In this episode of NDO Podcast, in celebration of American Wetlands Month, we visit with Josh Vest, Prairie Pothole Joint Venture science coordinator, about what joint ventures do and the importance of wetlands, not just to ducks, but everybody.
(Intro music)
Cayla: Welcome to episode 98 of the NDO podcast. On this episode, we're celebrating Wetlands Month, May is Wetlands Month. So we have Josh Vest with us, who is the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture Science Coordinator. So we're going to talk about what is the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture? What Josh does, why wetlands are important. Yeah, all things wetlands. But thanks for being and Josh is with us remotely because he's in Great Falls, Montana. Is that right? Okay, he's joining us via our first one via like a Zoom/Teams scenario. But yeah, well, thanks for joining.
Josh: Hey, great. Thanks for having me on this morning. It's a real pleasure to be here and especially during wetlands month. Yeah. So Josh Vest, I serve as a science coordinator for the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture. As Cayla mentioned, I'm based way over here on the very far western edge of the prairie pothole region here in Great Falls, Montana. Just kind of landed here by happenstance. You'll probably pick up a little bit. I talk a little funny. I got a bit of an accent. So not originally, not originally from the prairie pothole region or Montana. Originally from the great state of Mississippi, where a lot of the birds that are grown and produced here in the prairie pothole region of North Dakota wind up in the winter. Kind of whiled my way here through graduate school and working for another joint venture, the Intermountain West Joint Venture for about ten years, as science coordinator and then hopped over here to this joint venture, the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture, about six years ago. So very lucky and very fortunate to be here working with a great group of conservation partners focused on, you know, wetlands conservation and wetlands and grassland conservation for the benefit of wildlife and benefit of people.
Casey: Maybe, maybe, Josh, go into a little bit about how the joint venture works. And I can add in, I, I'm one of the board members on the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture, but how the joint ventures really kind of came about and we've never had one before so you got the first shot at this.
Cayla: Also, at some point, what parts? Where is the prairie pothole region? I guess at some point in that too. Just for the people unfamiliar with that term.
Josh: Yeah, absolutely. So we'll start with that maybe first. So we'll start with what we define as the prairie pothole region. The prairie pothole region straddles from southern Canada. We're looking across Alberta, Saskatchewan to Manitoba, south into northern Montana, eastern North Dakota and South Dakota into western Minnesota and kind of like north central Iowa. So this is a region that was formed at the end of the last ice age as glaciers were retreating back 12,000 years ago. It created and formed this region called the Prairie Pothole region, which is characterized by millions of small, medium sized wetlands and historically, a grassland wetland ecosystem. It still remains one of the most unique landscapes and eco regions in the world. As far as its value and its productive capacity for wetland birds, whether we're talking waterfowl or shorebirds or different waterbirds. Tremendous capacity and a very unique ecological reason. And because of that importance and that kind of ecological significance and importance to migratory bird populations we have stood up a partnership that we call the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture, a joint venture we were born out of a big international plan called the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And this plan really evolved in the mid to mid 1980s as we were seeing historic drought conditions on the prairies. Those of you who grew up in North Dakota probably remember it well. Duck populations were really depressed. We were seeing a number of kind of land use changes that were giving people across the continent, across North America, Canada, the US, Mexico, giving them real pause and concern about our ability to continue to sustain waterfowl populations at a level that we could still enjoy them, right? Harvest them hunting across the continent as well as those people that enjoy viewing birds. Right?
Josh: So a lot of a lot of stakeholders are really concerned at that point in time. And they came up with this really bold idea of building a framework for collaboration at a continental scale for the conservation and management of waterfowl populations. And so, the really kind of cool part, I think of that was a) not just getting, you know, three nations to agree that, yeah, this is important. We need to work together on it. But also the model they, they kind of landed on is like, well, no one entity, like no one agency, no, whether it's the Fish and Wildlife Service or North Dakota Game and Fish or our partners or NGOs like Ducks Unlimited or Pheasants Forever or whoever, the Nature Conservancy, like the issues and challenges are too big. And, and no one entity can tackle this huge problem alone of supplying the amount of habitat that these birds require. So the idea was to pull together these joint venture partnerships that are based at regional scales. And so the idea was we can kind of set these big overarching continental like goals of like where we want to go to, to support continental populations of waterfowl.
