Waterfowl Identification Guide Comprehensive Conservation Plan Phone: 218-8474431 |
Prior to European settlement, this portion of Minnesota was part of a broad, sweeping grassland known as the Northern Tallgrass Prairie which remains the wettest portion of the Northern Great Plains. This vast prairie offered nesting habitat for many species of ground nesting birds including waterfowl, songbirds, and prairie grouse. With the easterly progression of increasing amounts of rainfall and the absence of expansive wildfires, drought, and nomadic bison grazing; the lanky grasses and picturesque wildflowers yielded to oak savannah and eventually to the dense forested regions of the eastern United States.
Photo of Helliksen Prairie Waterfowl Production Area, located in northwest
Becker County – Photo credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Interspersed throughout this open landscape was an abundance of small ponds in every shape, size, and depth imaginable. This "pothole country" was formed 12,000 ago when retreating glaciers melted and filled the erratic depressions left in their path. Known as the Prairie Pothole Region, the 300,000 square-mile area harbored approximately 25 million wetlands, or an average of 83 potholes per mile. Only the western edge of Minnesota is historically considered part of the Prairie Pothole Region. With its abundance of grasslands and wetlands, this prairie pothole country was a virtual duck factory — producing mallards, blue-winged teal, redheads, geese, swans, canvasbacks, and other water birds by the millions.
The various sizes and depths of wetlands provided the required habitats of waterfowl and many other wetland dependant species of wildlife. Dabbling ducks such as mallards and teal thrive in the invertebrate rich shallow water of temporary and seasonal wetlands where they can "tip up" to feed. Diving ducks like canvasbacks, redheads and scaup (bluebills) prefer deep clear marshes with abundant submerged aquatic plants. Whether temporary half acre ponds or large open water marshes, all wetlands are important and necessary for waterfowl to thrive.
When the organic material from decomposing prairie vegetation blended with the mineral rich soil left behind by the glaciers, some of the most fertile soil in the world formed in this region of Minnesota. Once discovered, this fertile soil accelerated settlement of the prairie and would eventually be its own demise. Human expansion did not blend well with wetlands and thick prairie sod. In the past century, ninety percent of the historic wetlands in prairie portions of Minnesota have been drained for agriculture and development, and less than one percent of the original prairie remains. Nesting waterfowl populations have declined significantly, and other wildlife species have suffered.
