BAYOU METO, Ark. — On the last day of duck season in the heart of Arkansas’ best duck country, longtime hunter Todd Taylor said the hunting just wasn’t as good as previous years.

Sitting in his boat in the George H. Dunklin Jr. Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area, 33,000 acres of public wetlands preserved by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in the Mississippi River delta, Taylor complained that there were too many hunters and not enough ducks. On the last day of the season, he and his group bagged just one — far less than previous years.

Taylor has been duck hunting in Arkansas for 35 years, traveling from Orangeburg, South Carolina, to hunt in the famous Arkansas timber, a flooded woodland known worldwide as a destination for the sport. Bayou Meto sits about 20 miles southwest of Stuttgart, which bills itself as the duck-hunting capital of the world. Every winter, hunters from across the state and the country flood into the wetlands and rice fields in the delta, historically contributing to a $1 million-a-day economic impact during the season.

Wetlands, especially bottomland hardwood forests of towering oaks and cypress trees, are integral habitat for ducks flying south for winter.

Duck hunting is an important cultural and economic fixture in the state, and it’s also an important mechanism for wetlands conservation in Arkansas, where there are no state laws specifically for wetland protection. But waterfowl populations are under increasing threats from climate change and habitat destruction, leading to fewer ducks, and ultimately fewer hunters, and fewer dollars to protect the ducks and the wetlands they call home.

On top of an already grim picture, habitats up and down the Mississippi River basin are facing greater threats than ever due to the 2023 Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision that will remove federal protections for many wetlands. And now Arkansas conservationists must find their footing in a legal environment unfavorable to their work of preserving the wetlands that ducks and their hunters love.

Arkansas nonprofits, landowners, and government agencies have long formed an alliance to preserve the crucial wetlands ecosystems left in the delta, glued together by the longstanding tradition of duck hunting. But in a new, post-Sackett era of lesser wetlands protections, that coalition seems to be in an uphill battle. And duck hunters like Taylor may be the only force with the power to save wetlands in the state. 

The problem

While waterfowl numbers rose modestly last year, according to the latest report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they have declined over the past decade. The report also noted that habitat conditions “generally declined” over the surveyed area, much of the northern U.S. and Canada, since 2023. Climate change is also wreaking havoc on breeding grounds everywhere, driving much of the habitat and breeding ground loss further up the river.

Coupled with the habitat decline, the number of duck hunters upriver continues to crater in places like Minnesota. But the number of Arkansas duck hunters has remained steady. More than 100,000 duck stamps, or hunting licenses, were purchased from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in 2024.

While the number of duck hunters has remained stable, the duck populations have not. And beginning in 2022, out-of-state duck hunters like Taylor started outnumbering local hunters. According to George Dunklin Jr., a longtime hunter and operator of one of Arkansas’ most prominent private duck hunting operations, Five Oaks Duck Lodge, there are many causes for concern.

Dunklin has turned his 6,000 acres of prime delta land into a private, nonprofit duck hunting club that he and his team lovingly call “the buffet” for waterfowl. Five Oaks preserves various types of wetland habitat in rural Humphrey, south of Little Rock, and is actively growing more forest to provide consistent, quality habitat for migratory birds. It includes a research center and collaborates with the University of Arkansas. Dunklin is also a former commissioner of Arkansas Game and Fish.

Why does duck hunting matter so much for conservation? According to Dunklin and his staff director of research, Ryan Askren, the federal government allocates habitat conservation funding based on firearm and ammunition sales through the Pittman-Robertson Act. The Arkansas Game and Fish’s conservation efforts also receive major funding from duck stamps, which contributed roughly $27 million to the commission’s budget in fiscal year 2024. 

A lot of that came from out-of-state hunters, but if they keep having a poor experience, like Taylor, Dunklin worries that fewer hunters will come to Arkansas and spend their money on duck stamps, firearms, and ammunition to fund the state’s conservation efforts. 

Jennifer Sheehan, chief of the environmental coordination division of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, is immersed in state water policy. She said out-of-state hunters often purchase gear in Arkansas, which kicks back to the commission’s budget through the federal Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Conservation Act. That represented around 10 to 15 percent of the commission’s budget every year.

