March 2004

Natural diversity returning to Ozarks

Natural History Biologist Rhonda Rimer looks out over a 3-acre sinkhole pond at Tingler Prairie Natural Area. The overlook is 100 yards down a mowed trail from the area's parking lot. (Missouri Dept. of Conservation photo)

Three generations of conservationists have helped preserve and restore a piece of Missouri's natural heritage.

WEST PLAINS, Mo.--On an unseasonably warm, sunny day in early March, the breeze whispers through yellow prairie grasses at Tingler Prairie Natural Area, and leopard frogs chortle in a sinkhole pond nearby. A Northern harrier hawk patrols the grassy landscape and the trilling songs of meadowlarks drift across the prairie. If you close your eyes, it's easy to imagine yourself standing head-high in big bluestem and Indian grass on a fine June morning.

These sounds and sights are just what you would expect in western Missouri. They probably are not what you would expect to find in this location, in the heart of the Ozarks south of West Plains.

The nearby town's name carries a clue to why this area seems out of place in the Ozarks, a region that most Missourians associate with deep forest. Settlers named West Plains for its location in the plains west of Thomasville. The seat of Howell County government, West Plains rides the crest of the Ozark Plateau. Early explorers described this region as a mixture of prairies, glades, savannas and open woodlands.

Last year, Tingler Prairie joined an exclusive list of Missouri Natural Areas considered to have outstanding ecological significance. The 240-acre tract is a living testament to the fact that time ultimately changes everything.

The men who conducted the original land surveys in the Ozarks called this site "third-rate not fit for cultivation." A little more than a century later, a renowned naturalist pronounced it worthy of saving for posterity. The next generation of naturalists worked to keep what was left, and today a third generation has achieved the ultimate goal of permanent protection.

Tingler Prairie and the surrounding area have always been distinguished by an abundance of water seeping from the dolomite and sandstone rock just beneath the thin, cherty soil. The juxtaposition of dry and moist spots in a small area created habitat for unique plants.

The area also had a long history of frequent fires. Indians set them each year to keep the forest open. Burning prevented trees from taking over the area and allowed an unusual assemblage of herbaceous plants to thrive. What Tingler Prairie lacked in appeal for a practical, agriculture-minded surveyor it more than made up in botanical richness.

Northern rein orchid, pale green orchid and adder's-tongue, swamp milkweed, bird's-foot violet, blazing star, butterfly milkweed, yellow- and blue-eyed grass, compass plant, big and little bluestem, Indian grass and dozens more grow in open areas at Tingler Prairie.

Large and small sinkholes scattered around the area lend further variety to the landscape, creating marshy areas and even a 4.5-acre natural sinkhole pond. In these areas, buttonbush, broom sedge, water hyssop, cardinal flower, Michigan lily, blue flag, marsh St. John's wort and showy white swamp hibiscus flourish. In all, the area supports nearly 300 plant species.

No doubt the dairy and beef cows that grazed the area for the first three-quarters of the 20th century relished these botanical delicacies. But the boggy conditions that prevailed over much of the area throughout the year discouraged heavy grazing. When botanist Julian Steyermark visited Tingler Prairie in the 1950s, he found much of its original diversity still present. He was the first to urge that the area be protected.

Steyermark and was followed by Larry Houf, a wildlife biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, and Don Smith, a Conservation Department field service agent. The pair took jobs in the Ozarks in the 1970s, and soon recognized why Steyermark had been so impressed with Tingler Prairie. Accordingly, they began working to realize the area's potential.

The first step was to get the land into public ownership. Don Kurz, then natural history Ozark unit chief for the Conservation Department, brought Tingler to the attention of The Nature Conservancy. TNC bought the land in 1986 and held it until conservation officials could arrange to purchase it the next year.

With the area under Conservation Department control, Houf and Smith worked to eradicate introduced plants, such as Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose and fescue grass, which were competing with natural vegetation. They created a trail through the area and added field-stone benches in shady spots for resting and contemplation. They also continued the work of documenting the area's biological diversity

By the time Natural History Biologist Rhonda Rimer arrived in 1999 much of the documentation needed to gain official status as a natural area had been assembled.

