{"id":58075,"date":"2024-10-03T16:48:49","date_gmt":"2024-10-03T21:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisducks.org\/?p=56981"},"modified":"2024-10-03T16:48:49","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T21:48:49","slug":"our-favorite-time-of-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/our-favorite-time-of-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Favorite Time of Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Bruce Ross, Executive Director [email]bross@wisducks.org[\/email]<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association\u2019s October, 2024 Newsletter<\/a>\u00a0edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

It continues to amaze me how much your WWA has going on.\u00a0 (And I thought last month was busy as we received two national awards, and hosted an EXPO).\u00a0 \u00a0We just closed the books on the \u201924 EXPO, and we\u2019ve already begun meeting for the ’25 EXPO, which is going to two days.\u00a0 We got a survey out to attendees, and we are hoping to get feedback to make improvements.\u00a0 So far, the feedback has been uniformly positive.<\/p>\n

Do you want to help take it to the next level?\u00a0 Let me know.<\/u><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Habitat work couldn\u2019t be much busier\u2014a gang of us got together at my cabin or camped overnight for a couple of days of rice collection to help restore rice beds in the Northwoods.\u00a0 The rice was not as kind as last year, but between purchasing rice and collecting it ourselves, we were able to put over 500# of manoomin<\/em> back in places where we hope it will gain a toehold and bring ducks for years. By the way, that\u2019s a picture of WWA Ecologist, Mark Pfost, collecting rice using what our GLIFWC (Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Council) partners call \u201cthe soft hand method\u201d (that actually employs 3\u2019 long ricing sticks to knock the rice seeds into the bottom of the canoes). You may not recognize him because he is usually up to his neck in mud, muck or water.\u00a0 Good to see you dry, Mark!<\/p>\n

Want to help out ricing next year\u2014email [email]info@wisducks.org[\/email] to get on the list!<\/u><\/p>\n

Make sure to check out Mark\u2019s article<\/a> as the lead ecologist in the largest project WWA has done in decades, maybe ever.\u00a0 He\u2019ll be leading the charge on disabling an extensive network of 100-year-old ditches in the Necedah area to restore something close to 2,000 acres.\u00a0 This includes land on which you can hunt on the Meadow Valley State Wildlife Area!<\/p>\n

And our Green Bay volunteers are working closely with the US Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to improve the waters and woods<\/a> of our 143 acre Abrams property.<\/p>\n

Our learn to hunt efforts are in full swing now that the season has started – our West Bend Chapter had a goose hunt<\/a> and Prairie du Chien got a bunch of youngsters out for a duck hunt<\/a>. Impressive work to start the NEXGEN waterfowlers out right.\u00a0\u00a0 Every student or teacher says it\u2019s a great experience.<\/p>\n

We could use more mentors\u2014let me know if you want to play a role.<\/u><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The best value raffle in the state1 <\/sup>is now available<\/a>.\u00a0 Better odds, better prizes than ever before, and a chance to win a prize for every single day of the year. If we can sell this thing widely, it\u2019ll significantly expand our ability to deliver habitat, education and hunter advocacy.\u00a0 Buy one or more, or even better\u2026<\/p>\n

Help us sell what could be the biggest raffle in WWA recent history<\/u><\/p>\n

And finally, I just spent a VERY long day in the capitol, advocating for a sandhill crane hunt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019ve noticed a theme here.\u00a0 WWA is expanding our efforts to fulfill our mission more effectively, and that opens up opportunities for committed individuals to make an outsized conservation impact.\u00a0 But you need to raise your hand (figuratively) by letting us know you\u2019re interested\u2014just follow this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And I have gotten into the marsh for a couple of glorious mornings.\u00a0 But not enough (then again, is it ever?)<\/p>\n

See you in the marsh,<\/p>\n

Bruce<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 In my somewhat biased opinion, WWA\u2019s 2024 calendar raffle at only 30 dollars, a drawing for every day of the year, and prize value over $80K<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bruce Ross, Executive Director [email]bross@wisducks.org[\/email] This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association\u2019s October, 2024 Newsletter\u00a0edition. It continues to amaze me how much your WWA has going on.\u00a0 (And I thought last month was busy as we received two national awards, and hosted an EXPO).\u00a0 \u00a0We just closed the books on the \u201924 EXPO,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}