Josh: But where the rubber is going to meet the road is at these regional scales. That's where partners are galvanized, you know, as you as you well know, the rubber meets the road within our individual states and the alignment of different conservation programs and different partners working together at local scales to get work done. So we came up with this idea of having regional partnerships to align partners and kind of work together on common goals and common objectives to help leverage resources. So we can amplify the great work that's already being done on the landscape. And so the joint venture is comprised of a number of different entities. It is comprised of a number of federal agencies like the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management USDAs Natural Resource Conservation Service, to name a few. Importantly, all five of our state wildlife agencies sit on our management board. As you mentioned, Casey, you're the board member there representing North Dakota Game and Fish Department. We have, you know, your counterparts from the other four states that touch the prairie pothole region on the US side. Then we have a whole host of of non-governmental organizations like Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, The Nature Conservancy, Audubon, Great Plains, and I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody's probably going to get in trouble. But it's a really.
Casey: Diverse conservation groups.
Josh: Conservation groups, we'll keep it at that. And I think one of the really like I think exciting growth and developments that the joint venture partnership has had over the past decade, decade plus is really a concerted effort to bring in a representatives from our agricultural community and, and have their perspectives represented on this diverse coalition. So we have partners like the North Dakota Grazing Lands Coalition sitting on our management board, South Dakota Grassland Coalition, primarily representing our ranching interests which, you know, our goals are pretty well, pretty well aligned. Cows need grass and water. Turns out ducks need grass and water, too. So we're pretty well aligned there. And to round that out, we also have a corporate interest sitting on our management board. Typically, at least historically for us, it's been from the energy sector. And so we kind of have this diverse coalition sitting there together and every one of them have their own mandates, right? North Dakota Game and Fish, you guys have your have your mandate to represent the citizens of North Dakota. We've all got these kind of different lenses on the world. But our job here at the joint venture is to really distill down to what are the common denominators. What are the things we all agree on that we can work on together and leverage resources to help amplify the work getting done to support wildlife habitat conservation in our region. So that's a bit of the 30,000 foot view of kind of where joint ventures were born from and kind of what, what were charged to do. So really our, our job is to kind of develop and hold this forum for all these partners to come together and, and find that, find that sweet spot of where we want to work together. And I often refer to it as like really focusing on like the 80-20 rule, like of all those partners sitting there, like we're never all going to agree on everything all the time, but we're always going to focus on the 80% of the things that we do agree on, and the 20% of things that we maybe can’t agree on. We just set those over to the side and focus on that 80% and how it can continue to move the needle forward.
Cayla: I wish we did that in more aspects of life. It feels like a good rule to just live by.
Casey: Start doing that at home.
Cayla: Yeah.
Casey: Start doing it at home.
Cayla: Yeah. I think we agree on like 97%. But the three is.
Casey: The three gets most of its time.
Cayla: Yeah.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure.
Cayla: And what do you. I'm sure like many things, but I guess what specifically do you do as the science coordinator?
Casey: He nerds out.
Josh: So yeah. So I guess my job is to try to help keep everybody honest, right?
Cayla: Yeah.
Josh: So really what we focused on here in our, in our science shop and we're really lucky here in this region. We have a tremendous, you know foundation and network of just brilliant scientists working in this region on a whole host of issues on wetlands conservation, grasslands conservation, its intersection with agriculture, like, where are those win wins? So we have just a tremendous foundation and long, long history of a lot of science about waterfowl ecology and management, wetland ecology and conservation and management more and more about the interfaces and intersections with agriculture and how these things you know, can be married together to find win win solutions. My job here as a science coordinator is to try to take all that science and work with our work with our partners. We have a technical committee, like as part of a, as part of our, our joint venture. And our job is to strengthen and bolster the science foundation that informs the strategies that we all can agree on to advance wetland and grassland conservation. And so it's an iterative process, you know, about every 5 to 10 years, depending on what's going on. We take a hard look at the science and where things are what we've learned over the past 5 or 10 years, but really the whole goal there is to keep us accountable and to ensure that we can be accountable to our constituents, to our stakeholders, that as a partnership, we're making good decisions and we're making good investments for good outcomes for, for wildlife through, through our partnership frameworks. And so my job is really to kind of help synthesize and be a professional cat herder, if you will.
