Rich Hansen
Ryan Barnes for SPLIT REED
If you’ve enjoyed waterfowl hunting in the Pacific Flyway, to at least some extent, you owe a “thank you” to Utah waterfowl biologist Rich Hansen and his crew. Rich works for the state of Utah as a WMA manager and biologist for the Ogden Bay, Howard Slough, and Harold Crane waterfowl management areas. Home to some of the highest regarded duck hunting in the Western United States. On top of that, he also is the waterfowl banding coordinator for the state of Utah, so if you’ve been so lucky to have shot a bird that was banded in Utah, you owe another “thank you” to Mr. Hansen. Split Reed had the chance to talk to Rich, and see how he came into this career, enveloped by waterfowl and waterfowl hunting.
“I grew up on a farm in Roy, Utah, and grew up loving to be outside and loving the farming aspect of things, and I grew up just loving to hunt ducks and geese”, Hansen says. “In high school I started volunteering at Ogden Bay WMA and basically got my foot in the door doing that. I went to college at Utah State, and kept working as a seasonal technician at Ogden Bay which allowed me to learn on the job while I was going to school”. Rich says he lucked out in 2002 after he graduated and was able to get a job at Ogden Bay WMA, then, after a couple of years, became the manager of Farmington Bay WMA, which is farther South on the Great Salt Lake. “Being a farm kid, I’ve always been a go-getter and always wanted to be the hardest working person out there, and I think that was reflected in what I was able to achieve,” Rich says. “The habitat management part is awesome, it’s fun, and rewarding, but obviously the banding is the cream of the crop, and it’s what everyone looks forward to. So when it came to banding birds I even kicked it up a few more notches”. In 2004 the state waterfowl coordinator made Rich the state waterfowl banding coordinator, after the previous coordinator retired. A testament to Hansen’s devoted work ethic and dedication to help with waterfowl and wetland production.
When asked what piqued his interest in pursuing this route as a career, Hansen responded by saying, “I think it just goes back to growing up on a farm and having that love for being outside and having a love for wildlife. Loving to hunt, loving to fish, loving to birdwatch. I’ve still got the paper from the fourth grade that said ‘when I grow up I want to be a: biologist’. I knew what I wanted to do, and by volunteering and talking to the right people, I knew what path I needed to take to get to where I am today, and the stars all really aligned for me and it really worked out”.
Hansen also grew up an avid hunter. From the very beginning, hunting was something that he found himself enjoying to do all the time. “My family had a produce farm so we always had a lot of work to do in the summertime, but in the wintertime we just had 50 pair of cows, so I’d go to the farm with my dad, and I’d take my BB gun and while my dad did whatever work he needed to, I’d shoot house sparrows and starlings. I even remember building my own blinds back then”. Rich says that one of his favorite activities was going goose hunting each weekend. “It was something I absolutely loved, I just couldn’t wait for those hunts to come,” he says.
When it comes to the everyday workings of being a biologist, Hansen will oversee anything from bird nesting areas, to water level control. “With the water control structures we have, we can actually manage what type of ducks will be in certain areas. We can manage deeper water for divers, we can manage shallow for puddle ducks, we can manage for sago pondweed; which is a submerged-aquatic plant that is the most important food source that we can grow for waterfowl. Everything from geese, swans, to all ducks use it in some aspect. So it’s crucial to manage for that sago pondweed if you want to have any sort of successful waterfowl management”. Hansen says it’s a fun puzzle to figure out how to make certain parts of wetlands more efficient. “It’s such a fun challenge because we’ve got the dynamic of phragmites, which is one of the largest challenges we have, but at the same time we have these impoundments that have too much phosphorus, or too many nutrients, and it’s really beneficial to drought stress those areas and let them dry out and let the soil oxygenate and release excess toxins and excess nutrients and then reset the clock”. Rich says that it’s a fun balancing act, that allows him and his team to figure out more ways to be more efficient. Hansen has also implemented his farming background into use to help increase wetland potential. By effectively utilizing cattle grazing, it has allowed him to control unwanted plant growth, like phragmites in certain areas, which then provides him with pasture to then turn into wetlands and habitat.
