A couple of days ago I received a report about a study by Southern Illinois University professor Michael W. Eichholz. The subject of his study involves the drop in duck productivity in the prairie pothole region -- from the northern United States upward into southern Canada.

Prof. Eicholz focuses, in part, on raccoons and skunks, two predators blamed for increasingly high rates of nest predation. Anytime there is a discussion concerning poor duck production, predators are high on the list of culprits causing our problems.

Prof. Eicholz identified a key element of the predator problem -- the change in habitat that enabled these predators to make a home on the northern prairies.

Interestingly, nearly 45 years ago a close friend and federal game agent mentioned the same problem. Raccoons were expanding their range northward into Canada, he said, warning this could spell problems for nesting ducks. Those many years ago he also identified the reason predators were successfully pioneering new territory, the same reason cited by Prof. Eicholz.

The change in habitat involved abandoned homesteads – homesteads left to decay when small farms were increasingly taken over by larger operations. Prof. Eicholz gave an example of 47 skunks over-wintering in one small, abandoned barn.   

Given that many hunters are staring at increasingly empty skies, it is not difficult to convince hunters that predators are destroying nests and eating hens and reducing the size of the fall duck flight. They also are dining on the eggs of other ground-nesting gamebirds and songbirds. But what can we do?

Most hunters promote trapping. Delta seems to favor trapping in dense nesting areas. Ducks Unlimited really doesn’t seem to have the desire to kill furry creatures in order to give a duck hunter another target. I suspect the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service realizes the futility of programs to directly control predators. Given the size of the northern prairies, I cannot imagine any direct predator control method that would be effective, sustainable, and affordable.

What I find hard to understand is why we aren’t eliminating abandoned homesteads? Why aren’t we burning and burying the old structures? From personal experience I know what a modest size hydraulic excavator and dozer can accomplish in a matter of hours. We can bury a barn in minutes. What better way would there be to eliminate 47 skunks and their potential reproduction, forever?

And while we are at it, we can eliminate the rockpiles that also provide predator habitat.

Consider the following:

• A million dollar wetland project marked with a stone monument and a flagpole is a wonderful project, but, truthfully, it is insignificant on the landscape of North America. A million dollars spent burning and burying is not very glamorous but could potentially remove prime predator habitat from a huge expanse of prime nesting prairie.
• Burn and bury is a permanent solution. It would eliminate or reduce the annual re-population of predators. And because it is permanent it is cost effective.
• Farmers should be happy to get rid of the obstacles and the eyesores. Landowners might even be convinced to cost share in such a program since they would be gaining farmable acres.
• As a landowner I would consider it cheaper to burn and bury than hire trappers forever. Moreover, it would not involve the direct killing of furry creatures.

This plan of attack seems so obvious that I wonder why we haven’t already done it. I ask myself, “Am I missing something?” But I can think of nothing.

Isn’t it time to begin a program to de-house predators? 

Art Ladehoff, a long-time waterfowler and decoy manufacturer, has hunted extensively across the northern prairies. He lives in Iowa where he manufactures the mighty Big Foot goose decoy. He can be contacted by email at www.brenda@clintondecoy.com