Casey: I’m one of the cats.
Josh: Yep.And help and help coalesce that science that we all can agree on that advances our, our approach toward habitat conservation?
Casey: Yeah. One thing that's always been interesting to me, and maybe you could shed a little bit more light on this, Josh, like the Intermountain West where you worked before. But coming to the prairie pothole region, the amount of science and data that's available for especially ducks, wetlands, grasslands is probably the longest running, oldest tested and retested kind of proven science that we have in some of the wildlife management world.
Josh: Oh yeah, for sure. We are actually, we're extremely fortunate. Some of the longest running wildlife surveys occur within the prairie pothole region right here in North Dakota, right with the partnership between the Fish and Wildlife Service, the flyways and our state wildlife agencies to conduct the breeding waterfowl breeding waterfowl habitat survey every year. That's one of the longest running surveys we have in in the world. This partnership as well as, you know, made some, some strong investments in, in monitoring to help us understand, you know, the complicated science of how species respond to habitat conditions and how they respond to landscape change. We've got some unique monitoring programs here within the prairie pothole region and, and dedicated investments by our different agencies and partnerships that you, you don't, you don't see in a lot of places.
Josh: And that, that did remind me too Casey, I probably should have backed up a little bit earlier on when we're talking about what's a joint venture. We're actually, we're born out of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, but we're not the only joint venture. There's there's 22 of these regional joint ventures scattered across North America the Prairie Pothole joint venture and our sister joint venture to the north in Canada, the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture. We are one of the original six regional joint ventures that were stood up out of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, because this region is so important to continental waterfowl populations. And so given that history we have, we stand, frankly, on the shoulders of giants, right? Because we have lots of information to understand historic patterns and changes in how birds respond to that. And then how that how that informs our strategies for delivering conservation across, across our partnerships.
Casey: Yeah, and one of the things that we've kind of started to dive into a little more. Of course, when we all went to school for biology, nobody taught us about the people side of this thing. And for some reason, we all get pulled in to, to, to how to, how do we manage people alongside of this type of information. But digging into what this stuff really means to people to, you know, livelihoods. To clean water, to all that kind of stuff. We know that the southern duck hunters want as many ducks raised up here as they can get. And so that's like you said, why, why a, you know, area as lowly populated as the prairie pothole region got started and got a push to do all this stuff is because all those folks were the duck hunters down south were going, hey, you guys need to do something up there. So you keep sending ducks our way.
Cayla: What was the I'm so bad with like, I'm not that detail oriented, I feel like, but was Szymanski's number like I forget our footprint as the prairie pothole region, but it was like potentially 25% of the like a very big disproportionate percent of duck production.
Casey: And that that's over. That's, I think that was mostly just in North Dakota.
Cayla: Right. Oh yeah. That's right.
Casey: In Central Flyway. Yeah. And Josh, I'll let you help me out here in a second. The Central Flyway in itself. In some years, we can raise up to 25% of the annual flight in North Dakota. Now, of course, that's going to depend. If we get a dry year, it's going to be a little less. Canada gets wet. Things move. Canada would raise a. You know, quite a few more. And then of course, the Montana side and some of the other South Dakota. They raise they raise some too. But North Dakota's a big niche in that flyway.
