COLUMBIA, Mo. — Flocks arrived by the dozens in the dark before sunrise. Some travelled in groups. Others flew solo. They all wanted to land in a wetland, but these specimens needed to wait for the Missouri Department of Conservation to get all their ducks in a row. The MDC and a small bingo cage would decide who got a spot.

No, this was not a crowd of mallards. It was hunters waiting for a shot at migrating waterfowl. 

Throughout the state, duck hunting is permitted at 14 public wetlands but daily reservations are required. Half the spots get awarded through an online lottery before and during the season. The rest are for the “poor line.” Historically, this queue is for people who don’t have access to private land or didn’t score a public reservation.

On a November morning 30 hunters were at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area near Columbia, Missouri. 

“You get up at four in the morning for a chance to get a spot at one of Missouri’s conservation areas,” Jake Rice said.

There were nine spots available for the drawing. An MDC biologist spun the cage for the hunters, who each got a ball. The lower the number, the better the odds.

The cradle of migrating waterfowl in North America

Eagle Bluffs is located in an alluvial plain of the Missouri River, and over 280 migratory bird species visit the 4,429-acre area each year.

As MDC’s resource supervisor for the region, John George said one of the main goals of the conservation area is to provide birds with a place where they can rest and find food – small acorns from oak trees, seeds, insects and even crops like rice, soybeans, and corn – for the long journey. “They can’t just fly the whole length of the Missouri and hope that they find something at the other end,” George said.

The Missouri is one of the major rivers, along with the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, that flow along a key route for migratory birds. Known as the Mississippi Flyway, about half of all North American species utilize the corridor to get from as far as Canada all the way down to Central and South America, and then back. 

“The Mississippi Flyway is definitely the cradle of migrating waterfowl in North America,” said Jared Mott, who grew up hunting in the state of Mississippi and now serves as conservation director of the Isaak Walton League of America, a national conservation organization.

The region is ideal for duck hunters, too. For the 2024 season, there were an estimated 1.3 million active duck and geese hunters throughout the United States, according to a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service report from August. Of that number, about 40 percent of the U.S. total were in the Mississippi Flyway, which includes 14 states from Minnesota to Louisiana. All together, they harvested approximately 6.4 million ducks and 1.4 million geese.

“It’s got the most ducks, it’s got the most hunters,” Mott said. “When it comes to waterfowl, you just about can’t overstate the importance of wetlands and the habitat that they provide.”

Waterfowl need the habitat not just for migrating south in the winter but also as their breeding grounds in the Prairie Pothole region — which consists of states like Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. It’s nicknamed the “Duck Factory” because it produces millions of birds each year. 

The success of duck populations – and hunting – is largely dependent on habitat quality and quantity. Both are at risk. Mississippi has 24 wildlife management areas throughout the state that are managed for waterfowl.

More than 130,000 acres of wetlands in the Mississippi River Basin were lost between 2009 and 2019, according to a 2024 report from the USFWS. This has largely been caused by drainage and fill from farming over the past century, along with modern land development and climate change.

In Mississippi, between 1930 and 1973 approximately 8, 170 acres of coastal marshes were filled for industrial and residential uses, according to a  1999 Mississippi’s Coastal Wetlands report from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Coastal Preserves Program. 

While many migrating waterfowl have access to state and federally managed wetlands, they also depend on private land throughout the U.S. Yet, in late November, the Environmental Protection Agency announced new guidelines redefining which streams and wetlands qualify for federal regulations under the Clean Water Act. 

The proposal was praised by EPA administrator Lee Zeldin and some agriculture groups, but environmental groups have already raised concerns about the potential impact on the Mississippi River basin’s wetlands. 

“It’s not pretty,” Mott said. 

The rule is open to public comments until January 5, 2026.

The first conservationists in America

Historically, duck hunters played a crucial role in conservation throughout the U.S. They were among some of the first to advocate for the protection for all migratory birds, not just waterfowl, which resulted in the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.

Today, duck hunters pay into conservation by purchasing state and federal hunting permits. That includes the Federal Duck Stamp, which has raised more than $1 billion to protect approximately 6 million acres of wetlands since 1934. It’s also a popular art contest with hundreds of entries each year. 

“Without those duck hunters, there’d be a lot less habitat out there for waterfowl,” said Jake Spears, the region biologist in Arkansas for Ducks Unlimited, a nonprofit for waterfowl and habitat conservation.

A federal tax on the sale of handguns, as well as other firearms and ammunition, generates funding for wildlife restoration each year — approximately $989 million for fiscal year 2024. Additionally, every state has its own way of sourcing conservation funding. For example, in Missouri,  0.125% of the state’s 4.225% sales tax collects funds for state conservation programs.

Eagle Bluffs, where the hunters waited in the poor line for a chance to shoot a duck, is just one example of what that money can do. It’s a restored wetland constructed in the 1990s to fight the loss of nearly 90 percent of Missouri’s wetlands due to agriculture and development. By recycling waste water from a nearby treatment facility, along with river pumps, the area’s wetlands have returned as 17 shallow pools. 

It’s not just duck hunters who benefit from wetland conservation. Tim Eisele, in Madison, is both a duck hunter and one of 96 million bird watching hobbyists in the U.S. 

“I happen to hunt the Mississippi River in the western edge of Wisconsin, and to me, that’s God’s country,” said Eisele. “Just being over there and watching birds move around in the morning or evening.”

“Were it not for the waterfowl hunter that wanted to go out in the marsh with his dog and his shotgun and try to shoot a couple of ducks, we would not have those habitats there available to every Missouri resident,” said Garrett Trentham, the head of the southern region’s events team for Delta Waterfowl, a nonprofit conservation organization.

It’s not even about killing ducks

By five in the morning, most of the hunters in the poor line had left. Those with a spot for the day were probably throwing out their duck decoys. The unlucky likely retreated to their beds. But Jack Honey and a friend remained — despite drawing the second-highest number with ball 16. 

“I’m glad they do this,” Honey said. “Even though you won’t get to hunt one day, but it’s for the benefit of the entire waterfowl.”

Like all good hunters, though, Honey waited patiently. And it paid off with the final spot: a blue hole called Buck Pool. Not the most desirable location to shoot ducks, Honey said, but “you can’t kill ‘em on the couch.”

The pair headed out to a flooded grain field with their waders and shotguns. They waited eagerly for the legal shooting light. All around them, the sounds of geese, coots, green-winged teals, mallards, gadwalls, and even songbirds signalled a new day. 

After a morning hunting, they went home empty-handed, but to Honey, it wasn’t even about killing ducks. 

It was about seeing how nature works. “Seeing how God presented it,” he said. 

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

Mississippi Today contributed to this report.