Ep. 92 Boots, Bands & Baby Ducks: Robert Jones on North Delta’s Hatchery
Update: 2025-07-21
Description
Jeff’s off chasing summer vacation, so Carson Odegard grabs a mic with CWA egg-salvage guru Jason Coslovich - Egg Salvage Program Coordinator, Waterfowl Biologist and Robert “Rob” Jones—the volunteer dynamo keeping the North Delta Duck Hatchery clucking along since the early 2000s. Pull a chair up to the brooder and hear how a ramshackle 1996 shed on Tyler Island now kicks out 500 wild mallards a year, why 92 percent of rescued eggs actually hatch, and what it takes to relocate the whole outfit before next spring’s first quack.
Talking points
- Eggs to wings: the combine-to-incubator relay that turns field-found clutches into fly-ready ducks—and the ten-by-ten room that makes it happen.
- Volunteer grind: daily pen scrubs, smartweed jungles, and the slick system that’s banded 15,000 birds (plus one 93-year-old mentor who still shows up).
- Where bands wander: mallards released in June near Sacramento, shot five years later in Idaho, Oregon—even Arkansas.
- Moving day: why the Tyler Island pens are closing, the plan for a fresh build next door to the annual barn dinner, and the $100 K they need to pull it off.
- Get your hands dirty: how farmers, hunters, and city folks can salvage nests, run feed buckets, or simply donate a few bucks to keep the pumps humming.
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