Green Bay Duck Hunters Association

Short history of Green Bay Duck Hunters Association

    Green Bay Duck Hunters Association was started in the late '50s by a group of concerned duck hunters. While supporting the work and efforts of DU, GBDHA does hands on local resource work. Early efforts involved feeding resting waterfowl, raising waterfowl for release and planting native food sources.

    Along the way a duck rescue program began in the late ‘70’s by two founding members, Ted Thyrion and Milt Geyer in which nesting hens in high risk areas (busy streets, near homes, businesses and parking lots) are monitored and upon hatching eggs, are rescued and moved to various wild release sites in the area to ensure survival rates.

    Currently, “Duck Rescuers” are on call with the county emergency dispatch center when hens and ducklings are in danger. In a partnership with the WI DNR & US Fish & Wildlife Service Bird Banding Program, rescuers receive training in handling and banding hens and forwarding the important data to the banding program. Hundreds of hens and ducklings, if not a few thousand have been rescued over the years. In fact, in the last two years alone, over 1000 ducklings and hens were rescued. For more information check out www.duckrescue.com.

    Other current efforts include various projects in the Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve, our stewardship project, including building a waterfowl observation tower, planting food sources and maintaining numerous duck nesting cylinders. For the last three years we have been actively involved in Purple Loosestrife eradication by repopulating Loosestrife beetles. This project, affectionately called “bug sucking” has been a huge success.

    GBDHA meets the first Monday of the month at 7:30 p.m. and host various speakers ranging from DNR, DU, the Fox River Trust Group, duck hunting icons of the area, past and present, duck hunting authors and others who share in our "web" of the resource. We are an active member of the Brown County Conservation Alliance and an affiliate member of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. GBDHA delegates attend and participate in state waterfowl conferences, committees and the Conservation Congress.

Current Issues                                                                     

    We are very active in the local goose population issue. We believe that more hunting opportunities should be made available to curb this population explosion. We also believe more data should be collected to identity the locally harvested geese and track their movements. GBDHA, in partnership with the WI DNR has established a local goose banding and identification program in an effort to provide tracking data, to separate out migrants and establish local harvest data. Started in 2004, GBDHA is providing manpower and funding to work in cooperation with WI DNR and F&W Service on this issue.

    We have been active in supporting the re-establishment of the Cat Island Chain in the lower bay. We have been working with our local F&W Service on how we can help in reestablishing native plant cover and food for waterfowl once the Corps rebuilds the island chain.

For questions or membership information, visit www.duckrescue.com or contact

Dave Swanson at 920-490-0751.