Attendance keeps building at duck house event
Patrick Fisher, Staff Writer
This year has been a little bit of a shock for us.
The shock that John Wolf and other organizers of the seventh annual Wood Duck Box Building Day had was probably understandable as 311 youths, age 16 and younger, attended the event at New Prague’s KC Hall on Sunday, surpassing last year’s attendance by 83.
Members of the Minnesota Waterfowl Association’s Scott-Le Sueur Chapter, which runs the event, knew early on that the numbers were going to be big, since they surpassed last year’s attendance two hours into the four-hour event.
The wood duck, has been a victim of loss of habitat, causing serious nesting problems. The cutting of forests and drainage of swamps, as well as hunting, left wood duck populations at a seriously low level early in this century. These houses help to give a place for wood ducks to lay their eggs and raise their brood.
For most of the event, which is sponsored by a variety of area businesses and organizations, a line waddled its way through different parts of the building. The line of children and adults waiting to register filled just a small portion as the rest of the hall was filled with youths assembling wood duck boxes with help from their parents and volunteers.
Each year it gets bigger and bigger