Congress passed the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act in 1934 to help restore waterfowl populations that had been wiped out by hunting and drought, using proceeds from annual Federal Duck Stamp purchases to preserve habitat. In 1958, the Act was amended to allow the purchase of Waterfowl Production Areas in response to wetland drainage and other habitat destruction, and Wetland Management Districts were created to manage these smaller parcels. Managed like National Wildlife Refuges, these lands use grazing, haying, and burning to improve and maintain grasslands for waterfowl and other migratory birds, while the right mix of wetlands and uplands helps biologists restore waterfowl populations. Ninety-five percent of Waterfowl Production Areas are located in the Prairie Pothole Region, which covers parts of Canada, Montana, North and South Dakota, western Minnesota, and northwest Iowa. Formed more than 12,000 years ago when glaciers gouged the land and left small depressions that later filled with water, this landscape of wetlands and surrounding grasslands provides nesting habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds. More than 300 of North America’s more than 800 migratory species rely on the Prairie Pothole Region, which can produce up to 50 percent of the continent’s waterfowl despite containing only 10 percent of the breeding habitat. In eastern South Dakota, tallgrass prairie was once the dominant ecosystem, supporting up to 300 plant species and a wide variety of insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds, but less than one percent remains today, leaving ducks more vulnerable to predators and grassland-dependent birds such as bobolinks searching for habitat. Waubay Wetland Management District includes the nation’s first Waterfowl Production Area, the 160-acre McCarlson tract purchased in 1959 and named for Arnold and Lydia McCarlson. Since its purchase, McCarlson Waterfowl Production Area has been returned to its historic habitat by seeding cultivated fields to native grasses and filling ditches to restore drained wetlands. Today, Waubay Wetland Management District includes nearly 40,000 acres of Waterfowl Production Areas in six northeast South Dakota counties, including some large tracts of native prairie and wetlands preserved for future generations.