Ducks Unlimited Canada Podcast

Thirteen is the most unlucky of numbers, so it’s appropriate that this podcast is all about two unlucky wetland dwellers - the Northern Leopard frog and the Blanding’s turtle. Why unlucky? Because both are in ecological trouble. The northern leopard frog is endangered in  parts of British Columbia, the Blanding’s turtle is threatened in Ontario. Take the northern leopard frog. Its habitat, which the little guys are pretty fussy about, is shrinking, bullfrogs are invading from the U.S. and the leopard frog is prone to a nasty, lethal fungus. As we’ll learn, it takes a egg-cursion from B.C. to Calgary and back again, to put the little “not-easy-being-green” amphibians on the road to recovery.  The Blanding’s turtle with it high, helmet back and yellow throat is a distinctive turtle. It’s also a long-lived meandering one that ranges across roads and ATV tracks as it moves to nesting grounds. But those grounds are shrinking and the turtles, which can live to 75 years old are threatened by predators, cars, ATVs an

We begin this episode 40 miles above the fertile fields of Alberta. From up here the rectilinear hashmarks of crop boundaries are pocked and dented by darker, irregular patterns, like raindrops pooling on a patio table. Those are pothole wetlands left behind by the scraping and gouging of the receding Wisconsin glaciation thousands of years ago. These days you’ll find these watery basins, often as many as 40 per square kilometre, all over the prairies in Canada and the U.S. But, when the glaciers receded their were many, many more of them, millions of them. They became an essential habitat for hundreds of plant, animal and insect species - especially at their margins. But in the last century humans have managed destroy a lot of those formerly abundant wetlands. In some places 70 per cent are already gone. Those that remain are often sometimes precariously surrounded by vast fields of canola, wheat or barley. In previous podcasts we’ve talked about the importance of those wetlands to waterfowl, for flood and d

In celebration of DUC’s 80th anniversary, this episode is all about volunteers. Volunteers, those men and women whose passion lets them eschew paycheques, have been a vital part of DUC since it’s earliest, distant days. First up I chat with Leigh Patterson, a DUC staffer who’s just finished a quest for Keeman. Last fall, Leigh wanted to track down some of DUC's first volunteers, called keemen. Her co-workers told her it couldn’t be done, that it was a crazy quest. Well, she proved them wrong, really wrong. And, about the keeman name? Listen in. Then I have a quick conversation with a super volunteer, Serge Mathieu. Serge love ducks. And he’s a maniac for the green head DUC’s logo, as you’ll learn. Serge is also a manic volunteer for DUC, something he’s been doing for 25 years. The Nicolet, Quebec native was named DUC Volunteer of the Year for Quebec this year. And, he’s a wildlife biologist who teaches at the forestry school in La Tuque Quebec. Guest Bios Leigh Patterson began her career with DUC more than 25

In this episode, we’ll be learning about a kind of wheat ducks love, not to eat but to hang out. Then we’re off to another duck playground - peatlands, peatlands that need preserving. Why? Because they’re great at keeping vast amounts of biomass from wreaking havoc on our climate. Winter wheat is a hardy strain of grain that can survive even a -40 winter as it hibernates under a blanket of warming snow. Warming snow? You’ll see. In the spring when other crops are barely in the ground, if they’re lucky, winter wheat is showing off its first leaves and then it grows like mad and attracts ducks looking for a nesting ground.   DUC has been working to raise the profile/ dispel myths around winter wheat for years. They’ve been helping understand why is winter wheat such a duck magnet and why should we should care. To find out more about winter wheat, last April I talked to Lee Moats, a farmer in Riceton, Saskatchewan. We thought, with spring coming on it would be a good time to revisit that conversation. Peatlands

In this episode, we’ll be celebrating, in our small way, World Wetlands Day. This year that event is highlighting wetlands for a sustainable urban future. We’ll learn how those moist, mushy and fecund habitats do just that. Next up, twelve days after World Wetlands Day comes Valentine’s Day - which is mushy in its own right. And, it’s an event that’s a tad bittersweet for the lovelorn. It turns out that drakes (those are male ducks) have tons of techniques for a attracting a mate, and female ducks know just how to clue into the sometimes curious courtship rituals. Lisette Ross is a wetlands biologist for Ducks Unlimited Canada. For her urban wetlands are some of the most valuable real estate in growing, sprawling cities worldwide. Without them, the millions of people flooding into cities would miss out on the diversity, cleansing powers and spiritual uplift of these vital habits. Here’s my conversation with her about World Wetlands Day and the diversity of solutions urban centres have discovered for preservin

We talk with Brendan Kelly, a conservationist and avid photographer from Paradise, Newfoundland. Kelly explains how taking the time to wait for his natural subjects allows him to tune into their habitats and appreciate them as remarkable, intelligent animals. You can see samples of his work on instagram at _brendankelly_    

