MottledDuck_DitchesandPonds_Merendino_Todd_BayCityTX_1May2020_Reel4009.mp3

Todd Merendino [00:00:00] That's right. There's a lot of concern over mottled ducks.

Todd Merendino [00:00:02] You know, the, you know, the habitat is certainly declined from where it was historically, due to, you know, urban sprawl and, you know, changes in agricultural practices and sea level rise and all those kind of things.

Todd Merendino [00:00:15] And, you know, if you look at where mottled ducks live, man, they, those birds fight a pretty good battle every day.

Todd Merendino [00:00:24] But if the biologists all of a sudden said, mottled ducks in Texas, we need to double the amount of habitat for mottled ducks on the Texas coast. Where do you even begin, right, to do that?

Todd Merendino [00:00:33] You've got to have places where you can do that and willing landowners, or state or federal areas, money. All those things. Right?

Todd Merendino [00:00:42] But, so when, you know, mottled ducks are pretty persistent on the landscape. You know, They don't, I always joke that mottled ducks don't need much, but they need something. You know, you see them in ditches. You see them a little ponds. Right?

Todd Merendino [00:00:57] There's a really interesting, I don't know if you've traveled the 59 corridor much, but right there at Williams Way in Richmond, where, they're kind of getting on 59, there's, there's four wetland retention ponds in each corner of the intersection right there. And for the last three years, there's been a pair of mottled ducks raising a brood on one of these wetlands.

Todd Merendino [00:01:17] And, you know, it's just again, those birds, they need, they just, you know, they need habitat. You know, we, they need, you know, they need kind of across-the-landscape, right, wetland basins, grassland cover.

Todd Merendino [00:01:32] And when you look at the things out there on the landscape, they've got a pretty heavy lift.