Josh: It is absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, upwards of above up to 25 up and above 25% of the mid-continent mallard harvest. So mid-continent mallards are like the region we're talking about here. Mississippi Flyway, Central Flyway up into Canada. Yeah, 25 to 28% of that harvest originates from North Dakota on average. So within the prairie pothole region, we talk, you know, a lot like the a five state area, you know, but it's not you know, it's not, it's not the same from west to east, right? It's, it's, it's very different as you move from, you know, Iowa and Minnesota into the Dakotas and over to kind of more drier areas here within, in western Montana. This region, particularly North Dakota, I mean, it's, I think there's roughly where we're, we're talking about wetlands month. I think we're roughly like 1.6 million wetland acres within the state of North Dakota alone. That makes up roughly half of all the wetland acres we have within the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture. Right. So a lot of those wetland acres that we have here in the joint venture are in North Dakota, South Dakota, into Minnesota. And I think, you know, for us, the one of the challenges and one of the reasons this, this partnership was stood up and our state agency been working on this for a while before the joint venture was even established. You know, we've seen some of the historic wetland loss rates, right? I think as of the last as of the last National Wetlands Inventory report North Dakota had lost up to about half of their wetlands historically as, you know, like we, we continue to see challenges with, with wetland losses across the region, not just North Dakota, but across all of our, all of our five states as well.
Josh: So, you know, those threats are still there and those conservation needs are still important. But getting back to the people side of that, you know, those wetlands are are really important for people across the continent. We talked a little bit about how ducks from North Dakota connect people all across the continent. But the water and the water quality and the, and the abundance of water within the prairie pothole region has a lot of downstream effects as well, right? And so wetlands are just the natural sponge of the landscape, helping to absorb water, purify water. It helps contributes to clean drinking water. It helps contribute to flood abatement, keeping those wetlands on, on the landscape. You know, where we see, you know, areas of high wetland loss. Those are typically associated with, you know, areas of, of, of increased flooding rates and increased impacts from flooding. And of course, all that water eventually winds its way into the Missouri, into the, into the upper Mississippi River system. So all the stuff that's, you know, flowing through there ultimately winds up in, you know, my old neck of the woods.
Josh: You know, further south. And so water quality and how we manage habitats and manage lands and, and conserve these resources have a lot of downstream impacts not just for here in North Dakota, but for, for continents, you know, for, for states that you know, that are further south of us. And in our case, the Red River Valley, even to the north of us, even even to Canada. And also, I think wetlands are, are really unique in that they, they also provide an important source for ranchers and farmers for carbon sequestration, for forage availability, like all, all the, all the grasses and forbs around those wetland margins provide forage for, for cattle also provide water resources for, for our, our ranchers and for our cattle industry. So, you know, these, these unique resources, you know, they have really, really high impact and value to wildlife, whether we're talking ducks or shorebirds or water birds, amphibians, reptiles, you know, our upland game birds, pheasants and, and, and our big game. So these, these unique wetland resources connect us through wildlife. They connect us through water quality. They connect us through the abundance and availability of water for you know, abating flood impacts. So it's, it's a, it's a common thread that connects us at local scales, regional scales, and then continental scales.
Casey: And I think one thing that, you know, people don't realize is that they see a duck floating on the water, right? And they think water's water doesn't matter where it is, doesn't matter how big, how little. And I think that's something that gets lost is the form, size and function of these things. We, we need them all from the one that goes dry every year to the kind of the lake one, you know, and they're all important, especially for those, for those water birds. For filtration systems of water aquifers and those kinds of things. And I think that gets lost. It's not, it's not that we can take all the water from one spot and put it in another spot. We'll have the same amount of water, but its function will be a lot different.
Josh: Well, that's a great point, Casey. Yeah. It's and I think that's not just the unique part about the prairie pothole region and the and North Dakota, the prairie pothole region of North Dakota. It's not just the abundance of wetlands that we have. We have a very high density of wetlands. Some of the highest in the country here in North Dakota. But it's the diversity of wetlands, right? We've got everything from really small, ephemeral wetlands that might only be wet for a few days to a week or two. A little bit bigger wetlands, you know, like our seasonal wetlands that may stay dry for weeks, up to a month. And we have our bigger wetlands that are more semi-permanent wetlands. And they all have like different vegetation characteristics and different permanence of water on the landscape. Right? And so that diversity and that abundance combined together is just what makes this region a continental mecca for for migratory birds. Because as you know, every year is different. We've got wet years, we've got dry years, we've got periods of wet and periods of dry. And as you have those different kinds of wetlands and different parts of the watershed, right. Some some may be dry this year, then you have some that are wet. And so the functions and values that they have ebb and flow from year to year. And that diversity is what helps make the system so resilient for these migratory bird populations.
