given all that data and as low as some things are, does it surprise you that we're still looking at a liberal hunt probably next year?

Yeah, the thing that helped is I went and looked at the AHM report when it came out and said, how close were we, right? I mean, so you start, for the benefit of your listeners, you and I know this stuff probably more than your average listener does, that the adaptive harvest management model that we use to set regulations in the Mississippi and Central Flyway uses three inputs.

So it's the mallard breeding population estimate, the traditional survey area, so Eastern Dakotas, Montana, Prairie Canada, boreal up in New Alaska.

It uses total may ponds now, and that's a relatively new change too, Rob.

It used to just use Canadian may ponds.

Now it uses total may ponds in both the U.S. and Canada.

And then it includes the mallards from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to create essentially a mid-continent mallard population overlaid with a mid-continent habitat indices with may ponds.

What do you think is going on there?

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Yeah, I mean, if you go back, I think the history is really important.

The reason we have an easement program today is duck hunters, conservationists, fish and wildlife service biologists in the 50s saw what happened after World War II.

People came back from World War II.

The country was growing.

Duck enthusiasts, Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, people that lived here, duck hunters generally were seeing the, you know, pretty astronomical rates of wetland loss that was happening.

Congress authorized the Fish and Wildlife to create what was called the Small Wetland Acquisition Program.

John, do you want to speak a little bit to, I guess, kind of our stance on that rural community?

The

Fish and Wildlife Service announced here two weeks ago that they were doing a request for information about some of the rules and how they manage their wetland easement program up here in the Dakotas.

And nothing is actually being proposed, but I think like you and I talked earlier this week, every time somebody sort of even maybe hints that they may reconsider the easement program, it's certainly a time to be aware.

And I think the community said, you know what, even though they're not proposing anything, it's a good time for us to just remind any decision maker that how important those easements are, and also remind them perhaps the most important part of it is we bought them as duck hunters.

So what's the concern with, you know, for the average duck hunter? How does putting drainage tile under a prairie pothole actually translate to fewer ducks, you know, over time if that's the case?

Yeah, well, first of all, I think even in the worst case scenario, the service went along to put drain tile right under the wetland.

But anything that, so I think it's really important for your listeners to know that We're talking about these prairie potholes.

These are little itty-bitty poths.