When waterfowl are provided with quality wetland habitats without hunting pressure/disturbance, birds develop fairly predictable patterns from roosting, feeding, and resting areas.

Site Fidelity and Distributions of Wintering Mallards

When considering all our options for disturbing a moist soil unit, it could be summarized into the following categories: mechanical, chemical, flooding and fire. The question for any wetland manager would then be, ‘what methods should I use?

In the previous posts we covered some of the specifics to managing for waterfowl. In this post we will bring all those elements together to create what is commonly referred to as a ‘wetland complex.’