However being a biologist doesn’t just mean trying to make habitat and provide wetlands and nesting areas. It also means understanding the needs of those who engage in activities surrounding these areas- the hunters! “I do my best to hear out our hunters and take things into consideration based upon what their needs are, and balance that with what the needs of the birds are. It’s a really fun challenge and a fun balancing act, really”. However, you can’t make everyone happy. A life lesson everyone should know by now. So Rich does say that he first and foremost does whatever is best for the wildlife. “I figure that once we’ve done everything we can for the wildlife, if there’s a few little tweaks we can make that will benefit the hunter, then we’ll implement that, and we’ll try it, and if both the hunters and the wildlife benefit from it- great! We figured something out. If the hunters have a place to hide, but there’s no ducks in the area, then we need to go back and figure out what’s best for the wildlife”. Rich does make it very clear that he works for the hunter, because it’s their money that is keeping these areas open. He says, “I’m going to work my butt off for the hunter, because they’re the ones paying for all this, and I want to make sure that they get a good return on their investment”. Not to mention, Hansen also wants to enjoy good waterfowl hunting, along with all his team. ‘We’re all very avid waterfowl hunters, and we want to make sure that we’re able to give the public the best chance possible to enjoy a good, quality hunt”.
However, managing a quality WMA doesn’t come without some bumps along the way. Hansen makes mention that in order to achieve the goals he had in mind when he took over at Ogden Bay, he had to make some changes to how things operated. “One of the biggest challenges I faced with the public, was telling them that this is a waterfowl management area. It isn’t a public recreational area,” he continues on, saying, “during nesting season we had people bringing their horses out and walking in the grass where the ducks were nesting, and so during nesting season, I had to make it so horses can’t be out there. Or during the summer, when I couldn’t get everything done during the week, I’d have to go out during the weekend on a Saturday or Sunday and guys would be out running their dogs through the nesting plots. It got to the point where I don’t even allow a dog out here from March 1 to September 1. Because ultimately I have to make sure that the ducks and the wildlife are protected. That’s part of my job”. These changes may have upset some of the local residents, however the long term pay off has been well worth it, with Ogden Bay becoming a top destination for waterfowlers from all over the country.
“Oh absolutely. No question.” Rich responds when asked if being a hunter has made him a better biologist, and vice versa. “I know the needs of the waterfowl throughout the year, and throughout 19 years I have with the division, and all the experience we have, I can create what they need. During the first of the hunt, they’re replacing feathers, and need a lot of protein to do that, whereas late in the hunting season, they’re looking for places with a lot of carbs. So I know where to look for those areas when I’m hunting, and I also know how to create what those birds need at certain times of the year. Along with creating a balance of what waterfowl need year-round”. Hansen says that all managers have their own ideas and their own philosophies.
Hansen favors the use of cows, letting them graze, and utilizing his farming background to help produce more beneficial locations for wetlands. “I think that, because of my background in farming, I’m confident that we can grow anything out here,” says Hansen. Rich can fall back on his farming know-how to help grow plants and vegetation in the Spring and Summer, that will be beneficial to ducks and duck hunters in the fall and winter.
