“The Walters Family Foundation makes it possible for us to take action. We are impacting the landscape for this generation and the next.”
-Anna Mrdeza, Director of Foundation Relations, Ducks Unlimited
Saginaw, MI (December 2025)—At the edge of Michigan’s Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, five rivers converge, their waters winding through farmland before spilling toward Saginaw Bay. Here, where rivers and sky meet, thousands of birds migrate, feed and rest — mallards, pintails, trumpeter swans and bald eagles tracing wide arcs over the marsh.
This is Butch’s Marsh. A wetland that holds more than water. It holds balance. It protects nearby towns from floods, filters the runoff that feeds the rivers and offers space for people to slow down and connect with nature. “It’s one of the sites managed not just for wildlife, but for ecosystem services,” said Anna Mrdeza of Ducks Unlimited. “It helps with flood impacts for the community.”
But over time, that balance began to slip away. The berms that once guided the water weakened. Old spillways no longer worked. Without a way to manage the flow, the marsh became unpredictable — too much water one season, too little the next. “Right now, there’s not really any control,” said Ducks Unlimited biologist Matthew Conrad. “It’s all dependent on river levels.”
Now, that rhythm is being restored. With support from the Walters Family Foundation, Ducks Unlimited and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are rebuilding the berms and installing new water-control structures, simple tools that will bring the marsh back into balance.
It’s the final step in a decades-long effort to reconnect the Shiawassee floodplain, bringing back wetlands that once absorbed the rise and fall of the rivers. “Flood events affect the most vulnerable,” Mrdeza said. “This refuge helps soften those impacts.”
When the work is complete, visitors will notice the change, not only in how the landscape looks, but in how it feels. Water will once again move naturally across the marsh. Native vegetation will return, and with it, flocks of migrating birds. “It’s amazing how many bald eagles are out there at any one time,” Conrad said. “During migration, you can see hundreds. You’re standing across this vast wetland, watching so many species interact. People come here for a sense of peace.”
That peace extends beyond the refuge. Shiawassee is an urban sanctuary, one of the last big green spaces between Saginaw, Midland and Bay City. “It’s special to see that kind of biodiversity so close to the community,” said Mrdeza.
Ducks Unlimited has partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Shiawassee for decades, but this project feels particularly urgent. When the refuge reached out – short on staff and facing tight timelines – Ducks Unlimited stepped in. The Walters Family Foundation’s grant gave them the flexibility to act quickly and keep the restoration on track.
As restoration begins, new berms and spillways will bring Butch’s Marsh back to its natural rhythm – a place that holds, not resists, the rivers that feed it. Over time, the marsh will regain its role as a steadying force: protecting nearby communities, sustaining wildlife and offering people a place to connect with something larger than themselves.
For Ducks Unlimited, that’s the lasting goal: to restore balance where nature and community meet.