Apparently little has changed since 2017, when the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge thought it might be a good idea to devote each spring and summer to cultivating duck-friendly vegetation, hoping to attract large numbers of the waterfowl during the fall migration. Sounds good on paper perhaps, but in practice this creates a wildlife nightmare. In order to provide sufficient acreage for their duck-food garden, the wetlands are drained down to mudflats, killing off the water-dwelling fish, amphibians, and reptiles in the process. With the aquatic food chain destroyed, the food web collapses, and both the migratory and resident wildlife that depend on on it are driven away. The number of ducks lured to the refuge by this tactic will vary by year, but those that do show up arrive just in time for New York’s duck-hunting season.

I wrote about this in some detail back in 2021 and despite the uproar it created, MNWR continues their frequent duck-food gardening; however, now they attempt to minimize the backlash with a forewarning posted to their page on the USFWS website. Here we are told that draining the wetlands down to mudflats is not cruel, it’s a harmless “draw down” that “refreshes the marsh.” This is “done every 5-7 years” (despite my personal observation of its annual occurrence for the most part of the past 7). “We only drain one large pool at a time in order to maintain habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.” Finally, “[w]hile it may inconvenience wildlife observation opportunities,” the animals are never really in danger because “we have over 10,000 acres and neighboring state land also has about 10,000 acres,” where “[w]ildlife will find suitable habitat” (not an option, though, for the animals they kill as the marshes are “refreshed”).

Apparently the author of that online blurb lies like a Republican press secretary when s/he claims that “drawdown[s]”. . .maintain habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.” If that were true, there would be no lost “observation opportunities,” no necessity for wildlife to “find suitable habitat” elsewhere, no dead animals, and no contradictory photos (below). And, while they admit to “only drain[ing] one large pool at a time,” what they don’t admit is that there is only ONE “large pool” to drain. Full stop. How do you sequentially drain a single large pool?

But, just like with the press secretary, logic isn’t a deterrent, it’s simply a momentary unpleasantness that disappears after a single vigorous denial.

Anyway, I respectfully call bullshit on that entire waste of bandwidth. The “inconvenience [to] wildlife observation opportunities” pales in comparison to the widespread destruction that occurs whenever the water table is “drawn down” to zero. Nobody with a brain or decent vision (or a sense of smell) believes that “habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife” is “maintain[ed]” when all they see is a lifeless expanse of mud littered with fish and turtle carcasses.

If MNWR limits drawdowns to once “every 5-7 years,” then my eyes (and nose) cannot be trusted. I began visiting Montezuma in 2017, when there was appreciable water in all the pools. Not so in 2018, when I witnessed my first (and likely their eleventy-seventh) drainage. Had MNWR noticed, in this area of the northeast US there is a natural drought cycle that recurs every 5-7 years, making their “5-7 year schedule” redundant and mostly unnecessary. In any event, this present (2025) episode of no water — which is taking place in the middle of a natural drought — is disturbing. The fact that MNWR has induced additional droughts within that “5-7 year schedule” is even more disturbing.

Whenever I ask about the dried-up marshes, the explanations vary from “to simulate drought” (yearly?) to “to control the invasive carp” (which are controlled by the canal gate) to “the canal gate needs repair” (this one I’ll give them — once) and finally “we need vegetation to feed the ducks” (ding ding ding, we have a winner, folks!). Just a couple of weeks ago, a USFWS employee added another reason, “to control the phrag[mites] grass.” A curious response, since lowering the water table to zero created acres of wet and wasted mudflats upon which phragmites grass thrives. Check out these photos (below).

In fact, the current standard of control is outlined in A Guide to the Control and Management of Invasive Phragmites ([Michigan] Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy; Third Edition, 2014). P. australis is highly invasive and difficult to control, so wetlands managers are advised to avoid practices that actually encourage its growth:

“Traditional moist soil management, in which impoundments are drawn down to produce mud flats in early summer, may encourage growth of Phragmites.”

Well, duh. Furthermore,

“If Phragmites is on-site or in the surrounding landscape, managers should use caution when timing drawdowns. Drawdowns should be conducted in late summer (late July) to maintain and promote native vegetation and to avoid reestablishment of Phragmites.“

(. . .even if duck food production is delayed or rendered impossible thereby. Just sayin.)

The worst of these drawdowns, in my opinion, occurred in 2021, when the levels were reduced so rapidly that water-dwellers had no time to escape. Rotting fish carcasses extended to the roadway, and the stench was unbearable. That’s when I decided to research which one of these answers, if any, were valid and then write up my findings (published elsewhere on this blog).

In case anyone who denies the frequency of the drawdowns is also bad at math, the 4-year interval between 2021 and 2025 falls short of the “5-7 year” schedule MNWR claims to maintain, and this isn’t even counting the intervening drawdowns conducted during this period.