"Tingler had been thought of as special for a long time," said Rimer on a recent tour of the area. "Thanks to Don and Larry's dedication, I could think about nominating the area."

Rimer first contacted the Conservation Department's Natural Areas Coordinator, Karen Kramer. Kramer had visited Tingler Prairie and knew it was a deserving candidate, so she gave Rimer the green light to pursue the nomination. This involved coordinating more survey work to document the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and natural communities present. Rimer also worked with area manager Mike Woodring to develop a management plan that would protect the area's outstanding qualities.

They discovered that Tingler Prairie was home to 23 species of dragonflies and damselflies, not to mention dozens of snails, mussels, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Natural communities on the area included prairie swale, pond shrub swamp, freshwater marsh, woodland, prairie bottomland forest and creek.

After the Conservation Department's Natural Areas Committee approved the nomination, it went to the State Natural Areas Committee, where representatives from the Conservation Department, the Department of Natural Resources, the USDA Forest Service, the National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy gave their approval. The designation became official last year with a vote of the Conservation Commission.

Woodring's ongoing challenges at Tingler Prairie include eradicating invasive plants, increasing the area's plant diversity with native species no longer found there and varying the existing schedule of prescribed burns to encourage those plants.

He also is experimenting with variations in the burning schedule to speed the restoration of natural diversity to the prairie. At some point, he would like to try limited grazing to recreate the effects of elk and bison, which historically inhabited the area. He has developed a brochure allowing visitors to Tingler Prairie to take a self-guided nature tour along its trails. The brochure is being printed now and should be available at the area this summer.

Designation as a natural area makes Tingler Prairie a natural place to experiment with management techniques that could have benefits far beyond the Ozarks. An example is the ongoing introduction of Virginia sneezeweed.

Despite its unflattering common name, this member of the sunflower family is an attractive wildflower that produces an explosion of brilliant yellow blossoms each summer.

Helenium virginicum, as it is known to scientists, once was thought to exist only in Virginia until Steyermark found a colony of the plants on private land in Missouri. Missouri's sneezeweed population is not currently threatened. However, because the state's only known population is on land that could be sold and cleared for development at any time, conservationists worry about its future. As an insurance policy, they have obtained seedlings and transplanted them to suitable sites at Tingler Prairie. So far, they are thriving. This population on a permanently protected area could provide planting stock for additional restoration work on other areas.

Tingler Prairie is a natural place to bring biology students from Southwest Missouri State University-West Plains and an excellent site for training volunteers in the Conservation Department's Master Naturalist program. The mowed trail takes visitors through prairie, woodland and bottomland hardwood forest, including a stretch along the North Prong of Spring Creek. Visitors can walk 100 yards to a viewing platform overlooking a 3- acre fishless sinkhole pond that harbors tiger salamanders, herons, egrets, wood ducks and dozens of other animals.

"This area is more special to me than any other," said Rimer, "That is partly because it has so many beautiful plants and animals, but also because of the remarkable people whose work has kept it safe and passed it on to future visitors better than they found it."

To visit Tingler Prairie, take Highway 17 six miles south from U.S. Highway 63 at West Plains. Take County Road 9100 west to County Road 8110 and then go south 1/4 mile to the parking lot on the left.

- Jim Low -

Commission to meet April 25-26 near Salem

JEFFERSON CITY--The Missouri Conservation Commission will meet April 25 and 26 at the Jerry J. Presley Conservation Education Center, Salem. The Commission will hold an informal briefing and workshop regarding strategic planning and budgetary direction from 1 to 2 p.m. and will meet in closed session at 3:30 p.m. April 25. The Commission will meet in open session at 10 a.m. April 26.

Commission meetings are open to the public. Items to be placed on the agenda for presentations or other business should be sent in writing to Director, Missouri Department of Conservation, P.O. Box 180, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0180; fax 573/751-4467, at least 10 working days before the meeting date. The deadline for the next meeting is April 12.

