Rainwater Basin Wetland Management District

Rainwater Basin Wetland Management District is a management office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, established in 1963 when the Service began acquiring critical migratory waterfowl habitat in southeastern Nebraska. Today 63 individual Waterfowl Production Areas have been purchased, most of them with Federal Duck Stamp dollars. The ancestral homelands of the Pawnee (Pâri) and the Jiwere, the Rainwater Basin is a complex of wetlands scattered throughout a 21-county area. The wetlands are shallow basins that provide resting and feeding areas for millions of birds during spring and fall migration. Historically, bison and wildfire kept the wetlands open, with annual plants growing during dry summer months and droughts. With bison gone and wildfires controlled, management is done to keep these wetlands in a condition favored by ducks, geese, and other water birds.