re: Sen Kennedy wants more ducks in Louisiana.

There are so many factors that are affecting duck hunting in Louisiana. A lot are our fault and a lot aren’t.
For starters we have much less suitable habitat down here for ducks than ever before. Our marshes are continuing to erode and have the ability to hold less ducks than before every season.
Decrease rice acreage along with most rice fields doubling as crawfish ponds. The ponds are too deep and you have the boats chasing the ducks out every day.
Up north you have the issue of unlimited corn, open water due to reservoirs, and mild winters.
Less ducks due to poor habitat from droughts in the prairies and a constant decrease in prairies that are being tilled for corn.
On the mallard front: there is a direct correlation to dramatic increase in corn production due to rise of ethanol to a dramatic decrease of migrating mallards in Louisiana over the last 30 years.
My dad used to shoot limits of green heads consistently in the rice fields if gueydan and also whiteville in the 80’s and 90’s.

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yall can blame La habitat all you want - but the facts are the ducks aren't making it here to even know if the habitat is good or not

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I thought it was February when y’all’s ducks got there anyway?

Louisiana has way more ducks than the Ms delta. I want my senator to write a strongly worded letter stating the artificially flooded acres in Louisiana is stoping ducks from coming back up because y’all didn’t have enough water.
That actually happened a few years ago when y’all were in extreme drought. A lot birds had to come back up because the marsh was shite (I think yall even had an hurricane that destroyed what was good) and y'all didn’t have enough water caught because the drought. P.S. I am just playing devil’s advocate about this. I have never hunted Louisiana so I wouldn’t know how bad it actually is.

According to the to the last aerial surveys yall had way more “ducks” but we had more mallards. I think y'all even had more ducks than Arkansas had.

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Animals dont migrate because cold.

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They most certainly do. Some do not, most notably blue-winged teal, but a big Ole fat lazy mallard isn't flying from Saskatchewan to Louisiana simply because he feels like it.

I mean, is he going to fly south simply because it's 32 in Missouri? No. So if that's all you are suggesting, then you aren't suggesting much.

But the fact is, more typically comes with northern cold than just...cold. There's snow and ice that makes that food and water unavailable to them.

Maybe the corn is available longer and allows them to stay, but what are they coming to here if it's somehow banned? Sugarcane? They'll starve to death.

This is low-hanging fruit. Maybe it has an impact if it is banned, but it's a band-aid on a bullet hole.

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maybe the game farm dna problem

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Sent him a message thru his website expressing disappointment that he has bought into the wrong messaging from the Flyway Federation or whoever convinced him this was a good idea. Of course I didn't believe he would read it, but figured his staff should at least inform themselves before letting him send another letter with such a bad take. Got the same ole tired response I would expect from one of the corn boys. Got the following response:

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Dear Mr. LSUengr:
Thank you for contacting me about waterfowl baiting regulations. I appreciate hearing from you about this important issue.

As you may know, in 1998, Congress enacted the Migratory Bird Treaty Reform Act (MBTRA), which eliminated the strict liability standard for violations of federal waterfowl baiting regulations. Prior to this change, hunters could be cited for baiting violations regardless of whether they knew bait was present. In 1999, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) promulgated a final rule implementing the MBTRA by defining “normal agricultural planting, harvesting, and post-harvest manipulation.” However, the regulation’s definition of “manipulation” did not address flooding. By failing to include flooding in the baiting framework, the rule effectively allowed hunting over intentionally flooded standing agricultural crops, particularly corn.

This growth in available waste grain in more northern states provides waterfowl with an abundance of energy-dense but nutritionally inadequate food, effectively eliminating one of the primary motivations for ducks and geese to migrate to their traditional wintering grounds in the southern United States. Not only has this change altered traditional migration behavior, but it has also increased the concentration of waterfowl in artificial habitats, heightening the risk of avian influenza and undermining conservation incentives to restore natural wetland habitats in southern regions. I remain committed to advocating on behalf of Louisiana hunters who deserve a transparent explanation for the consistent decline in wintering waterfowl numbers, including an honest assessment of how current federal regulations are influencing migration patterns.

Again, thank you for contacting me about this important issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future about other issues that are important to you and to your family.

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So they want to ban all artificial flooding of harvested crops?

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Thats the slippery slope that they don't think of. In their minds, corn bad is all they can think. Rice, Milo, Millet etc, would still be legal?