Despite their claim, I don’t understand the how the managers (biologists) can “refresh” the individual pools “one at a time,” regardless of their size. That’s because the single large (main) pool houses a system of dikes linking it to the several smaller pools and feeder ditches located elsewhere along Wildlife Drive. When the water table in the main pool declines, so do the levels in every pool, ditch, and water collection connected to it. As these empty, the aquatic food chain and the entire food web it sustains collapse like a house of cards. There is no longer a habitat to maintain and no wildlife to maintain it for. The destruction covers the entire 3.7-mile stretch of Wildlife Drive — this cannot escape the notice of anyone who visited the complex over the summer (and in summers past).

Besides, It would be nice if they DID drain only “one [large] pool at a time,” because if the one (“large”) pool was drained and dedicated to duck food, there would be sufficient water in the others to accommodate the fish-eaters and waders, and I wouldn’t be writing this essay.

But, I digress.

Anyway, don’t just take my word for it. Take a ride along the loop and see for yourself.

“Well,” you may ask, “what about the other side? Isn’t there water on the east side?” Yes, indeed there is. The Seneca Canal runs for the entire north/south length of the Drive. It mostly attracts boaters and fishermen along with an occasional cormorant, a few eagles and osprey, and a kingfisher or two, but rarely a great blue heron or egret — and never ducks, yellowlegs or other small birds. There is no appreciable shoreline edging the canal, and the relatively deep-water habitat it sustains is unsuitable for waders, divers, dabblers, shoreline feeders that by instinct thrive in shallow-water marshes.

I took these photos (unless credited elsewhere) to show what happens when people in charge of managing a refuge don’t even know what the word means. They periodically obliterate what the local USFWS defines as the sole purpose of a refuge, to wit: “[maintenance of ] diverse habitats [that] give food, shelter, water and space to many of Central New York’s wildlife species.” However, this purpose is meaningless at MNWR as they periodically maintain a duck food garden in the mud, proving beyond doubt that when any one part of a food web is decimated, the rest of it is destroyed as well. Even though the USFWS asserts that “[w]ildlife on all National Wildlife Refuges comes first,” what they really mean is all National Wildlife Refuges except this one.

This begs the questions: 1) What is so important about attracting a hyperpopulation of ducks to the refuge each fall? and 2) How does this importance justify the annual destruction of the very habitats MNWR is tasked with preserving? Montezuma personnel have yet to acknowledge my questions, much less answer them. (“Simulating drought” is not an answer, it’s an excuse — and a lame one at that.)

I recently spoke to Logan Sauer, Resident Park Ranger and Visitor Services Manager at another NWR. The Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge deals with many of the problems that Montezuma faces in reclaiming farmlands lying within the Atlantic Flyway and then maintaining them as the natural wetlands they once were. One might expect, then, that their maintenance methods might overlap, since these similar habitats share the same physical, meteorological, and geographical conditions.

Mr. Sauer spent some time explaining that the INWR marsh maintenance policy is essentially dictated by both established and predictive weather patterns. Iroquois does adhere to the standard 5-7-year water-lowering cycle (unlike the “duck food cycle,” which seems to occur whenever MNWR wants it to). The water tables at both refuges are controlled by a dike system that permits intervention at will. However (and this is important), it is done at Iroquois only when nature fails to self-correct. To date, partial drawdowns have been required on occasion but never annually, and when they do occur the water levels are not drawn down to mudflats.

Additionally, duck hunting is permitted at INWR — but there’s an important factor to consider in the underlying philosophy. There are no efforts to reduce or eliminate the multiple wildlife habitats to a single hyperpopulation of ducks. None of INWR’s wetlands are groomed to produce duck-friendly vegetation to the exclusion of other resident wildlife. The ducks that are attracted to Iroquois wetlands are not artificially lured there and thus are not exploited by either the hunters or the refuge staff. That’s because the goal, according to Mr. Sauer, is to “maintain the diversity of habitats naturally present” in the wetlands under their care (emphasis mine).

(Not discussed were the possible benefits of allowing the water table to regulate naturally once these farmlands are reclaimed, https://conservationevidence.com/actions/3198 . There just wasn’t enough time to do so.)

Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Except when it falls from the face (or the keyboard) of an MNWR rep. Then it sounds like bullshit.

Mr. Sauer was unaware of and unfamiliar with the practices I described to him based upon my observations at MNWR, which remained unnamed during our discussion — because when I broached the subject the look on his face was a mixture of horror and confusion.

While Iroquois and Montezuma do share problems, they clearly do not share philosophies. I suspect that’s because MNWR has something that INWR doesn’t — a financial partnership with the nation’s largest, most influential, and best-known duck hunting organization, Ducks Unlimited.

