South Dakota law change lets young rescuer save more wild game bird eggs

South Dakota farmers who run into the nests of pheasants, grouse or prairie chickens in their fields can now call someone to rescue the eggs, thanks to a teenager and a new state law.

Nineteen-year-old Madison Grimm, of Wallace, started Second Chance Flight to rescue viable wild duck eggs from nests destroyed when farmers harvest hay from a field. She hatches and raises the ducklings, and releases them into the wild. 

Grimm already held a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permit to rescue the eggs of migratory waterfowl. But state law prevented her from doing the same work with eggs from birds such as pheasants. 

“I decided I really needed to get this law changed because there was a huge problem last year,” Grimm said. 

Grimm’s father Adam, a nationally recognized wildlife artist and three-time winner of the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, traveled with his daughter to Pierre to testify for her bill. 

The new law lets federal permit holders expand their work to other kinds of birds. Gov. Larry Rhoden signed the bill in March, and it took effect July 1.

Grimm had her own private waterfowl aviary prior to Second Chance Flight, with over 100 birds from 21 species. It was originally built as a hobby and a source of reference material for her wildlife paintings. Madison is the only artist to ever win the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Junior Duck Stamp Contest three times. 

Farmers visiting the aviary knew she owned incubators. So when their farm equipment struck nests, they began asking whether she could save the surviving eggs.

At first, Grimm had to decline because she lacked the necessary federal permit.

“It kind of broke my heart,” she said. “I didn’t know this was happening, and there’s apparently nothing anyone can do about it.”

Some farmers told her they could encounter 20 or 30 nests in a single field they are haying, particularly near waterbodies. The machinery may kill the hen and crush some eggs, but other eggs often remain intact and viable.

After researching a similar program in another state, Grimm secured a federal permit and founded Second Chance Flight.

When farmers strike a nest, they contact her, and she or a volunteer retrieves the eggs. She shines a light through to check the embryo’s development, disinfects cracks, and seals the shell with clear nail polish to block bacteria.

Grimm had accepted over 450 eggs as of late June, and nearly 700 since the program launched. She estimates that about 98% of the viable eggs placed in her incubators hatch. She raises the ducklings for six to eight weeks and releases them in groups on wetlands. She releases them shortly before they can fly, so they remain together as they adjust to the wild.

Grimm has also applied for federal permission to place leg bands on released birds. That would help her learn whether the birds survive.

Farmers have welcomed the program, she said. They have to cut hay to feed livestock, but many feel terrible when a hen is caught up in the machinery and disappears in a burst of feathers.

“And they know she’s got a whole nest right there,” Grimm said. 

She hopes to eventually expand Second Chance Flight across the Prairie Pothole Region — an expanse of ponds and wetlands crucial for millions of migratory birds — and train others to conduct rescues.