People requiring special services or accommodations to attend the meeting can make arrangements by writing to the same address, or by phone at 573/751-4115.

Commission officers are: Stephen C. Bradford, Cape Girardeau, chairman; Cynthia Metcalfe, St. Louis, vice-chairman, Anita B. Gorman, Kansas City, secretary and Lowell Mohler, Jefferson City, member.

-Jim Low-

LEWIS AND CLARK QUIZ

Question: When and where did the Corps of Discovery first find signs of bison?

Answer: June 7, 1804, in Central Missouri

Lower Mississippi a fishing bonanza waiting to be discovered

Wade Mansfield hauls in a pair of white bass from the lower Mississippi Rive near Caruthersville. Missouri's widest portion of the river provides a variety of watery habitats for anglers to explore; (Missouri Dept. of Conservation photo)

Lower Mississippi a fishing bonanza waiting to be discovered

At first you think you are in Tennessee. Then you realize you are in fishing heaven.

CARUTHERSVILLE, Mo.--"Now this is what I have been looking for!" Wade Mansfield exulted as he hauled a pair of wiggling fish into in the bow of his boat. The 3-pound white bass, hooked simultaneously on separate jigs on same line, were his second double of the day, but not his last.

The scene would have seemed strange--if not downright incongruous--to most Missouri anglers. Mansfield's glittering 19-foot fiberglass bass boat, clearly built for speed and sporting a 150 hp motor, was sitting in the middle of a fishing hole 60 yards in diameter and hemmed in by a willow thicket. At one side of the hole, a 6-foot culvert spilled coffee-and-cream colored water into the pool. On either side of the pipe, anglers seated on white plastic buckets were dunking worms and hauling in everything from 15-pound carp to largemouth bass.

As Mansfield continued to work a spot that was barely out of the bank anglers' casting range, he hauled in fish after fish, including several football-shaped largemouth bass and a hefty white crappie. A holiday atmosphere developed, with all the anglers hooting at one another's catches and occasionally rendezvousing bankside to admire one another's fish.

"Girl, what you got in that wire basket?" Mansfield asked one angler, who had been slipping hand-sized fish into her fish keeper for an hour.

"Nothin' but white bass."

"Don't you have to work today?" another of the land-bound crew asked Mansfield.

"I am workin'," the co-owner of the Grizzly Jig Company replied truthfully.

The dialog had the soft accents of western Tennessee. The scenery could have passed for Reelfoot Lake, 20 miles to the northeast. Few Missourians would have guessed this scene was playing out in their home state. Fewer still realize the variety and quality of fishing available on the Mississippi River and its backwater areas in their state's extreme southeast corner.

Mansfield makes it his business to know where the fish are biting on the Mississippi River in Pemiscot County. He admits that exploring such a vast resource can be a daunting challenge.

"I would stack the fishing on the Mississippi up against Lake of the Ozarks, Stockton or Wappapello Lake," he said. "But if you are in an aluminum johnboat, you can't get to all the places you can with a bass boat. Part of the trouble is that there is so much water to cover. Down here, most of our ditches are about the size of the Missouri River."

The scale is hard to grasp at first. The Missouri River's flood plain is visually defined in most places by bluffs a mile or two apart. In southeast Missouri, the Mississippi River is a mile wide, and the edges of its flood plain are out of sight on either side. Within that broad valley are hidden oxbow lakes, sloughs, chutes, bayous and islands, some large enough to have their own lakes.

On this March 8 outing, Mansfield put in at the Boat Club Chute Access northwest of Caruthersville around 8 a.m. and motored about 3 miles upriver. At 30 mph, it was a quick and chilly trip. After rounding an eastward bend in the river, he ducked behind an island and tied up at the "Rock Wall."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built this 20-foot pile of Volkswagen-sized limestone boulders to prevent the river from cutting a new channel across a 2,500-acre bulge of land. The wall holds the river in place, but the size of the rocks permits water to seep through at a surprising rate.

