our remaining shallow lakes and wetlands are often those that were too deep to drain years ago, and now function as the core of Minnesota's remaining waterfowl habitat complexes. Unfortunately, these remaining wetland basins now receive the excessive nutrient-laden water runoff from an intensively drained and interconnected landscape through which invasive fish such as carp have improved access. As a result, many of our remaining wetlands and shallow lakes are turbid and degraded due to drainage they received and high, stabilized water levels in which nutrients collect and invasive fish proliferate. This results in stagnated aquatic wetland ecology and productivity, and wetland basins with few aquatic plants and invertebrates for birds to eat. This is especially detrimental to diving ducks and other wetland-dependent species that rely exclusively on aquatic plant and invertebrate foods within wetlands and shallow lakes to survive. These factors have caused a significant decline in Minnesota's once diverse waterfowl population, and as a result, in Minnesota's rich waterfowling traditions.

This funding request will support DU staff biologists and engineers who survey, design, and manage construction of shallow lake enhancement and wetland restoration projects to improve public water shallow lakes and restore wetlands and grasslands, primarily in the Prairie Pothole Region of SW Minnesota. Funding will also support ongoing shallow lake technical assistance from DU staff to assess, survey, and design future enhancement and wetland projects for implementation under future OHF appropriations for this program.