Where did Wisconsin's cheeseheads lose it? In an unlikely place like a cedar swamp or pine woods? In a vat of beer or cow pasture? Was it accidentally dropped overboard and swallowed by a giant muskellunge? In the state where Aldo Leopold brought to maturity his seminal outdoor ethic and penned his epochal work, A Sand County Almanac, it is missing. The “it” in this case is that which we purportedly hold dear, our Holy Grail – waterfowl conservation.

Waterfowl conservation in the land of lager, limburger and the Green Bay Packers has virtually disappeared, at least in the ranks of the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association, a group that purports to be dedicated “to the conservation of Wisconsin's waterfowl and wetland resources.”

Jack Arenz, WWA president, makes the association's dismissal of our conservation heritage starkly clear. In a column in the organization's magazine recently sent to me, Arenz finds fault with regulations that prevent the state's duck hunters from sending aloft a load of steel 3s toward every migrant duck winging across the state. He is not talking solely about mallards. He is talking about every species, from the first blue-wing teal flying south in the warmth of early autumn to the last migrating goldeneye braving the cold snows of winter.

Arenz's lament involves zoning and season-length. Currently, the state is divided divided into two zones – the north zone and the south zone. This year the northern zone duck season ran from Sept. 26-Nov. 24. The south zone had a split season – Oct.3-11 and Oct. 17-Dec. 6. Each zone's season length totaled 60 days, the maximum allowed under federal regulation. For inland hunters who mostly hunt small waters, this arrangement has worked out very well because most inland waters are frozen by season's end, Arenz says.

But Arenz emphasizes the state of Wisconsin is also blessed with “big water on three sides. Lake Michigan and Green Bay on the east, Lake Superior on the north, and the Mississippi River on the west. This is waterfowl heaven! The big waters stay open later and therefore attract the divers and puddlers chased off the inland waters by the freeze and late migration.”

Arenz notes that inland hunters are unwilling to give up any of their allotted 60-days to provide for late-season, big-water shooting. He therefore calls for the organization to lobby the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish a third zone encompassing Lakes Michigan and Superior, Green Bay and the Mississippi River. Arenz envisions this third zone as opening early to allow hunters to target blue-winged teal and then, after a long split, to re-open to allow for shooting into late December.

“A few of us dedicated duck-nuts would still like to suffer through a December late duck season,” Arenz wrote. “As Peter Peshek has so eloquently stated, 'late-season waterfowling is fundamentally a spiritual experience between the hunter, the retriever and Mother Earth.' Can't we make it happen?”

Arenz is not alone, a waterfowl association president going off half-cocked to promote his personal agenda. He cites an association poll that finds a significant number of members favoring a late, big-water season. His plea conforms to the association's professed goal of seeking regulations that will “provide the maximum amount of opportunity for waterfowl enthusiasts.”

At the same time, Jerry Solsrud, one of the association's founders, called for eliminating the state's one-hen mallard bag limit, arguing it “doesn't hurt the mallard population as much as it hurts hunters.”

Sadly, both of these men are mystified by the concept of conservation. Their proposals are the antithesis of historic waterfowl conservation, which Leopold so eloquently espoused..

Since the 1840s, waterfowl conservation has focused on increasing our tattered flocks. No celebrated conservationist – from Roosevelt to Grinnell to Leopold to Hochbaum to Ellman – has ever called for hunting seasons designed to allow hunters to blaze away at the first blue-winged teal in early autumn and continue the fusillade until the southbound departure of the last, late-winter goldeneye. None has called for “maximizing opportunity,” a forked-tongue phrase meaning maximizing the kill. They have demanded shorter seasons and a kill reduction to significantly increase the breeding population and the fall flight to numbers far greater than we encounter today.

None of these esteemed conservationists ever called for regulations designed to relieve the “hurt” of hunters suffering from unrequited bloodlust, as Solsrud argues. It would be difficult to think of an idea more wrong-headed. One might say that conservation is designed to “hurt.” Historically, it hurt the market hunters who were put out of business. It hurt the sport hunters who went afield to kill ducks during the northbound, spring migration. It hurt those who gathered eggs each spring from the nests of incubating hens. Today it “hurts” misguided hunters who complain about having to stop shooting on days when ducks are really flying and they quickly achieve a bag limit. It “hurts” the whack-and-stack shooters who have to put away their shotguns at season's end, even though the most talented among them can still find open water and a few ducks.

Arenz's additional argument is that late-season gunning is a “spiritual” experience, as if cold-weather gunning is unique. This is a red-herring. Each hour spent in a duck marsh regardless of season is a spiritual experience for a true sportsman.

Conservation celebrates life, of restoring the teeming flights that once winged across the North American skies. It's about taking responsibility for what we kill and preserving waterfowl hunting for decades to come.

Yet, it would be wrong to point the finger solely at Arenz and Solsrud. The organization itself is based on a flawed premise, as evidenced by its mission statement to develop regulations that will not only provide maximum opportunity, but “at the same time meet the population goals of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.”

If the organization truly believed in NAWMP population goals, it would oppose Adaptive Harvest, the current regulatory protocol that gave us 60-day seasons, the maximum allowed under federal law for each zone in each Mississippi Flyway state. Sixty day season lengths are not only the longest in more than half a century, they are a fanciful fraud. Zoning and automobiles render it meaningless. If you are willing to drive from one zone to the other, as is frequently the case with skilled waterfowlers, this year's duck season in Wisconsin runs from Sept. 26 to Dec. 6 – a total of 70 days. A big water zone running through Dec. 31 would extend the Wisconsin season length to 97 days – a quarter of the year.

Back in the days when we had far greater numbers of ducks, the maximum season length was 50 days for the entire state, with the exception of one year in the early 1950s when the feds increased the length in the Mississippi Flyway to 60 days.

The Nov. 24 closure in the north zone and the Dec. 6 closure in the south zone allows ample time for Wisconsin's duck hunters to hunt when northern flights peak, even in years when the migration is delayed. My experience on the upper Great Lakes reveals the major flights generally occur the last week of October and the first week of November. Only a few straggler migrants and a few resident, inland-nesting mallards seeking open water are encountered in late December.

Wisconsin's current 70-day duck season allows all its hunters to kill locals and early migrants, and then turn their attention to northern ducks. This is as true for big-water hunters as it is for inland shooters.

More importantly, Adaptive Harvest's stated goal is to reduce the North American mallard breeding population to a lowly 5 million, far below NAWMP's 8.2 million objective.

The Wisconsin Waterfowl Association has it all wrong – dead duck wrong. Its members should read the writings of the classic waterfowl conservationists. They might learn something.

Aldo Leopold would be aghast.