In flood, the river pours over the top of the wall, scouring out a 50-foot-deep hole on the downstream side. When the river is on the rise, as it was on this day, water pours through the wall's crevices, carrying algae, earthworms and other invertebrate animals that draw schools of hungry shad. Following the shad are hungry white bass. At least, that was Mansfield's theory.

The fish fooled him, however. All he caught at "The Wall" was a pair of fat largemouth bass. So Mansfield headed back downriver. Again, the clip was a leisurely 30 mph, since the rising river carried a considerable amount of driftwood.

Re-entering the Boat Club Chute, he bumped the throttle up a bit and skimmed the flat, litter-free water at a brisk 40 mph, going a mile or two up what the untrained observer would assume is a respectable river in its own right. In fact, the 100-yard wide channel is only a side chute of the Mississippi. It dead-ends at 968-acre Gayoso Bend Conservation Area.

In this area, Mansfield boated three or four 1.5-pound white bass around a shallow point between two fingers of deeper water. He wasn't content with this level of action, so he took off back down the chute.

At a spot distinguished by nothing in particular, he cut the throttle to an idle and nosed his sleek boat into a bank-side willow thicket that camouflaged the mouth of a smaller chute parallel to the first one. Threading the pointed bow between flooded saplings, he finally broke into a pool of water surrounding the culvert opening and found what he had been seeking all morning.

Around noon, he found an enchanted 40-foot patch of water, and for an hour he caught and released white bass one after another. Then the action slackened, most likely because all the fish had sore mouths.

Summing up white bass fishing during most of the year, Mansfield said, "You find whites wherever the shad or other bait fish are. That can change overnight, especially when the river is rising or falling."

Late-winter anglers often find whites concentrated in deep holes near the mouths of tributary streams. They are waiting for a pulse of warm water from spring rains to draw them upstream for their annual spawning run.

In the summer, white bass favor places where rushing water picks up oxygen. Such spots include the ends of partially exposed wing dikes and "The Wall." Whites, or as they are known locally, "stripes," also gather behind dikes and in other spots with deep, cool water in the summertime.

Crappie, walleye, sauger, striped bass, hybrid striped bass and flathead catfish often show up in the same places as white bass, since they share a love of bite-sized shad. Oxbow lakes and lakes on river islands also are good crappie spots. Largemouth bass and bluegill sunfish are apt to turn up anywhere out of the river's main current.

Crappie spawn from mid-April to mid-May most years, although high river stages can delay the event. During the spawn, slackwater areas behind wing dikes are excellent places to catch crappie.

Flathead catfish, which reach monstrous proportions in the Father of Waters, love to hang out in root wads and piles of flotsam on the upstream side of wing dikes and other obstructions. They wait in such lairs to pick off passing fish.

Flatheads and the kings of the catfish tribe, blue cats, frequent fast-moving water. Unlike flatheads, blue cats' taste runs toward worms, chicken liver and stinkbait. Trotlines, bank poles and jug lines all yield good catches of catfish, drum and buffalo. Channel catfish share blue cats' taste in foods, but are more likely to be found out of the river's current.

One surprisingly good place to catch catfish is right in the barge-lined lower end of the Boat Club Chute. Starting in August and continuing into winter, spillage of grain being transferred into barges creates a huge food source for hungry fish. Bank fishing around the mouth of the chute can be spectacular during this period.

If you visit Caruthersville to fish the Mississippi, it pays to start your day at The Roundhouse restaurant on Highway 84 near the north edge of town. Take a seat at the round table just inside the door, and you will get a running commentary on current fishing conditions as anglers come and go. They open at 5 a.m. Their biscuits are flaky, their gravy is sinful, and the service is relaxed and friendly.

The Grizzly Jig Company's retail store at 303 Ward Ave. is another excellent source of timely fishing gossip. You may find Mansfield behind the counter, but just as likely you will run into him on the river.