On the hard, frozen surface of winter wetlands it looks like all is calm, all is bright.  But if you could plunge beneath that icy crust as if a pond or marsh were an aquatic Creme Brule, you’d see a slow, but still-living world where mammals fish, insects and amphibians might not thrive, but they survive. They’re hunkered down to wait out that season that makes our brave Canadian hearts swell with pride.  Jacques Bourgeois is the communications and marketing coordinator of Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre in Manitoba. He explains how dragonflies turn into snowbirds, frogs freeze and thaw like Butterballs and fish chemistry to their advantage. Oh, and turtles? They breathe from an unexpected orifice. In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol Mrs. Cratchit makes a small goose into a family feast. And she renders it delicious and delicate. But, how, many Canadians -- who think of goose as a greasy nightmare before Christmas -- "How did she pull off that Christmas miracle?" To find out I spoke with Pat Kehoe wi

In this episode we explore the intertwingled intersection of conservation and hunting. Can you both care about wildlife and its habitat and take an animal’s life?  Next, rain, snow and sleet show up on meterologists’ radar screen. But sometimes weather boffins spot something else on their glowing monitors. Something else that has nothing to do with clouds, forecasts or humidex reports.

We start with the fine art of bird banding. Researchers find a bird they want to track and, as Beyoncé might say, “put a ring on it.” We’ll discover the history, purpose and process of avian bling. Then, we travel to Cape May, New Jersey where we chat with a birding expert and author who wants to help us identify birds in their habitats. Richard Crossley has created a series of books, including one on ducks, to help us do just that.

Eider feathers, or down, aren't just for duvets. In fact, a hormone in those feathers called corticosterone, can indicate the stress eider ducks have been under as they molt. Yukon-based eider researcher Jane Harms explains that stress can be due to nearby predators or sometimes changes in their environment. So, not only can the stress hormone indicate eiders' health and their ability to reproduce, it may also be an indicator of climate change. Get undercover and tune into the tale. Wetlands are delicate ecosystems. So the last thing researchers really want to do is churn up those wetland waters just to sample them. But what if a flying robot could do that for them? How? We do a flyby visit with a young inventor, Nathan Hoyt, who worked with a small team of high school students to figure it out. Plus, they're making a business out of it. Listen in. We promise we won't drone on.

Eduardo Carrera is the CEO of Ducks Unlimited Mexico, DUMAC for short. Eduardo oversees a Ducks Unlimited team that tackles threats its country’s wetlands much the way a grassroots NGO would.  Folks who live in poor rural Mexican communities often lack modern sanitation technologies. And, they’re not aware of the impact their wastewater is having on nearby and fragile wetlands. So, to save those wetlands Eduardo and his colleagues provide those technologies and that education to teachers in the communities, students and even professionals who need evidence-based resources to help them understand ecological issues in Mexico and beyond. Meanwhile on the coasts of Mexico tourism and shrimp farming threaten mangrove swamps that are the winter homes to migratory birds including ducks from Canada. We spoke with Eduardo about the complex issues and ingenious solutions he explores every day. Meanwhile, in P.E.I., Lucy is a stubborn black duck who, for the past few years has raises her family in the garden plants outs

A map of Lake Ontario, like one in an old geography textbook, might miss Cootes Paradise. Without detail it can seem this great lake runs dry at western shore of Burlington, about 50 kilometres from Toronto. Some more careful maps have it end in Hamilton Harbour. But no, Lake Ontario fades out in a little 320 hectare triangle of marshland called Cootes Paradise. It’s really a river delta, but a remarkable one. On either side over two dozen streams, the largest being Spencer Creek, flow over the Niagara escarpment and the shallow basin. Once, those waters made this a hunting and fishing Mecca. Then its location at the head of the lake and some industrious canal work n the 1820s turned Cootes Paradise into a short-lived shipping lane. A century later it almost became an airport. It’s also been home to shantytown of “canal rats”, a ragtag community. Those homes, sometimes on stilts, clung to the marsh’s shores in the 1920s and 30s. Residents playing hockey on its frozen surface in the winter and sometimes hosted

Corixids, or water boatmen, are wetland insects with oars for legs and wings that can carry them kilometers from their homes when it's time to migrate. Stephen Srayko, a PhD in biology candidate at the University of Saskatchewan, has been studying that migration for years. He watches as the corixids lift off from marshes and land on the shores of the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers in swarms during the fall. There white sucker, longnose sucker, and goldeye fish feed on the massive influx of food. In turn, they provide sustenance to the rivers' game fish. Srayko thinks the corixids provide a near-invisible link between wetlands and the nearby rivers. They're one more reason why conserving wetlands helps a broader eco-system.

How did Canadian musician David Archibald spend his summer vacation? He did a musical tour of 31 Ontario provincial parks (and worked in an eight-day voyager canoe trip for R and R). His campground concerts were aimed at kids and families and celebrated the history of the parks. But, with his often playful songs, he also educated his audience about the ecology and fragile nature of the habitats within park boundaries. Ducks Unlimited Canada does its own educational outreach through our Wetlands Centres of Excellence and Wetland Heroes programs.  http://www.ducks.ca/our-work/education/ But this episode, we’re focussing on Archibald’s education through music. Archibald has been interpreting natural spaces with his music for 29 years when Bon Echo Provincial Park hired him to celebrate the petroglyph-famous campground in song. He has written for and performed on Sesame Street in New York and CBC's Mr. Dressup.  But he’s also a music producer (he gave Avril Lavigne her first shot at a studio microphone) and is cu