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George Vandel, the longtime wildlife manager with the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, has a saying that’s both obvious and extremely important to remember: Losing habitat has consequences.
Truer words were never spoken. But wouldn’t it be nice if Vandel’s message rang in the ears of the Bush administration, which has made a conscious decision to let the most productive and most popular voluntary farmland conservation program in U.S. history wither on the vine.
In recent months, I’ve enriched both the timber and ink industries by writing so much about the Conservation Reserve Program, the wildly popular U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiative that provides critical habitat for wildlife by compensating farmers for establishing grass cover on marginal, environmentally sensitive lands under 10- or 15-year contracts.
Why? Because the program, which has roughly 39 million acres enrolled nationwide, is too important to hunters, anglers, conservationists and farmers, that’s why. “I remember when we lost Soil Bank,” said Vandel of the popular conservation program. “Our pheasants took a real hit.”
How big a hit? The South Dakota pheasant population dropped from 11 million birds in 1961 during the fabled Soil Bank era to 3 million birds in 1970 after the program was discontinued and grasslands were returned to farm production.
Indeed, losing habitat has consequences.
Called “Noah's Arc for Wildlife” by the late director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mollie Beattie, CRP was established by Congress in 1985 and is responsible for the explosion in continental duck numbers during the 1990s, the steady 20-year rise in pheasant populations and the restoration of several non-game birds species. The program has also helped reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, save wetlands and sequester greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming.
Among the many species of birds and animals that thrive in CRP's (mostly) undisturbed grass cover, upland-nesting ducks like mallards, pintails, blue-winged teal, gadwalls and shovelers have been among the primary beneficiaries. During the wet cycle of 1990s in the fabled Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), populations of those species rebounded from 1980's lows, several reaching record or near-record levels.
Research conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that CRP contributed around 2 million birds to the fall flights of ducks each year between 1992 and 2004 -- fall flights that are enjoyed by hunters across the U.S., particularly those in the Mississippi and Central Flyways. Keep in mind, too, the above numbers aren’t factoring in the year-to-year population growth when CRP-raised birds return to the breeding grounds in subsequent years.
In the years ahead, however, several PPR states will lose thousands of CRP acres, particularly in the Dakotas and Montana, the major duck-producing states. According to Vandel, from 2007 to 2010, South Dakota will lose a minimum of 355,000 CRP acres. North Dakota will lose 436,000 acres, while Montana will lose 138,000 acres. Minnesota (152,000 acres) and Iowa (24,000) won’t be spared, either
Those numbers could increase dramatically, wildlife officials say, depending on how the next farm bill plays out -- and that’s a crapshoot, at best. Right now, CRP rental rates are too low for many farmers to stay in the program. Simply put, they can make more money growing corn -- corn that’s being used to meet the federal government’s insatiable demand for producing corn-based ethanol. Even if rental rates are increased (and I’m told they will be), they always lag behind the “current” marketplace.
If the USDA can’t figure out a system that rewards farmers with fair market value for their CRP lands, we’re going to see more and more farmers and ranchers leaving the program. And, as Vandel says, that could severely damage 20 years of CRP-related conservation gains.
“As it stands now, South Dakota will see significant impacts to pheasants and ducks because of the loss of CRP over the next few years, and we’re only one state” he said. “You can’t lose that much habitat without it having some consequences.”
For the record, Vandel doesn’t blame farmers for getting out the program, because, he says, they’re just playing the hand they’re dealt. Still, Vandel -- a passionate walleye fisherman and bird hunter -- and others worry about the ethanol push and what that means for conservation -- short- and long-term.
“Farmers have been working for years to create a demand for corn to reduce surpluses and drive up prices,” said Rob Olson, president of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation. "Increasing production would depress corn prices, and that's not in the best interest of our farmers.”
He’s right. But the ethanol train has left the station and its taking with it thousands of CRP acres and 20 years of indisputable environmental benefits.
Losing habitat has consequences, my friends. But not enough people seem to care.
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