- Jim Low -

Schools prepare Missouri River canoe race

More than 100 miniature dugout canoes will head down river in May.

BRUNSWICK, Mo.--Thousands of grade-schoolers in communities along Missouri's midsection are excitedly preparing for an epic race on a tiny scale. On April 24 they will launch 124 miniature dugout canoes at this Chariton County community and then wait breathlessly for two days, hoping their boat is the first to reach Augusta in St. Charles County.

The race is both more dangerous and less scary than you might think. More dangerous to the boats, because they are only 14 inches long. Less risky because they will carry only messages from 124 school classes, not the students themselves.

The race is the brainchild of the River Valley Development Committee (RVDC), a group dedicated to raising Missourians' awareness of their namesake river and its commercial and recreational importance. The mini-dugout project is intended to tap into excitement about the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

"We think it is particularly important for children to know about the river, and we thought this would be a good way to get them interested," said RVDC spokesman Jack Ryan. "It is a way of making the river seem more real to kids who otherwise might not ever think about it."


More than 2,600 students will be thinking about it as they decorate the miniature dugouts, which are carved from sections of untreated landscape timber. Each bright yellow boat has a compartment in the stern just large enough to hold a 35mm film canister. Each class will put a message inside, urging the finder to contact them.

The boats will be launched en masse. Carried along by the river's 3- to 4-mph current, a lucky dugout could make the 184-mile journey to Augusta in as little as two days. Given their size, however, it is unavoidable that some will get lost along the way.

The dugout canoes used by the Corps of Discovery were approximately 30 feet long and weighed upwards of a ton. Even they were not immune to damage by striking snags or grounding on sandbars thrown up by the river's current. The biggest hazard for the smaller craft will be getting caught in rafts of flotsam.

"We will have watchers posted at Augusta a couple of days after the launch, but we expect some of the boats to still be working their way downriver for months afterwards," said Ryan.

He said he hoped people will leave the mini-dugouts alone in the days immediately following the start of the race. But after a few weeks, people are encouraged to pick up boats they find and contact the sponsoring classes, using the information in the film canisters. He said part of the fun of the exercise is seeing how far downriver some of the boats travel. With some luck, one could be picked up by a trawler in the Gulf of Mexico.

-Jim Low-

LEWIS AND CLARK QUIZ

Where is Capt. William Clark, co-commander of the Corps of Discovery, buried?

Answer: In Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River Valley.

-30-

Careful burning is critical during fire season

The spring fire season starts in March and continues through April. During this period, Missourians should be especially careful about burning yard waste or rubbish. Those who want to conduct controlled burns should contact a private land conservationist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. (Missouri Dept. of Conservation photo)

Check with experts before striking a match.

JEFFERSON CITY--The Western United States isn't the only place where wildfires destroy homes and businesses. It happens in Missouri, too. Someone clearing out their garden sets fire to a pile of leaves, the wind picks up and before he can react the fire has escaped into woods or grassland, threatening his and neighbors' property. Sometimes lives can be lost.

Unlike the West, where fires are most likely during the dry months of late summer and autumn, Missouri's fire season arrives early in the year. The threat is greatest in years when drought conditions prevail. That is the case in northwest Missouri this year.

The United States Department of Agriculture's "U.S. Drought Monitor" published Feb. 24 shows abnormally dry to extremely dry conditions in the northwest corner of Missouri. However, even outside this area a few days of sunny, windy weather can turn last year's leaves and grass into tinder, waiting for a spark. Such conditions can create problems for casual burners of yard waste or rubbish and for landowners who use fire to manage their land.

"Because fire has been part of Missouri's natural seasonal cycle for thousands of years, it is a great tool for managing native grasses and wildlife habitat," said George Hartman, the Missouri Department of Conservation's fire ecologist. "But striking a match is so easy to do, it's easy to forget what a big responsibility it carries."

