assessment of carrying capacity for fresh 

 marsh agrees well with observations by 

 Jessie Fontenot (Morgan City, La., 1983; 

 pers. comm.) about the deer density in his 

 1600-ha hunting lease in a fresh marsh in 

 the Atchafalaya hydrologic unit. He 

 reported 180 deer (about one per 9 ha) on 

 his lease, which he said was overstocked. 



White-tailed deer prefer areas 

 slightly elevated above the marsh such as 

 natural levees and spoil banks which can 

 be used for travel, bedding, and fawning. 

 From a browse study made on spoil levees 

 in the fresh marsh in the Rockefeller 

 Wildlife Refuge in the chenier plain of 

 Louisiana, and from rumen analyses of deer 

 killed in that area. Self (1975) 

 determined that deer ate nearly any plants 

 that were succulent and green. 



Important food plants during the fall 

 were Al ternanthera philoxeri odes , Bacopa 

 hal imifol ia , Vigna luteol a, Sal i x nig ra, 

 B_. monnieri , Echinochloa wal teri i , 

 Kosteletzkya vi rginica , Leptochloa 



fascicul aris , Panic um dicotomiflorum , and 

 Paspalum vaginatum . During the spring and 

 summer the same species and Phragmi tes 

 austral is . Iva annua, Cyperus vi rens , and 

 Typh a angustifol ia were browsed. All 

 these species are found in fresh and 

 intermediate marshes. The brackish marsh 

 grass Spartina paten s was grazed in 

 proportion to its abundance but was not a 

 preferred species. 



Waterfowl, coots, and wading birds . 

 Functionally, birds that use Louisiana's 

 delta marshes can be divided into dabbling 

 or puddle ducks and coots, diving ducks, 

 geese, wading birds, birds of prey, and 

 other marsh birds (Appendix 4). The 

 waterfowl and coots are by far the most 

 abundant. They are mostly winter 



residents that migrate as far north as the 

 Arctic Circle each summer. Of this group, 

 only the mottled duck breeds in Louisiana 

 marshes with any regularity. Duck 



populations are highly variable in 

 censuses because of their mobility, but 

 peak populations in the deltaic plain are 

 usually over 2 million birds. Table 24 

 shows the density of the most common 

 species along transects through Barataria 

 basin. Gadwall (Anas strepera ) , 



blue-winged teal (A. discors ) , and mallard 

 (A_. platyrhynchosT were the most common 



Table 24. 

 (nuiiiber/100 ha) 

 Barataria basin 

 fl ights; Sasser 



Density of waterfowl 

 by marsh zone in the 

 in 1980-31 (total for 13 

 et al. 1982). 



L^For scientific names see Appendix 4. 



Includes intennediate marsh. 

 ^Total number of ducks/13 flights/100 ha. 



Total density divided by number of 

 survey fl ights. 



puddle ducks 

 1982). In 



Wildlife and 

 the past 10 

 green-winged 

 blue-winged 

 ( Ful ica 

 common, is not 



in this study (Sasser et al. 



Louisiana Department of 



Fisheries surveys taken over 



years in the same area, the 



teal {^. crecca ) replaces the 



teal. The Aiierican coot 



americana ) , which is also very 



a duck but in the rail 



However, because of its habits it 



family 



is usually included with the puddle ducks. 

 The diving ducks - scaup (Ay thy a spp.), 

 ring-necked duck ^. coll aris ) and hooded 

 merganser (Lophodytes cucul latus ) - are 

 also common. General ly, geese are found 

 only in the active Balize Delta. They are 

 much more common along the southwestern 

 coast of Louisiana. 



Puddle ducks prefer marshes 



interspersed with small, shallow ponds 



68 



