Storm surge from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita turned the Gulf coast's freshwater wetlands into brackish, oxygen-depleted dead zones. Now wildlife managers are concerned that the remaining habitat will become a breeding ground for avian disease

How to Protect the Prairie Duck hunters all seem to have an opinion about Ducks Unlimited. For every person who grouses about DU's emphasis on dollars, or that so much American-raised DU money goes north of the border, however, there's another who points out that three out of four North American ducks are hatched in the prairie pothole country, the great majority of which lies north of the 49th parallel.

"Once I show U.S. visitors the lands we work on," says Dave Atamanchuk, a Ducks Unlimited Canada field representative in Saskatchewan, "and introduce them to the farmers we work with, they very easily understand how critical this region is to hunters across the entire continent."

For a full week we drove past lands owned by Ducks Unlimited Canada, or leased by DUC, or managed for nesting cover by DUC and cooperating farmers. In Saskatchewan alone-which doesn't even employ a provincial waterfowl biologist-DUC works on 1.6 million acres. The first thing I did when I got home was send Ducks Unlimited a check for $100. -T.E.N.

A Quick Look at Trends:
The species-specific breakdowns in the slides at left show increases for all species but widgeon (down 2 percent over last year), and scaup, which dropped to 37 percent below their long-term average population (something concerned biologists are working hard to change).¿¿ Redheads, on the other hand, are up a whopping 55 percent over last year, canvasbacks are up 33 percent, gadwalls up 30 percent, and in perhaps the report's best news, struggling pintails are up by 32 percent (though still 18 percent off the long-term average).

Expect to see plenty of teal banking in low and fast, as greenwings and bluewings are up 20 and 28 percent over last year respectively. And while mallard numbers did not increase as much as biologists had hoped, remaining 3 percent off the long-term average, they did gain 8 percent over last year, which should translate into a few more birds filtering down though the timber.

All told there will be more of most species of ducks gracing our wetlands this fall. Your gun barrel may get a little hotter in 2006.

Three big choices for extra-large fowl.