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Article: The Case of the Disappearing Ducks - Why are scaup and scoters in decline when other waterfowl are on the rise? The answer may lie in Canada's remote boreal forest.
- Article from:
- National Wildlife
- Article date:
- April 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 National Wildlife Federation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ERIC BUTTERWORTH seems unperturbed as he sits hunched in a small plywood blind near a spruce-fringed pond in northern Alberta. Butterworth--who is helping to census waterfowl in Canada's northern, or boreal, forest--barely acknowledges the cloud of mosquitoes trying to probe his skin.
The biologist, who works for the conservation group Ducks Unlimited, is far more interested in what is on the pond. Ducks of various species putter about the water, many with young paddling behind them. "There's a goldeneye," Butterworth mutters, a pair of binoculars jammed into his ocular orbits. "Three ringnecks over there. Wigeon. Two more ringnecks. One Scaup. Ringneck."