Casey: I would even say resilient for a livestock operation. I mean.
Josh: Absolutely.
Casey: I think of putting, you know, when we put our cows out, say it's a dry spring, I might look more towards those areas to first put them out where I had wetlands that went dry, like you said, in a couple of weeks, because I'm going to have green forage in those in those shallow basins.
Josh: Yep.
Casey: And so yeah, it's if it was all flat and there wasn't any water on there and you came into a dry spring. Yeah. It'd be a struggle.
Josh: Right. Yeah. That those, that wetland diversity gives you that kind of mosaic on your on your landscape of being able to, you know, whether you're looking at it as forage production or if you're looking at it for wildlife habitat, you've got that diversity that gives you more options depending on what you know, what you're, what you're facing and challenge with that year from, from the weather.
Casey: Yeah. And once those things are gone, it's awful hard to reproduce that same level of, of filtration capacity production that they once had. And there are ways that some can be restored. And there's been some pretty successful restorations that have gone on across the countryside.
Josh: It just, you know, once you impacted a wetland, right? Once it's been drained, it's, it's going to cost more money and more time to put it back together to get those functions back that you, that you lost. Right? So it's, you know, kind of doing the math on those trade offs. It's always, always cost more to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Casey: That could be the name of the thing.
Cayla: Lot's of good options.
Josh: Yeah.
Cayla: So one of the reasons we had you on is you're working on some research on like the current state of the prairie pothole region. Which you kind of told us isn't totally wrapped up yet. So but I think we've alluded to some trends that we've been seeing that maybe inspired this. So I think we can start there, but I do want to, without being too gloomy, like circle back to some of the good things happening in the, in the prairie pothole region too.
Casey: So that state of the prairies report Josh. So that's a report that has been done in the past. And this is we're looking at more of an update with more of a human side of things. Like I said, trying to incorporate some of the information or maybe even new information that needs to be gathered and I'll let you take it away.
Josh: So yeah, so circling back a little bit, you know, mentioned earlier like one thing that we do as a partnership is to take a hard look at the science. We look at where we've been, you know, what, what's been successful, what's, you know, where, where have we been challenged, where we failed? And we look at the science as well, like what's, what's the landscape telling us as well. Right. And how does what's going on in the landscape, you know, things that are beyond any of our, our control taking a hard quantitative look at some of that information to help us look at our strategies and like, and informing is what we're doing still the most effective thing. Like we had good justification for taking an approach. Ten, 15, 20, 30 years ago. And is that approach still viable? Is it still the appropriate approach giving new information that we that we have available to us? And so that's this initiative we're calling State of the Prairies. There was some work done by the partnership, you know, about back I think it was published around 2013. A lot of the data that went into that, you know, it was preceded that. So we're really talking, you know, most of this information in our last report was about about two decades old, as you all know, like things change and things are changing pretty fast across our region. So this is a good opportunity for us to kind of take a, take a good, hard look at what's, what's, what's going on and help tell the story of where we've been and where we are and, you know, help inform our managers, you know, you know, our partner, like sitting in your agency, Casey and our other partner agencies to inform like, what information do you need to help inform your, your programs for, for delivery? So we're calling this a state of the prairies. And that last report, you know, to kind of like drill through a bunch of complex charts and graphs and, and, and data that went into that. It basically took a hard look at, you know, the amount of grasslands we had on the landscape and the amount of wetlands we had on the landscape and the rates of change over time. And the punch line to that work was partners have been successful in delivering conservation in this, in this region, but we are losing habitat at a rate that exceeds the amount with which we can conserve habitat.