Hartman, whose job includes striking a match several times every year, said anyone who wants to use fire as a management tool owes it to themselves and their neighbors to learn how to do it safely. Information about how to conduct controlled burns is available from private land conservationists at local Conservation Department or Natural Resources Conservation Service offices. These offices can also offer advice about weather conditions before a planned burn.

Forestry Education Coordinator Bruce Palmer said a significant number of Missouri wildfires are set by arsonists. He said motives for setting fires range from simple mischief to smoldering resentments against neighbors or government agencies. It is enough of a problem that the Conservation Department, the Conservation Federation of Missouri and the Mark Twain National Forest have set up a toll-free Operation Forest Arson hot line, 800/392-1111, for people to report suspicious wildfires.

Palmer offered the following advice to avoid starting a wildfire accidentally:
--Burn on days with low wind and within three days of the last rain.
--Notify local fire officials when you intend to burn.
--After burning, check several times to ensure the fire is out.
--Keep water, rakes, wet gunny sacks and other firefighting tools at hand when burning.
--Call fire officials immediately if a fire escapes.
--Ask your neighbors not to burn on dry, windy days.
--Teach your children to be safe with fire.
--Don=t burn brush piles. They make great wildlife habitat and will naturally decay in a few years.

Palmer said Missouri's fire danger drops off quickly as trees leaf out and grass greens up. This usually happens in mid to late April. Until then, he said, people should be especially careful about how they handle fire.


- Jim Low -

Workshops to acquaint Missourians with their big rivers

Participants will learn how rivers work and discover how much fun they can have on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

JEFFERSON CITY -- If you have ever wondered what the Missouri River looks like up close or what it is like to dive for clams on the Mississippi River, here is your chance. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is offering workshops to help Missourians get in touch with the two big rivers that shaped the state's history.

The DNR, in partnership with Living Lands and Waters and Missouri River Relief, is sponsoring a series of events to get Missourians in touch with the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The workshops will explain how watersheds work and explore the rivers' many uses, from drinking water and fishing to conduits for waste water. Also included will be training on how to get involved in river conservation and boat trips to see river-based activities firsthand.

Workshops will take place May 4 and May 7 in St. Louis, June 11-12 in Columbia (college credit available) and Oct. 16 in Kansas City. The DNR also is offering citizens a chance to get involved in river conservation by taking part in a trash cleanup at the confluence of the two rivers May 1.

To register for a workshop or for more information, visit www.dnr.mo.gov/oac/river-cleanup.htm, or contact Bryan Hopkins at 800/361-4827 or 573/751-3443. Information about Living Lands and Waters, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection, preservation and restoration of the natural environment of the nation's major rivers and their watersheds, is available at www.livinglandsandwaters.org.

-Jim Low-

LEWIS AND CLARK QUIZ

What unusual creature did Lewis and Clark expect to encounter in the western United States?

Answer: Wooly mammoths. Fossilized skeletons of these and other extinct animals had been discovered in eastern states, and many people believed they still lived in the vast, unexplored expanse of the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery also was told to be on the lookout for giants, a race of magical pygmies and a tribe of white Indians descended from Welshmen who made their way to North America long before Christopher Columbus.

Business support pushes venison donations over 88 tons

Food banks statewide are getting a bigger boost every year from Missouri's Share the Harvest Program. Show-Me State hunters' venison donations topped 88 tons in 2003. (Missouri Dept. of Conservation photo)

With the help of civic-minded businesses, hunters almost doubled the amount of meat donated to food banks in 2003.

BOWLING GREEN, Mo.--When families fall on hard times in Missouri, they can still put lean, protein-rich meat on their tables. The story of how businesses and hunters worked together to move 88.7 tons of venison from the state's fields and forests into local food banks last year is among the most heart-warming success stories in Missouri's fight against poverty.

The donations come through the Share the Harvest program. Tyson Wibbenmeyer said the program is enormously important to charitable efforts in his community.

"The Ladies of Charity were amazed last year when we turned over more than 1,500 pounds of ground venison to them," said Wibbenmeyer, whose family operates Stonie's Sausage Shop, a Share the Harvest cooperator in Perryville. "They told me that some people cried when they got the meat."

