Wayne Owen has been in the forest all his life. The Pine Bluff native grew up hunting at Bayou Meto and private lands before earning his forestry degree at the University of Arkansas at Monticello and building a career in sustainable forest management.
In seven decades as a sportsman, Owen has been witness to waterfowl habitat destruction and the deterioration of public hunting opportunity. As a private landowner, he’s made it his mission to create environments where ducks can thrive and the tradition of waterfowling can live on.
“I love just being out there more than I even love killing ducks,” Owen says. “If we kill ducks, fine; if we don’t, fine. Being out there and the camaraderie is a lot to me.”
Owen got his first taste of private land hunting in the early 1970s and was impressed by how much the experience differed from public hunting; that gap has only grown wider in the decades since. He got involved with Ducks Unlimited then, serving as the state chapter’s secretary/treasurer for 20-plus years.
In the 1990s, he helped purchase a tract of land in Desha County, where in 2008 he hired George Dunklin and Jody Pagan, then of Five Oaks Wildlife Services, to provide guidance on land management principles. He’d also purchased Lone Cypress Farms, and today he owns three properties that he actively manages for waterfowl.
“We planted rice last year in four or five places that we didn’t harvest, and we’re trying to expand that a little bit,” Owen says. “It’s all flooded timber, or 90% of it is … and what we’ve tried to do is go in and take out the species that aren’t doing us any good and increase species that are.”
Owen invests time and money into scientific research, like that of wetland ecologist Doug Osborne, to further waterfowl species preservation.
“They’re finding out different things about duck habits that people didn’t realize in the past,” Owen says. “Regulators need to pay attention to what they’re finding and regulate what best helps the ducks.
“Whatever we need to do, let’s quit kicking the can down the road and do it. Act on it, quit talking about it.”
In the Hole
How has duck hunting changed in your lifetime?
“The habitat in public areas has deteriorated so much.”
What do you want young hunters in Arkansas to know about conserving our natural resources?
“If we don’t take care of our resources, we’re going to lose our ducks. It’s that simple, and I think it’s that drastic.”
What do you think public wildlife agencies should be doing to preserve waterfowl habitat and species?
“I hope the powers that be start listening to the science that people like Doug Osborne are providing and learning from that and making changes based on it.”
