In 2001, less than one percent of the waterfowl wintering in Texas stayed on the High Plains; in the mild, wet winter of 2005 that proportion jumped to 13 percent.

But winter habitat isn't the most important thing the playas offer waterfowl. If there is a wet time on the High Plains, it comes from late February to early June, sometimes in intense thunderstorms, sometimes in the heavy, water-laden snow of late blizzards. Johnson estimates that, in the Texas Panhandle, pintail numbers are five or six times greater in the spring than during the winter. Stops like this on the way north are crucial for early spring migrants like pintails and mallards.

From a waterfowler's point of view, the playas are clearly worth keeping, but that effort faces several challenges. The federal Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) has been used to protect wetlands on private holdings in many key waterfowl habitat elsewhere, but up until now WRP money hasn't seen much use in the playa lakes country. However, there is other federal aid at work. In 2004, the Wetlands Restoration Initiative became part of the USDA's farm programs. The initiative will focus the Conservation Reserve Program budget on the High Plains of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas -- the goal to restore more than 50,000 acres of wetlands.

There are other ways to protect the playas, too -- no-till farming can reduce erosion, and buffer strips of grass will keep soil from burying playa basins. But these kinds of conservation precautions only happen when a little savvy, some money and a collection of interested people arrive at the same point at the same time.

The Playa Lake Joint Venture (PLJV) helps that rendezvous happen. Since 1990, PLJV built agreements with landowners, industry and state and federal government to protect more than 100,000 acres of habitat on the High Plains. In 2002, they launched a playa lakes improvement program in Kansas and Oklahoma that has proved immensely popular -- there are more landowners interested in the program than there is funding.

On one hand, the PLJV's successes are heartening; on the other hand, the magnitude of the job ahead is staggering. The venture's projects are measured in thousands of acres, the High Plains cover well over 100,000 square miles, nearly all of them privately owned. Keeping a place for waterfowl on this landscape over the next century will be a daunting task.

There is a silver lining to the situation, however. As farmers cope with the decline in the Ogallala aquifer, there will be chances to help waterfowl and other wildlife. The key to success is being ready for those chances as they emerge.

The hunter's part in this is the same as it has always been -- help provide the money and the political support to keep outfits like the Playa Lakes Joint Venture running.