Share the Harvest was founded by the Columbia Area Archers in 1992, when they collected a few hundred pounds of venison. Over the years, as deer harvest regulations grew more liberal and organizations around the state started their own Share the Harvest programs, the program grew.

The Missouri Department of Conservation took an active role in administering Share the Harvest from the start and helped coordinate the increasingly complex undertaking as corporate sponsors began lending financial support for venison processing. The growth accelerated after the Conservation Federation of Missouri (CFM) began actively promoting Share the Harvest.

By 1999, hunters were donating 15 tons of venison annually. In the next three years, donations more than tripled, topping 48 tons in 2002. Such astonishing growth can't go on forever, but apparently the program still has growth potential. Donations almost doubled from 2002 to 2003, jumping from 96,595 pounds to 177,435 pounds. That is 88.7 tons of lean red meat.

The thought of that much meat naturally leads to thoughts of full freezers. Food bank freezers don't stay full for long, however. Meat is the commodity most in demand for indigent families, and most charities run through Share the Harvest donations in weeks rather than months.

An example is the Central Missouri Food Bank, which received 12,937 pounds of venison through Share the Harvest in November and December. By the end of February, nearly all that meat had been distributed to needy families.

Central Missouri Food Bank's ability to provide that generous amount of meat was the result of an astonishing act of corporate kindness. CFM Executive Director Dave Murphy remembers "sitting in my office, looking at a map of Missouri with the six food banks and 92 local processors highlighted, wishing there was some way to improve meat distribution to increase the capacity of the program. Right at that moment the phone rang and a gentleman asked if I would like to have two refrigerated trucks."

The company wanted to donate the trucks for use in the Share the Harvest program. The trucks each had mileage of about 20,000. One needed $2,500 worth of work. Together, they were worth an estimated $100,000.

To make the most of the trucks, the Conservation Federation transferred ownership to the Central Missouri Food Bank, which until then had no refrigerated trucks dedicated to the Share the Harvest donations. "They were ecstatic," Murphy recalls.

"When a program gets this big, logistics become as big a problem as getting people to donate meat," said Murphy. "Getting hundreds of deer from the check station to the meat locker and storing them until they can be processed is a huge challenge."

During deer season last year, one of the trucks went to Pike County, where Share the Harvest organizers had been struggling to keep up with deer donations. The truck made the rounds of check stations, collecting deer carcasses and delivering them to meat lockers.

"It took the program through the roof," said Murphy. "They went from 94 deer donated in 2002 to 371 last year. Nothing else could have increased our capacity to gather venison more than these two trucks."

The donor of the trucks chose to remain anonymous.

Donations from 10 counties totaled 88,515 pounds, nearly as much as last year's statewide figure. Top counties were: Pike, 20,224 pounds; Boone, 18,284; Schuyler, 11,184; Macon, 7,657; St. Louis, 6,372; Laclede, 5,756; Ralls, 5,662; Callaway, 4,939, Marion, 4,299 and Daviess, 4,138.

What has fueled this astonishing growth? Publicity is part of the answer. Programs are springing up in more communities as more sportsmen learn about Share the Harvest and discover how easy it is to donate. Murphy said conservation agents also deserve a large share of the credit.

"The Conservation Department's Protection Division deserves a huge amount of credit for how things get done and for the impressive smoothness of the operation. Conservation agents have been instrumental in getting programs started in their counties and promoting them."

Murphy said two of the biggest factors boosting Share the Harvest's growth this year were sponsors' efforts to expand their programs and financial support from civic-minded businesses. Sponsors--usually civic clubs or sporting groups--do the real work of Share the Harvest, recruiting meat processors to package the meat and food banks or other charitable organizations to distribute it.

ne example of an effective sponsor is the Central Missouri Chapter of Safari Club International (SCI). Earl Cannon, chairman of the group's Sportsmen Against Hunger Committee, said they got involved with Share the Harvest in 2000. He said the program appealed to them because it offered a way to meet the needs of people in central Missouri and help the Conservation Department reach its goals for managing deer numbers.

