With the decline of wetlands, the continental duck breeding population fell over the last 15 years from 45 million to 31 million birds, a decline of 31 percent. Fifty years ago there were nearly 60,000 wading birds in the Everglades . More than half of the original Everglades have been drained and filled, and today there are only 15,000 wading birds. The shallowest and fastest drying of these are the first to warm in the spring, providing an invertebrate soup for protein-starved migrating puddle ducks. Then, as these seasonal wetlands dry up, migrating shorebirds feast on the exposed mudflats.
Prairie potholes are the breeding habitat for more than half the ducks in North America.
At 68-acre Bowerman Basin on the Pacific Coast, over one million shorebirds at a time gather to feed and rest on their spring and fall migration. Tide flats of estuarine wetlands like Bowerman are a rich source of bird life on east and west coast alike, attracting thousands of viewers each year. If you are working to save a wetland for the birds in your community, the wetlands campaign wants to help you raise money, get your message out, build coalitions, and advocate even more effectively. Let s work together to save our remaining wetlands.