This grant would support the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s efforts to restore wetlands on lands owned by the Department of Natural Resources. The surge of WDNR wildlife biologist retirements in the past few years has left the state without the expertise or bandwidth to undertake restorations on the hundreds of thousands of acres of restorable wetlands on properties they manage with many of those acres in the Lake Michigan Basin. WDNR and WWA have entered a three-year pilot program where WWA will dedicate wetland restoration expertise and hire additional capacity to address the bottle neck in conducting wetland restorations on public land. Under the agreement, WWA will provide one full-time wetland restoration specialist each year of the program.