[Duck Butter]

Originally Posted by Smalls

Well i'll tell you that's a BS reason. They closed it because of high salinities, not an "over population of game fish". The weirs are operated the way they are today to maintain that marsh as best as possible. It will never be what it was because of the ship channel and increased salinities to the entire system. People who do not have an eye for wetland vegetation will say a marsh is a marsh is a marsh. Well that is simply not true. That marsh there, as well as the majority of the marshes in south Louisiana, were historically fresh marsh. Today they exist, if you're lucky, as intermediate to brackish marshes, but close to the lake, those are often salt marsh.

Now there is not much you can do to remedy that. That is the repercussions of human influence on the environment.

I wouldn't necessarily say that salt marsh species aren't as desirable, but salt marshes aren't as diverse as fresh or even brackish marshes. You have a wider range of salt tolerance, but a major decrease in species, which means once you hit that salinity threshold (which is quite high for some species; 50 ppt for some strains of Spartina alterniflora, or oyster grass or smooth cordgrass for some), you lose everything.

You are correct, I should have said desirable for ducks, they like a little diversity and saltmarshes just don't have the diversity of a freshwater/brackish system.