— PLUS! — Saturday. November 12. 1988
“Tha (float
Duck country all around
 by KEN BERNSOHN
This guy comes out on stage and says:
    "Wanna buy a duck?"
    The line made comedian Joe Penner famous in the early 1930s.
    When Penner, the man who hired Ozzie and Harriet as vocalists, died in 1941, a marble duck was placed on his sarcophagus at Forest Lawn cemetary in Los Angeles. It's still there.
    Today, most people across North America only see ducks named Donald or Daffy or frozen ones at supermarkets.
     They’re not as lucky as people who live here in the Central Interior where every pond — and even some sewage lagoons
  —	have real live ducks each summer.
    About 20,000 Canada geese drop by Vanderhoof each spring. Mallards, pintails, green:winged blue-wing and cinnamon teal. American widgeon, ring-necked ducks, common goldeneyes, buffleheads scaup, and ruddy ducks, among others, all raise their families in our area.
     Not long ago, this area - called part of the The Pacific Flyway by duck experts -was considered a minor one compared to the central or Mississippi flyway which saw ducks winging their way from the Prairies to Mexico each year.
     Then came the drought; nine years of below average rainfall wiped out more than 700,000 acres of duck habitat per year across the heart of the continent. The area north of Prince George is one of the few in North America expected to be up to average this year. In the centre of the continent, numbers are expected to be millions lower than last year.
     It’s the greatest disaster to hit waterfowl since the dust-bowl of the 1930s which killed off most of the ducks in the U.S. and Canada.
     Back then, a way was found to bring the ducks back: Projects recreating wetlands, so that ducks could have places to raise their young. Hunters came up with the money, far more than state, federal or provincial govements, through an organization they called Ducks Unlimited.
  And. sure enough, numbers began to climb.
    Today Ducks Unlimited has about 4.000 projects, waiting for a change in weather so the ducks can come back.
  Here in Prince George. Jocal DU members hold one of the most successful fund-raising dinners in all of Canada each year. The money goes for projects mainly in the Interior of the province, like the eight new ones this year, including ones in Fraser Lake and McBride.
  This year’s fund-raising dinner, with its auction of artwork, will be held at the Coast Inn of the North islov. 18. to help raise money for 10 new projects planned for next year.
Ducks around here are smarter than many people: They go to Mexico for the winter. As the map shows, the Prince George area is visited in spring and fall by birds, which summer In Alaska and the Yukon, then head south through Calfiomia (where the typical duck is shot at five to seven times on Its way south) to Mexico.