There is no reason, other than quid pro quo, for MNWR to periodically abandon their mission of protecting and preserving diversity of wildlife and their habitats in favor of a singling out one exclusively for ducks. Waterfowl — ducks, geese, swans, rails, and coots — are neither threatened nor endangered, and there is no shortage of regional feeding/rest areas on the flyway. In fact, the Montezuma refuge lies adjacent to the extensive Seneca Lake marshes which, to my knowledge, are never drained or “refreshed” but manage to attract ducks nonetheless. There is absolutely no need for Montezuma to continue overusing any duck-luring tactics — unless, of course, they wish to reward DU for its financial and in-kind contributions by providing a less-restricted and more populated duck-hunting experience than what is offered at the state-controlled Seneca Lake.

So, why do they do it? Why do they consistently violate the public trust by performing the wildlife equivalent of mass murder just to please a few duck hunters? Oh, that’s an easy one. They do it simply because they can.

According to state regulations and USFWS guidelines, individual hunters are subject to fines and/or license suspension should they be caught baiting wildlife. That’s why hunting is prohibited on “manipulated” (planted and harvested) land as long as bait — grain or seed — remains on the ground (the USFWS specifically mentions cornfields, since the post harvest litter could attract — and does attract– foraging wildlife). That’s also why DU (and other) hunters avoid the agricultural mucklands in the “potato farm” region of Rt 31 in Savannah and instead hold their “magnificent muck duck hunts” (their words, not mine) just a few miles away at MNWR, whose yearly endeavors ensure expansive, huntable mucklands of their own (something that isn’t philosophically possible at INWR — you know, that whole “diversity of wildlife habitats” thing).

And it’s all very legal. One would think that the acres of bait raised in MNWR’s muddy duck-food garden should guarantee a hunt-free environment, no? Because the USFWS regulates “wildlife food plots” as carefully as they do farmland, right? WRONG, because they’ve stuck this exemption right in the middle of all the restrictions and prohibitions listed in their guidelines: “If you restore and manage wetlands as habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds, you can manipulate the natural vegetation in these areas and make them available for hunting.”  

Apparently it’s against the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 703–712) to kill, sell, hunt, take, or capture migratory birds, including migratory ducks, and you can’t even collect cast-off feathers without a permit — but it’s OK to shoot them as long as you do it at MNWR.

Kind of skews the entire meaning of the word “refuge,” doesn’t it, luring animals to rest and feed, only to sneak up, shoot them dead, and throw them in a boat. Having attracted them to a refuge. With bait.

“BAM! Right between the eyes!” — Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny, 1992).

I don’t financially subsidize MNWR and I rarely visit there anymore since I don’t much enjoy witnessing the effects of poor wetlands management. Pleasanter opportunities await elsewhere, and I find good spots driving along the backroads. The wetlands I find are smaller and subject to the whims of weather but never require “refreshment” beyond that supplied by nature. Yet they manage to attract all sorts of wildlife, including ducks. Who’da thunk it!

I must confess, though. Recently I myself was lured to MNWR by an intriguing Facebook photo. It showed two cars stopped on the Drive and an MNWR representative scolding at least one of the drivers. Apparently someone had lingered beyond the allotted 5 minutes and/or was observed getting out of the car in an effort to photograph the resident owl family. Such conduct stresses the birds and “ruins it for everybody,” according to the post. Laughed out loud at that one, because said employee was neither confined to a car nor constrained to a 5-minute-or-less tirade while her colleague dutifully and digitally preserved the egregious visitor conduct as some sort of evidence.

Besides, how stressed do they think the birds get when MNWR employees watch animals die as they intentionally and too-frequently collapse the food web by draining the marshes? Asking for a friend.

FWIW, I knew about this owl but avoided looking for it prior to this because it would be too stressful — for me (I don’t do well with glaring looks and sanctimonious verbal assaults). Besides, I already have (stress-free) photos of the great horned owl family that had nested at Sterling Nature Center a couple of years ago. At Braddock Bay, where they assist visitors with advice and guided hikes, I photo’d some saw-whets napping high up in a pine tree. (They don’t call it Owl Woods for nothing!) BTW, Hawk Creek routinely offers educational programs and, for a small fee, photo walks as part of their outreach.

I mentioned all this in my reply to the FB post, further noting that MNWR’s owl chose to nest proximate to Wildlife Drive because her maternal instincts deemed it safe to do so despite the moderate traffic and occasional photographer, neither of which has caused her to abandon her family or move it elsewhere. So, I wonder just who is stressed by such flagrant disobedience — is it the owl or the rep?

I knew that comment would result in a big fat block, but it was so worth it. 🙂

In any event, it took about 10 minutes to get that photo (above) plus several others, and the owl never even flinched. In fact, it was still there about an hour later, when I went around the Drive for a second time. (Note, no birds or MNWR reps were stressed during this process.)

Of course, MNWR doesn’t care about any of this. My writing is a minor annoyance that hardly interferes with the photographers, weekenders, home schoolers, sightseers, and unleashed dogs who “don’t believe [their] lyin’ eyes” and spend both time and money supporting a “refuge” that kills its own animals. Go figure.

(published May 19, 2025)