Devil's Lake Wetland Management District - North Dakota

Millennia ago glaciers scoured the midriff of North America, leaving behind gently rolling hills and millions of tiny glacial-melt lakes to reflect the endless sky. We know this land as the prairie potholes region, and for more than half the continent's waterfowl population, it is a place they cannot live without. Mallards, gadwalls, teals, pintails, shovelers, snowgeese, wood ducks, bitterns, bluebirds and herons congregate here in impressive numbers. Some are migrants stopping only long enough to rest and refuel. Others have come to settle for a while with their mates around the nutrient-rich waters of the potholes, waters that nourish the fledgling generation of the majority of the nation's waterfowl, despite covering only 10 percent of the entire breeding area.

Devils Lake Wetland Management District in North Dakota was established to protect this land, vital to the survival of more than 300 bird species, including the threatened piping plover. The district protects about 45,000 acres in 200 important waterfowl areas.

The Threat

When European settlers came upon the prairie potholes region it was a land brimming with wildlife. Bit by bit agriculture and industry plowed over and filled in more than half of the prairie ecosystem. Since the 1970s, the populations of gadwalls, teals and mallards have been at their lowest historical levels. And even today, although protection of the potholes is increasing, great swaths of grassland-which is as critical to ground-nesting birds as the potholes-continue to be degraded by agricultural development and roads.

Perhaps the greatest threat to this most important waterfowl nursery is global warming caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. Average temperatures in North Dakota have increased by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past century and may increase 3 to 4 degrees over the next century, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Climate scientists have predicted that warmer climates in the northern prairie wetlands region will increase the frequency and severity of droughts, which could reduce the number of pothole ponds from 1.3 million to 800,000 by the middle of this century, a 38 percent reduction. Moreover, with waterfowl breeding habitat so concentrated in the potholes region, the effects of global warming could cut the number of breeding ducks in half and increase the likelihood of outbreaks of avian flu and other diseases.