As the sun approached the horizon on a chilly Saturday night, the table was set, literally, for ducks in the marsh at the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge.

When the ducks, mostly teal, descended to eat food Jan. 11 on the limestone pad in place for a banding project undertaken by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, nets were launched into the air to entrap the maximum number of feeding ducks on terra firma, where they could be extracted carefully by biologists and a couple dozen volunteers. The migratory birds were banded with aluminum alloy bands, then released into the night.

Long-time Ducks Unlimited member and former Louisiana DU state chairman Jay Owen of Lafayette participated as a volunteer in his fourth banding project along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. He said he experienced a “phenomenal time” assisting in a vital conservation effort.

“You know, there’s a lot of information gained through banding programs. They’re gathering a lot of data on where birds move, why they move and everything else (such as harvest data, which is important for establishing duck hunting seasons and limits). We’re learning so much about patterns and migration,” Owen said.

Some of the ducks also were delivered to a lab on the refuge, where University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine researchers participating in the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study also tested the birds for Avian flu, a disease caused by the influenza-A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals, including people. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the virus.

Owen said 1,900 blue-winged teal, green-winged teal and spoonbills were banded and/or sampled. He emphasized the whole process for each bird from start to finish took no more than 4 hours, including delivering some of the ducks to the refuge’s lab for samples via blood collection and swabs, mostly to test for Avian flu strains circulating across the U.S.

“All the birds were captured, sorted, banded and released within three, four hours,” he said.

Paul Link, LDWF Coordinator for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan who works out of Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, was in charge of the banding project. Various waterfowl agencies across the country attach the bands with an engraved number that contains information about banding location, age and sex, all critical to conservation efforts to determine migratory patterns and survival rates.

Owen, 61, has devoted nearly half his adult life to wildlife conservation as a volunteer. Since 2005, when he joined the Ducks Unlimited ranks, he has served on the local, state and national levels, including the board of directors.

He was named senior flyway vice-president of DU’s Region 4, which includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, in September 2023.

The outdoorsman showed he practices what he preaches on Jan. 11. The first vice president of investments for UBS Financial Services, where he has worked for 29 years, was among the volunteers who helped retrieve ducks from rocket-propelled nets (starting at the outside edges), sort them by species, hand them to four banders and get them back in the wild as soon as possible to live the life of a wild duck.

Twenty-five to 30 volunteers joined forces with Owen, Link and other LDWF staffers for an evening with hundreds of migratory birds in the marsh of southwest Louisiana. Owen said he personally “handled a few hundred birds.”

“All blue-wings, green-wings and a few spoonbills. Other birds (ducks) won’t go up on land to feed like that. These birds would come in there. They were high-density. It was incredible.” he said.

“I absolutely love it … getting out there and being part of research of migratory birds is just phenomenal. I can’t give enough kudos to LDWF, what they’re doing down there and across the state.”

He noted that volunteers were instructed beforehand how to handle the ducks properly.

“Well, they are wild animals. They’re scared. They instruct you how to handle them. Things to do where you do not harm them,” he said.

Owen wasn’t the only past Ducks Unlimited state chairman for Ducks Unlimited on the site that cold Saturday night. Another volunteer who does more than talk the talk was Mickey McMillin of Moss Bluff, who worked shoulder to shoulder with outdoorsmen, outdoorswomen and boys and girls lending a needed helping hand.

Like Owen, McMillin has been with DU for many years, in many capacities. The former Louisiana DU state chairman and current president of DUMAC (Ducks Unlimited de Mexico AC) helped organize the volunteer work that night.

Another volunteer getting his hands on the hundreds of ducks was Chad Courville of Lafayette, whose daughter also volunteered to help. Courville, land manager for the Miami Corp., served as chairman and vice-chairman of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission in the mid-2010s, plus was chairman of the Louisiana Alligator Advisory Council.

Courville, who previously served as vice chair, is a lifelong Louisiana resident, also is a member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, the Coastal Conservation Association and the Louisiana Association of Professional Biologists.

LDWF will continue to band different species of ducks until April, Owen said.