Bluewing teal are plentiful on St. Johns and South Florida district lands that welcome hunters.

Sixteen-year-old Read Wolfe shot his first duck last season, and he shot it on Stormwater Treatment Area 1 West, in Palm Beach County, during its first year as a Small Game Public Hunting Area.

The area, referred to as an STA, is a manmade marsh designed to cleanse water draining off South Florida agricultural lands. It’s a part of Everglades restoration, but it also represents a tremendous resource for waterfowl hunters residing in an otherwise urban environment.

Opportunities such as this are critical to the future of hunting. State authorities and sportsmen’s advocacy groups agree that to pass on our hunting heritage to the next generation, Florida must focus on boosting license sales, properly managing wildlife populations, opening access to existing public lands and more aggressively pursuing new opportunities, like the STAs.

Read has successfully hunted deer, turkeys and hogs, but duck hunting was a new challenge for him. It was a chilly January afternoon, with strong winds out of the northwest. The lad’s teeth began chattering while I quacked and whistled at passing ducks. He did not complain, not once, even as wary, late-season birds circled at the edge of range.

“Wow, they’re fast,” Read said.

“Don’t stop your swing,” I coached him.

There came a lull, then a flight of teal appeared over the north end of the marsh. The birds circled twice, and then Read stood and swung.

“Great shot, Read!” I sprinted after the bird, determined that he would get to clean and eat his first duck.

I had a lot invested in that duck. Read’s success validated almost four years of activism.

On a personal and editorial level, I’ve been involved with a diverse group of Everglades stakeholders, including United Waterfowlers of Florida, Delta Waterfowl, Audubon Society, the bass angler’s group S.A.F.E.R., the Airboat Association of Florida and officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).

What I’ve observed is a model of how public land management is likely to work in the future.

These groups, working together, overturned “bureaucratic inertia” and opened some doors to hunting access on lands designated for water management purposes. Today, there are regular hunts held on the STAs and a comprehensive recreation guide to South Florida Water Management District lands. The FWC manages the hunts (some of the state’s best), and there is fishing and other recreation on much of the District’s 375,000 acres. (To get a copy of the Recreational Guide, visit www.sfwmd.gov.)

For the 2005/06 season, the District will allow hunting on the 16,000-acre STA 3 and 4, which almost doubles the amount of duck hunting access on district lands.

While the opportunities on SFWMD lands are exciting, one major diplomatic breakdown occurred. Two years ago, the District entered into an annexation agreement with the city of Wellington that destroyed any chance of hunting on STA 1—a huge, duck-friendly marsh. The city, like others in Florida, has an ordinance forbidding the discharge of firearms within municipal boundaries. Sources say Wellington needed the marsh to stay concurrent with green space laws; others imply that the deal was pushed through by a powerful developer that owns agricultural lands on the other side of Highway 80. With STA 1 a part of Wellington, the zoning could be changed to residential status. Recreational access is planned for the marsh, but hunting probably won’t be allowed unless Wellington adjusts its firearms ordinances.

Young hunters must be recuited if wildlife habitat and the sport itself are to survive.

In Texas, state legislators passed a law to prevent cities from stopping hunting when they annex lands, and Florida hunting advocates are interested in passing a similar law here. But for now, annexation of wilderness areas by municipalities poses a major threat to public hunting lands statewide.

The St. Johns Water Management District was about to enter into a similar agreement with Palm Bay. At the last minute, United Waterfowlers of Florida got wind of the deal, which would have taken 29 square miles of marsh away from hunters and airboaters north of the T.M. Goodwin area. Hunters and other recreational users rallied, and after a number of subsequent meetings, the deal was killed.

“The District and Palm Bay both worked in good faith with us,” said United Waterfowlers President Newton Cook. “We were very surprised, and more than a little grateful, when they told us they had decided against annexation.”

Most recently, United Waterfowlers of Florida fought off a Duval County (Jacksonville) ordinance proposal that would have banned firearms at all parks, boat ramps and marinas, which of course would have killed public hunting in the county. The proposal was short-lived, but Cook can’t afford to take time out to celebrate.