Editorial: Protectors Of The Wild Don’t Seem To Learn Much

As in the past, forays into the hinterlands of Iowa and the Dakotas provide interesting grist for our editorial mills. A late report from a Yankton, S.D., resident (a stone’s throw from Gavins Point Dam) would indicate that our protectors of the wild seem not to have learned much over the Missouri River battleground years.

We all know of the pulling and tugging by various river stakeholders to gain advantage for their particular interests. It always reaches a crescendo during years of drought. We know also that the environmental groups have focused on preserving “endangered species” to gain ground in the skirmish. Everyone, however, is short of water, and there is little encouraging news in sight.

A Yankton man with uncommonly good sense described the problem succinctly. “There isn’t enough water,” he said, as we broke bread together and chuckled over environmental miscues. What else was there to say?

Our latest report, which we have not confirmed with the Corps or U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, is that the “signs have come off of the sandbars where endangered birds nest.” Why? Because raccoons, of which there are umpteen trillions this year in South Dakota, have invaded the sandbars to eat the eggs. What a revelation! Raccoons eat eggs! Even the youngest farm boy on the back 40 knows that. All kinds of four-legged critters eat eggs. Weasels enter chicken coops and kill chickens. Everyone knows that. Skunks will eat eggs. Badgers will eat eggs. Where have our specialists been all these years? In the meantime, various reaches of the river are denied additional water to protect the least terns and piping plovers. Evidently boaters have been denied the use of sandbars for some predetermined time, now cut short. By the way, those birds and even pallid sturgeon seem to be plentiful in other river reaches.

One of our informants is a hunter. Though not related to the question at hand, he informed us that South Dakota issues up to four and five deer-hunting licenses in his county because the deer are reproducing like rabbits. “More deer are killed by cars within the city limits of Yankton than are killed in the entire county by hunters,” he said. The wildlife overseers are doing a good job of thinning the herds. Hunters who get multiple licenses have to make sure they kill a certain number of does.

This informant owns land along the Missouri. At present there is a costly effort to restore osprey to the area. Someone used too much 24D, a weed killer, which washed into the lakes. He said it got into the fish, the osprey ate the fish, and the osprey eggs took a beating. The birds, ultimately, disappeared. Now young osprey are brought into the area and put in nesting boxes along the river. It is hoped that they will form an attachment to the place where they mature and return. We don’t know the program costs, but the birds are banded with miniature radios and tracked to distant points. Apparently young osprey, like young eagles, must learn to fish. They plummet downward in a steep dive to grab fish from the river and fly on their way. Occasionally one plummets right into the water, and our informant is called to launch his boat and rescue the bird. He doesn’t mind. He is puzzled sometimes by the antics of people, but he likes birds.

It is amazing what we learn when we follow the practices of our “watchers of the game.” In Missouri, the specialists “discovered” that if they increased the number of otters on the state’s streams, the fish population would decline. Duh!

When the soil bank program began in the 1950s, it was discovered that when bird numbers increased because of improved habitat, so did the number of predators that hunt them.

The intelligence level of wildlife protectors is sometimes perplexing. The scenario can sometimes be likened to a man who meanders the lion cage at the zoo and, after being gnawed on for a while, says he didn’t know lions eat meat. That’s way below Biology 101.

Do we really believe that protectors of the wild have not learned much? Certainly not! It does seem, however, that they fail too frequently to apply what they should already know. Failed efforts cost money. Not only that, how much Missouri River shipping has been interrupted by these failures? How much business has gone down the drain?

Missouri River stakeholders, all of them, have to realize that the shortage of water is something they must live with until the rains come. Towboating, for example, was a flourishing business until the seasons were cut short. Irrigators who use Missouri water for their crops are also involved in a huge business. Believe it or not, because of the development made possible by the construction of the six main stem dams, fishing and tourism in states adjacent to the river are also big-dollar businesses. Many of them are trying to figure out how to extend their docks to the water’s edge, in some cases hundreds, perhaps thousands, of yards away. Power production also suffers. These are all important issues, but Mother Nature holds the reins (no pun intended).

As we drove along the river near Gavins Point Dam, our host pointed to an island with lots of trees. “That island didn’t used to be there,” she said. To the visitor in the area for the first time, the river would have appeared quite normal. But the river is a long way from normal, and we all know it. Fortunately, the Sergeant Floyd, ex-Corps of Engineers and now a visitor’s center at Sioux City, sits high aground, and visitors keep coming.

We just have to stay tuned and pray for rain.

The Waterways Journal encourages letters to the editor.
Have something on your mind?
Send letters to: jshoulberg@waterwaysjournal.net.
(Please indicate whether or not your letter is intended for publication.)