Josh: And so if we don't amplify our conservation efforts, there's, there's limited opportunity and chance for us to meet our kind of broader goals we talked about earlier to support and sustain these populations. And by the time we do that, we're going to lose so much habitat. We're probably only going to be able to support like, you know, 30 to 50% of it, right? The existing on the landscape today. So what we wanted to do was kind of like springboard off of that work. Now that's, you know, roughly about about 20 years old, 15, 20 years old. And like, what are the patterns and trends we're seeing now? Is anything changed? So we're in the middle of that. We've got some great partners, like I said, throughout throughout the region, our good friends over at Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center with U.S. Geological Survey, they're based based in Jamestown. They're really they're really the tip of the spear, helping to organize this information and lead some of that development and work. And so we're looking at some of the very same things. We're looking at rates of rates of habitat loss or habitat change. What do we gain and what are we losing? Wetlands and grasslands. But we also wanted to go a bit further and help tell a bit of a broader story about what this region means for people not just here, but everywhere.
Josh: And so we're talking about and trying to quantify and help you know, tell a bit of a story about all of the good things that flow from the prairie pothole region. You know, whether we're talking about agricultural components such as like, you know, North Dakota, South Dakota, are just they are continentally important for, for honeybee, honeybee production, right? Honeybee colonies here go all over the country to help support agriculture in other places like the Central Valley of California. So what happens here matters not just from us and a wildlife lens, but from agricultural lens as well. We're trying to tell this bigger and broader story, hopefully about why people should care about. If you're not from the prairie pothole region. Why should you care about the prairie pothole region? We also want to tell the real important stories around our conservation successes, right? And what's what's going on in the landscape. And so we hear we get a lot of air time here about the importance of this region for waterfowl populations. But as you well know, like when we're delivering habitat conservation, right? We don't put up signs on that, on that project that says for, for mallards only, right? So, so habitat conservation is good for lots and lots of wildlife, regardless of what the original funding source was, whether it was a big game dollar or it was a waterfowl based dollar, right? It's habitat conservation that has broader collateral benefits for other wildlife.
Josh: So we really wanted to help quantify and tell the story. And for us, because we're really focused on bird habitat conservation, we wanted to tell that story of we have a lot of we have a lot of external dollars and federal dollars that are coming into and coming into the region to support conservation of wetlands and grasslands, largely because because of its value for, for waterfowl. I wanted to tell that story. What does that mean for other birds? Like how well does that align and benefit our whole suite of other wetland birds, shorebirds, waterbirds, and, and our grassland birds as well? So we're trying to like package all that up and help tell the success story of, you know, how this partnership continues to challenge itself. Like we know that we, we need to do more. And we, and we've been, we've been doing more. And what we want to understand is, have we been successful in making strides against that, you know, kind of the headwinds and challenges of keeping grasslands of wetlands on the landscape or not?
Josh: So that's kind of where we're at. We're midstream some of that work right now. We're hoping to have that, you know, kind of wrapped up toward the end of this calendar year and, and be able to hopefully be able to communicate some of that work back out here, starting starting late winter, spring or spring of 2027. So we're kind of kind of shooting for. So hopefully to come back with some more more nerdy, you know, stats and pie charts and graphs and things of that nature. But it's a big lift. It's a lot of coordination, a lot of capacity across our partnerships, not just with Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, but with the Fish and Wildlife Service, with our state wildlife agencies, you know, taking a, taking a look at some of the information and data you guys have on hand that we can that we can pull into that as well to help tell that more comprehensive story. Yeah.
Casey: So yeah, and I think one of the important things like you brought up, the last report was done in 2013. That's when it was published.
Josh: Right.
Casey: And so all the science that was used was before that to do that report.
Casey: And technologies, whether it's even the way we can mark birds, GPS signals and and those types of things is totally different. And the information that's out there is just gotten better and more precise as we've gone along. And I think, you know, that that's going to be also interesting to see how, you know, some of that stuff is incorporated into this one.
