WHY ARKANSAS’S BEST DUCK HUNTING WOODS ARE DROWNING THE TREES THAT SUSTAIN THE STATE’S FABLED DUCK POPULATIONS ARE DYING AFTER YEARS OF EXCESSIVE FLOODING. BUT NEW PRACTICES AIM TO CHANGE THAT. BY ARIANA REMMEL ARKANSAS NONPROFIT NEWS NETWORK
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f you walk through Henry Gray Hurricane Lake Wildlife Management Area, the towering hardwood stands might look like a beautiful place to hunt. But once you know what to look for, you can see the trees are drowning. Wildlife management areas like these woodlands just outside of Bald Knob are protected public land set aside by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to conserve The Natural State’s wildlife and promote outdoor recreation. Hurricane Lake WMA is best known for its greentree reservoirs, human-made wetland structures that attract ducks — and duck hunters — from miles around. Levees built around the forest are designed to hold water on the forest floor, imitating the seasonal flooding that occurred naturally in bottomland hardwood forests across the Mississippi Delta before dams and levees tamed the major rivers. Most of those ancient bottomland woods were long ago cleared for timber and to make way for agriculture. A greentree reservoir is meant to reproduce a flooded forest environment in a controlled manner. Extensive hydrological infrastructure gives land managers control over the timing and depth of floods, allowing them to open and close gates to adjacent waterways. The Game and Fish Commission manages more than 50,000 acres of greentree reservoirs spread across more than a dozen wildlife management areas in the state, and private landowners manage reservoirs of their own. That’s made Arkansas a duck hunting destination.
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DUCK CAPITAL: More mallards spend their winter in Arkansas than any other state in the country.
Yet many of the forests are in poor health. For decades, scientists say, land managers flooded them too early and too deeply, and for too long. What was once believed to be the best strategy for conserving migratory waterfowl populations has inadvertently decimated the cornerstone tree species — specifically red oaks, like willow oaks and Nutall oaks — that make these precious wetlands attractive to ducks. A 2014 Game and Fish Commission survey of willow oaks in the state’s greentree reservoirs found that 40% of the trees were already dead or irreversibly damaged. While many private duck hunting clubs have modernized reservoir infrastructure and management strategies for their members, public lands have fallen behind. Now the Game and Fish Commision is trying to make up for lost time. But infrastructure updates alone could cost upward of $70 million over the next 10 years, according to an agency spokesperson. Last fall, the agency announced major changes to water management plans at three of the state’s most popular greentree reservoirs, including Hurricane Lake WMA. The agency chose not to intentionally flood these highly sought-after hunting grounds during the 2021-22 duck hunting season, which ran from late November through January. The flooding regime will also shift so that the reservoirs are filled more slowly and to depths that will vary with the seasons of nature, not the hunting calendar. It’s an investment in the future that ruffled feathers among some Arkansans frustrated by
disruptions to access to public lands. The Game and Fish Commission hosted town halls across the state last year to educate duck hunters on the science behind the changes and build trust in a strategy that could take many years to show results. At one such event in November in North Little Rock, more than 100 community members attended a presentation and asked questions of state wildlife managers. “I know people are bothered because they want to duck hunt this year. But I’m thinking 30 years from now,” said Jessica Homan, a biologist with Game and Fish. She wants to preserve this habitat not just for today’s hunters, but for generations to come. “I can’t do that if I don’t make changes now,” she said. IF YOU BUILD IT, DUCKS WILL COME The gleaming emerald plumage of a male mallard duck — and the flash of iridescent blue on the wings of the refined females — make this species “the poster child of the duck,” habitat biologist Jake Spears said. Mallards are the most abundant duck species in North America and are particularly important to hunters in Arkansas. “More mallards spend their winter in Arkansas than any other state in the country,” said Spears, who works for the nonprofit waterfowl conservation group Ducks Unlimited. Mallards are good table fare, readily available and fun to hunt, he said. “If they’re circling your decoy spread and you hit the call, it’s pretty magical to see them actually respond, turn and come start flying back towards ARKANSASTIMES.COM
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