Carson and Jeff sit down with John Veon (UC Davis PhD candidate, wetlands & waterfowl) and Andy Atkinson (manager, Bird Haven Ranch) to unpack a five-year experiment in integrated wetland management—using swales, shorter irrigations, and year-round connectivity to cut mosquito production while boosting macroinvertebrates and duck use.

What you’ll learn

• Why the Valley needs a reset: California flipped its natural water rhythm and now only ~7–10% of naturally functioning wetlands remain—so managers are rebuilding function, not replicas.
• How the system works: keep wet swales connected through summer and swap 10-day irrigations for ~5-day (or less) pulses to protect annuals (think Timothy ...