Wetland habitats are declining, too. 

Across the swamps of Bayou Meto on the last day of duck hunting season, Sheehan pointed out dozens of fallen red oak trees that died after being over-flooded for years by Game and Fish and outcompeted by white oaks and cypress trees. Acorns from the red oak trees are crucial nutrition for waterfowl populations.

Wetlands are also important habitat for waterfowl, according to Ducks Unlimited biologist Jake Spears, who works directly with landowners and farmers to conserve habitat on their land. The organization plays a large part in conservation efforts in Arkansas.

“A lot of people refer to rice fields as ‘surrogate wetlands,’ and without rice fields today, we wouldn’t have a lot of ducks,” Spears said. “Back in the day, this whole delta was basically one giant bottomland hardwood forest wetland. Most of it got cleared, and a lot of these rice fields act as somewhat functioning wetland.”

Before Europeans settled the Arkansas delta, it was covered in bottomland hardwood wetlands. But over 70% of those wetlands were cleared for agriculture after the 1780s, and millions of acres are used for commodity rice and soybean production. Stuttgart, Arkansas, also calls itself the “rice capital of the world.”. 

“Rice is basically a potato chip for a duck. They are going to go in and eat it and get some nutrition out of it, but not a ton,” said Spears. “But you can’t survive off just potato chips alone.” 

Spears said ducks have evolved to eat acorns, which are a large component of their diets. Forests, unlike rice fields, also provide shelter for ducks and greater varieties of food, Spears said.

Conservationists grapple with Sackett, solutions face steep hurdles

George Dunklin Jr. sees habitat destruction and funding declines throughout the Mississippi River Basin as posing a serious challenge that Arkansas conservationists can only try to mitigate. The Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision limited the number of wetlands across the nation that are protected by the Clean Water Act, which may lead to greater habitat destruction in northern areas of the Mississippi flyway where ducks breed before they fly south to Arkansas. 

Dunklin didn’t think the impact of Sackett would affect Arkansas wetlands much, largely because most of the state’s wetlands have already been cleared. Askren created a map showing the decline of wetlands across the state since the 1780s.

Adam Gold, a researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund, published an analysis in September 2024 suggesting that between 17 and 90 million acres of wetlands nationwide will be at risk depending on how the Supreme Court ruling is interpreted. Gold also created an online tool using data from the Environmental Protection Agency, showing that federal authorities allowed close to 20% more requests to develop wetlands without permits since the Sackett decision was handed down.

And in Arkansas, the numbers were not much different. Gold found that since Sackett, the Army Corps in Arkansas determined that only 19.4% of claims to fill wetlands were under their regulatory authority.

Dunklin said the “swampbuster” provision in the Farm Bill, which makes a farmer ineligible for federal Department of Agriculture benefits if they convert wetlands into farmland, would continue deterring wetland destruction. But Sheehan worried that private landowners could still be allowed to fill wetlands, which could increase flood risk in nearby public areas. And the National Agricultural Law Center released a report in March 2025 showing that Arkansas has no extra wetland protections enshrined in state law.

Other positive signs are emerging in spite of Sackett. With farm incomes declining in the delta, many farmers are turning to duck habitat conservation as a new revenue stream. 

Ben Noble, executive vice president for Riceland Foods, said farm tourism has also greatly expanded, and Natural Resources Conservation Service programs have increased conservation efforts on private lands. Arkansas Game and Fish started a Private Lands Habitat Division to encourage more farmers to conserve habitat. Spears said he works with 70 to 80 Arkansas landowners a year on conservation plans, and many other organizations do similar work. 

Still, both Noble and Dunklin said that conservation just wasn’t as profitable as farming. Dunklin couldn’t make a private duck club very profitable, so he switched to nonprofit status in 2020 so he can focus on conservation and get grants to support the work.

Ultimately, a public policy solution is needed, said Dunklin, and duck hunters may be the only interest group with enough political power to step up and demand more conservation resources. 

“The duck stamp is now $50, but when I first started coming out here it was $10 or $15,” Taylor said. “But if the money is used right, I think it’s fair. I don’t mind paying that at allw because I use these resources out here.”

This story is part of the series Down the Drain from the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting collaborative based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.