St. Croix Wetland Management District

The Federal Duck Stamp Act was amended in 1958 to allow the US Fish & Wildlife Service to acquire small parcels of wetlands they deemed vital to breeding waterfowl. The St. Croix Wetland Management District oversees an area of significant purchases of small wetlands, about 7,500 acres in all. Some of those parcels are expansive sedge meadows while others are the remains of prairie glacial potholes or are small basins. Some still carry small pieces of the oak savanna that covered much of this landscape for thousands of years - estimates say there might be 0.02% of that original acreage still growing oak savanna. US Fish & Wildlife Service personnel have been working to restore all these parcels to their native state (before the Euro-Americans arrived). At the same time, these properties are being managed for the greater benefit of the wildlife that uses the land.

There are 41 Waterfowl Productions Areas administered by St. Croix Wetland Management District. These parcels range from tallgrass prairie on the west to pine barrens in the southeast to high river bluffs in the north with the Star Prairie Pothole Grasslands in the middle.

Trumpeter swans on a pond in the St. Croix Wetland Management District