Another highlight of Hansen’s job is the part that ALL benefit from. The bird banding. Utah puts a great amount of effort into banding birds and collecting data, and Rich and his team are to thank for that. In talking about the process of wild goose banding, Hansen outlined the following; “In wild goose banding, it first consists of some aerial flights that take in areas like Promontory of the Great Salt Lake, the Bear River Bird Refuge, all the areas that state WMA’s don’t consist of. On the state WMA’s we’re doing our own production counts, but we want to see what the production is like everywhere else”. Hansen said that when he first started, his main goal was just to get bands on birds, whereas now, his banding projects are a bit more targeted towards certain information and data that they hope to find. “In the last 5 years we’ve focused more on our locally produced birds, and we find out a lot more information doing that”. Hansen also has the use of about 6 state-owned airboats to help assist him and his team during their banding efforts. “Banding is the reward for all the hard work we do in our habitat areas,” he says, “it’s a great time, we all get together, all the technicians get to come, and we take that same kick-butt mentality we had in the field, and we band”. Rich talks about the efforts that go into using planes to drive birds out of the fields so they can be rounded up in the airboats and given bands. “Once we have a nice group of geese, whether it’s 200 or it’s 600, we go find a place out of the water where it’s nice and dry so we can set our traps. Our traps are panels, that have a mesh net on them, and we connect them, and we try to have 3-4 different compartments in there so they don’t all trample each other. And we’ve gotten so good at this, and I have such an amazing crew that we can go and put one of these up in about 15 minutes,” Hansen says. Before Rich took over, the method of banding consisted of a large net that took 45 minutes to set up, which would oftentimes result in a higher mortality rate. Sometimes up to 10% of the birds captured. Now, Rich says that in a group of 500 birds, if 5 are lost, that’s a really bad day, speaking to the forward thinking and talent of him and his team. It’s also mentioned that being more efficient allows Hansen and his team to take more time and band more groups of birds, “you know if you saw a group of 75 geese back in the day, you’d just keep going and try to find the bigger groups. Now, with how efficient we are at it, it’s like ‘sure, let’s go take 15 minutes to set up and band those geese’ which ultimately allows us to get more birds banded each day.
On a designated banding day, Hansen and his team will meet at 8:00 am, finish around 2:00 pm, and have banded anywhere from 200-1,000 geese. There are also times when Rich and his team will take out the airboats, and as one person drives the boat, 2 people will lay on the front of the bow, to catch the geese (Hansen does his banding in June when the geese have molted their flight feathers) and put them in boxes. When all the boxes are full, the airboats will meet together and assist in banding the geese. “We have some great team members and we’re all hunters, and we realize that if we band more geese, then there’s a better chance of us getting a band during hunting season,” Rich says.
Another huge feat from Hansen’s efforts happened in 2006 when he was tasked with removing as many urban geese from the local Salt Lake City area as possible (a project that he still handles and takes care of currently). He had the birds banded and relocated, which provided a great hunting opportunity, instead of just killing them all after they were captured. However, Rich says that what was the coolest part of the project was seeing the patterns of the younger geese, going on their molt migration. “I think from 2006 to 2019, we didn’t do anything this past year because of COVID restrictions, but we had removed over 6,000 young birds from the city and took them to our wetlands and released them with wild birds with the hopes that they would imprint on those wild birds. The coolest thing we saw was in their second year, when they would go on their molt migration, about 50-70 of our geese were getting shot up in Canada each year”. Which showed that Hansen and his crew had successfully been able to take these geese out of the city, and get them with actual wild geese. “These city geese are imprinting on wild geese, they are migrating and they’re providing more opportunities for hunters and they’re probably helping expand the population.”
Since 1960, 115,884 geese have been banded in the state of Utah, From 1960 to 2003 (when Hansen took over) 61,000 of those bands had been put on. That’s 61,000 bands in 43 years. In the 17 years that Rich has been in charge of things, they have put 54,000 bands on. In less than 20 years underneath Hansen’s coordinating efforts, almost the same amount of bands have been placed as there were in the previous 43. That should speak volumes about the work ethic of Rich Hansen and his devotion to helping Utah waterfowl, as well as waterfowl all over the flyway.
One way or another, the hunting in the Pacific Flyway, and especially in the state of Utah, is drastically better because of Rich Hansen. He gives much of the credit to having a great group of people that work with and around him, but as you finish out your hunting season, if you should a goose banded in Utah, or have a hunting opportunity near the Great Salt Lake, you’ll know who to thank.
For more Split Reed Original Content, click the link.
Click on Ryan to find him on Instagram