NEWTOWN, Conn. – The National Shooting Sports Foundation has stepped up in a big way to help save a portion of the nation’s most important waterfowl breeding grounds by contributing $285,200 to Ducks Unlimited’s “Rescue the Duck Factory” campaign.
Approved by NSSF’s Board of Governors at its annual meeting, the grant will help stop native prairie grassland from being turned into cropland, a process that destroys habitat that ducks and other wildlife depend on to breed and thrive. These grasslands are being threatened because of record-high commodity prices driven by the global demand for food and corn-based ethanol production.
“Ducks Unlimited and the National Shooting Sports Foundation are natural partners – after all, hunters are the original conservationists,” said Don Young, executive vice president for Ducks Unlimited. “This grant to ‘Rescue the Duck Factory’ will go a long way to protecting the most important waterfowl breeding area in the world, and will continue the proud waterfowling and conservation traditions that our organizations embody.”
The “Rescue the Duck Factory” campaign focuses on the immediate protection of 300,000 acres of prime waterfowl breeding habitat. Grassland conservation easements prevent plowing of the land forever. Purchasing the easements, which is less expensive than purchasing the land, provides ranchers and conservation-minded landowners the financial incentive they need to decide to preserve the land.
“The National Shooting Sports Foundation recognizes the critical need to save these important breeding grounds for the future of waterfowl and the sporting tradition they make possible,” said Steve Sanetti, president of NSSF. “On behalf of the shooting sports industry, NSSF is proud to support the ‘Rescue the Duck Factory’ campaign and encourages all individuals and organizations interested in ensuring abundant waterfowl populations for the future to lend their support to this Ducks Unlimited initiative.”
According to Ducks Unlimited, upwards of 70 percent of North America’s waterfowl is produced in this “duck factory” region, which stretches from Saskatchewan to South Dakota. Some 50,000 acres of grassland prairie in the United States alone are being lost annually through conversion to agricultural land, and the “Duck Factory” campaign is designed to halt that loss. Learn more about the Rescue the Duck Factory at www.ducks.org/conservation.
Learn more about the National Shooting Sports Foundation at www.nssf.org.
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NSSF makes major contribution to ‘Rescue the Duck Factory’