Josh: Oh, absolutely. I mean, just in the past 20 years, we've had, you know, quantum leaps in technology thinking, particularly like remote sensing platforms, you know, for our ability to track and measure things like landscape change, right? So our, our, our ability now is, is, is vastly greater than it was and way more efficient, right than it was 20, 20 years ago. So I think we're going to be able to dial in, dial in things a little bit better. That's that's the goal.
Casey: Even to incorporate like the general weather for the last ten years. Yeah. Information. And the technology is recording devices and all kinds of stuff. It's just that much more precise. And to see stuff. One interesting thing about the prairie pothole region that I think, you know, it spans a lot of states and a lot of area, but the majority is private land, probably. What is it? Over 90% of the entire prairie pothole region is private land. And so none of this.
Josh: Right at 90%.
Casey: Yeah. None of this conservation gets done in this area without private landowners and private landowners buy in. Now a lot of dollars come from hunters, whether it's license sales or, or waterfowl stamp sales. That's where a good portion of the dollars come from. But a lot of other partners are starting to kick in, kick in dollars. And even like you said, energy, you know, energy sector is starting to, you know, even realize that this is a place they can make an impact with some of their dollars as well.
Josh: Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great point, Casey. Yeah. This, I mean, I'm sorry, the, the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture is really unique in that. And like, we're like, we are 90% private lands. And so and obviously like most of that, that 10% of that, of that federal state footprint is in Montana, where we've kind of got some big chunks of a Bureau of Land Management ground that makes up a lot of that 10%, but we are mostly a private lands geography. And so I, I characterize it as we have, we have two land uses primarily here within our geography. We have cows, and we have plows. And we gotta have conservation programs that work for their bottom lines. Right. And so we have to have programs that, I mean, we still have our wildlife goals and our objectives, but they've got to be flexible, right? For to make these, to make them pencil out and be attractive to our to our ranchers and to our farmers. And so I think that's always been a hallmark of this joint venture and this partnership is that focus on common sense conservation programs that work for private landowners. Yeah, the, the whole private lands conservation movement. I mean, I think there's literally like a foundation of that was born out of the, out of the prairie pothole region. So. Yeah. And like that model. Yeah. That model has been expanded across the country now. And so we think of like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as partners for Fish and Wildlife program, which is just focused on working with private landowners, ag producers. That whole model and framework was born out of the prairie pothole region because of the experiences we had here, like, you know, prior to the 1980s.
Casey: Yeah. And another thing is we've even in the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture, we've started to engage tribal members as well across. We've got one from North Dakota and one from Montana on our board. And, and so yeah. The diversification of ideas, thoughts and, and landscape management that's maybe going on out there.
Josh: Oh, great point Casey. Yep. We're also, we're continuing to evolve like the partnership continues to evolve and expand. And, you know, taking a much closer look at the resources and some of the opportunities and challenges that we face within our within our tribal partnerships beginning to evolve that. I think it's a, it's really exciting times right now. Like we've been really as a partnership pushing ourselves like, well, we can't just, we can't just keep talking to ourselves as wildlife professionals, right? Where the rubber meets the road is with the land base, with our, with our farmers, our ranchers and our tribal members. Right. This is where this is where the action, where the rubber meets the road. And so we've got to have that representation sitting at the table, providing their perspectives of, you know, what's working, what's not to help us adapt, you know, and I mean, adapting doesn't always happen quickly. Sometimes it takes some time. It takes some, it takes some hard conversations. Right. But that's, that's to me, that's the whole beauty and power of having a forum like this where you know, we're all there for, for a common goal and for a common purpose. And you kind of help put, put some of the, put some of the more complex things over to the side and focus on those, those common denominators that we can we can rally around.
Cayla: We need a better we need this is where the wings meet the water. This is where the I don't know something more.
Casey: Or, or, or what do they call them? The duck poppers and T-Bone steaks.
Casey: We can support, we can support it all by doing that.
