Repaired levee along a wetland unit at Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. (photo: A. Hopperstad, USFWS)

Top of a repaired levee on Sun River Unit of Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. (photo: A. Hopperstad, USFWS)

Amy Hopperstad, Stone Lakes NWR
Over 180 acres of wetland habitat was improved at Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge this summer through a North American Wetlands Conservation Council grant.  Ducks Unlimited biologists designed the improvement project for the Sun River wetlands and contracted a local company, DSW AG Inc., whom conducted the work.  The project involved rehabilitating nearly a mile of unsafe and dilapidated levee, and creating swales and ponds to increase foraging areas for waterfowl.  As the weather starts to cool, refuge staff currently are flooding up the wetlands and preparing new facilities in anticipation of the coming fall migration and the refuge’s fourth annual waterfowl hunt scheduled to start late October.