California Waterfowl

California Waterfowl is a 501c3 organization whose mission is to protect the future of waterfowl conservation and hunting in California, through advocacy, education, and habitat stewardship. Our vision is a California with abundant waterfowl, vibrant wetlands, and thriving hunting communities.

California Waterfowl was founded in 1945 as the Duck Hunters Association of California with the sole purpose of influencing hunting regulations and other government activities that affected waterfowl in California. By the early 1980s, the challenges facing waterfowl and hunting had greatly expanded. In 1985, CWA initiated waterfowl studies in partnership with the California Department of Fish and Game (now Fish and Wildlife) to determine factors that limited waterfowl populations in California and the Pacific Flyway.

Prior to that time, it was widely believed that conditions in northern breeding grounds influenced the population of ducks wintering in California. However, research showed clearly that 60%-70% of mallards taken by hunters in California had been hatched and reared in California – in other words, local breeding habitat has a huge influence on mallard abundance during the winter.

By 1991, a decline in hunter numbers was becoming pronounced, so California Waterfowl began introducing children to hunting and the outdoors through educational outreach, a program that would later be extended to adults. Now the organization recognizes that hunter recruitment, retention and reactivation are crucial to the future of wetlands because hunters are the most motivated and passionate force for wetland conservation.