Josh: Yeah. And supporting it all that's you know, I think that's, that's the that's the key. I think one of our obviously one of our key strategies, our key goals, you know, we know that having healthy wetlands and healthy grasslands on the landscape, it goes part and parcel with having a healthy and robust ranching industry within our, within our region. Right. And we're continually looking for those win win opportunities to work with our farmers, you know, and find incentives and the appropriate incentives that work for them to keep those wetlands on the landscape. Right. Because they're they're a challenge for our farmers.
Josh: And finding those appropriate incentives there as well. I think we've got, we've got a lot of opportunity in front of us. I think what we're likely to find, just looking at some of the preliminary data coming out of our work for the state of the prairies is this partnership has been really successful and stepping up to the challenge of, of doing more and trying to do more faster. And while we've done that, we've, we have had some increasing headwinds and we're, we're seeing the rate of, of landscape change across the prairies has been speeding up at the same time. And so the way I kind of characterize that is, is the partnership, we've been running harder, we've been running faster. And at the same time, the escalator has been speeding up too. And so like we're, we are, we are keeping up, I think, with where we were before in the face of those tremendous headwinds that we've been faced with over the past, past couple of decades. So I think that provides a unique opportunity for the partnership to really look at, okay, these are the tools we have in the toolbox. Where do we want to be in ten years from now, and how do we continue to diversify the toolbox that makes that, that that works for our farmers and ranchers to ensure that we keep these, these vital habitats on the landscape, working for people, working for the birds.
Casey: Yep.
Cayla: You got to run faster. Casey.
Casey: Yeah.
Cayla: Or turn the, the treadmill down a little bit.
Casey: I don't know if I'm getting any faster. That's my problem. I'm just lucky if I can stand up straight now out of bed in the morning.
Josh: Same here. Yeah, I don't know. I had a saying here that I only run for for two reasons. Either the dogs are on point or there's a bear, and I know you shouldn't run when there's a bear. But fight or flight is strong.
Casey: So let's see. My two reasons. Are cows chasing me or I'm chasing a cow. Those are my two reasons to run. I think I'm just going to fight the bear.
Josh: Yeah. I'm going to lose regardless. I'm going to go down swinging.
Casey: Yep, yep. All right.
Cayla: Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for being on. And yeah, we we'll have you back next spring. When got things tied up.
Josh: Yeah. This has been fun. Thanks for the opportunity. Yeah. Glad to follow up and get some more, more information in hand and I think we'll be, yeah, be looking to help, you know, find ways to communicate some of the great work that our partners in North Dakota Game and Fish are doing, as well as our partners across all of our five states.
Casey: Yeah. Sounds good.
Cayla: All right. We'll get into the department droppings. So we already mentioned this, but May is wetlands month. So yeah, get out there and enjoy some wetlands or or do something to help conserve them.
Casey: Yeah. And we've got the, the deer lottery deadline is going to be coming up June 3rd. So make sure not to wait till the end. That way if you have trouble getting in, you got time to get it answered and figured out.
Cayla: June 6th is Prairie Day, I believe all of June is Prairie Month. So we celebrate our wetlands in May and then the prairies in June. But yeah, it should be some, I think a host of our partners are holding events on that day or around that day in celebration of the prairies. But yeah.
Casey: Yeah, we could probably have Josh back on to talk about duck production and grass. But Yeah we'll save that for a different day.
Josh: We'll see. Cayla may not want me back back on after listening to me drone on.
Cayla: Oh no, all good.
Casey: Yeah. But then we've got free fishing weekend is June 6th and seventh, so if you want to give it a try or take somebody out that maybe is only going to go once. There's your weekend.
Cayla: And then we're doing fish challenge again. So opened May 1st runs through August 15th. This is our fifth year doing it. So there's, you can do any of the other previous challenges, but the new one we're offering this year is to just catch 100 fish of any, any kind, any size. You just got to catch a hundred. Yeah. Or you can participate in any of the previous ones.
Casey: I mean, I'm not a crazy fisherman, but I don't know if I've ever caught a hundred fish in a year.
Cayla: Sweetbriar bullheads.
Casey: Sweetbriar bullheads.
Cayla: That's where it's at.
Casey: All right, now that we've dropped the droppings, you can get off the pot and get outdoors.