Green Bay Packers Team Up with Ducks Unlimited

Representatives from the Green Bay Packers football team joined Wisconsin Ducks Unlimited leadership at their annual state convention to announce a partnership supporting work at a local wildlife refuge. The $75,000 award was received at the convention Saturday and will promote wetlands conservation efforts at the L.H. Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve northern pike rearing station.

“We are thrilled that the Packers are supporting this important work,” said Jim Gronowski, Wisconsin DU state chairman. “Restoring the coastal wetlands of Green Bay does more than increase the number of pike in the lake; it provides recreation and clean water too.”

The Barkhausen Preserve was created by DU’s third president and is an important place for fish and wildlife. Efforts in partnership with Brown County and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will restore and enhance degraded wetlands and waterways on the western shore of Green Bay to provide improved habitat for spawning northern pike and other wetland-dependent wildlife.

“The Packers are very excited to support Ducks Unlimited and their important conservation efforts at Barkhausen,” said Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy. “This project is an important component of our commitment to improving our community’s wetlands in conjunction with the construction of the Cabela’s in Ashwaubenon. We’ll be fulfilling our DNR obligations for that project through its wetlands mitigation banking program. That will generate future results, but this effort with Ducks Unlimited will yield important wetlands benefit in Brown County this year.”

Work on the L.H. Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve project will begin this spring, and should be completed within the year.

Ducks Unlimited

Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands and waterfowl conservation. DU got its start in 1937 during the Dust Bowl when North America’s drought-plagued waterfowl populations had plunged to unprecedented lows. Determined not to sit idly by as the continent’s waterfowl dwindled beyond recovery, a small group of sportsmen joined together to form an organization that became known as Ducks Unlimited. Its mission: habitat conservation. Thanks to decades of abiding by that single mission, Ducks Unlimited is now the world’s largest and most effective private waterfowl and wetlands conservation organization. DU is able to multilaterally deliver its work through a series of partnerships with private individuals, landowners, agencies, scientific communities and other entities.