The Central Missouri SCI chapter focused its efforts on Boone, Callaway, Cole and Moniteau counties. Working with five meat processors and six charitable organizations, they coordinated the collection of 13,128 pounds of venison last year. That is a 36-percent increase from 2002.

"Our chapter is only four years old, and we have been active in Share the Harvest from our first year," said Cannon. "We received the Rookie Chapter of the Year Award from Safari Club International for our work the first year we existed. The next year we were awarded the Top Gun Award as the most outstanding chapter in Safari Club International, something we are quite proud of."

Cannon noted that his 300-member, fledgling SCI chapter posted the second-largest one-week venison donation in the nation last year. Their impressive 9,100-pound total came in second to an Indiana SCI chapter that gathered 10,000 pounds during Sportsmen Against Hunger Week. He said the support of local news media was critical to his chapter's success.

SCI, Bass Pro Shops, Shelter Insurance and the Conservation Department all put up money to pay for deer processing last year. This meant that any hunter who donated a whole deer could get $35 toward processing costs. Civic organizations in many communities supplemented this amount with their own donations, enabling hunters in some areas to donate deer at no cost. Several Share the Harvest programs actually had money left over at the end of the hunting season.

Share the Harvest organizers in Laclede County offered an added incentive for hunters to donate whole deer. The first 50 donors received $10 gift certificates from local sporting goods stores. Last year the program brought in 114 whole deer and a total venison donation of nearly three tons.

"The level of support we have gotten from Missouri companies is extremely heartening," said Murphy. "The folks at Bass Pro Shops told me personally that they would be right there with us as this program grows."

Murphy said local financial supporters are unsung heroes in this story. He said small donations from dozens of groups around the state made it so easy and inexpensive to donate venison in many areas, hunters had no reason not to do it last year. "That was a big factor in this year's success."

Meat processors' contribution also is important. Grinding venison for Share the Harvest takes time that could be spent on more profitable work, such as making venison sausage. Murphy called meat processors "a vital link in the program."

Asked what lies ahead for Share the Harvest, Murphy said he wants to focus on increasing partial donations. Last year, donations of whole deer accounted for 98 percent of venison donations statewide.

"I think we can do a lot better than that," said Murphy. "Last year Missouri's deer harvest was well over a quarter of a million. If we could get half of those hunters to donate just five pounds of ground venison from their deer this year, that would be more than a half a million pounds of meat for financially strapped families through Share the Harvest. In 2005 we can work on getting the other half of deer hunters to contribute."

For a list of meat processors participating in Share the Harvest, check the Fall Deer and Turkey Hunting Information booklet, which is available wherever hunting permits are sold. For more information about Share the Harvest, visit http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/hunt/deer/share/ or contact the CFM at 573/634-2322, mofed@socket.net.

- Jim Low -

Eagles by the thousands make Missouri their winter home

Average numbers of bald eagles indicate the national symbol is in good health.

JEFFERSON CITY-Warm weather and an abundance of waterfowl contributed to a strong showing during the midwinter eagle survey coordinated by the Missouri Department of Conservation Jan. 4-9. This year's survey turned up 2,545 wintering bald eagles.

The 2004 total is 331 more than last year and 139 fewer than in 2002. Conservation Department Wildlife Ecologist Andy Forbes said this year's number is well within the normal range.

Eagles' preferred foods include dead fish and waterfowl, so they tend to stay near water year-round. In the winter, they migrate as far south as necessary to find open water. Missouri's rivers and reservoirs are attractive haunts for the majestic birds at this time of year.

In years when lakes and streams north of Missouri are frozen but water in the Show-Me State remains open, the mid-winter eagle count soars. The number counted here is smaller in mild winters, when eagles stay farther north, and in severe winters, when Missouri lakes and streams freeze over, pushing the birds farther south.

"Thanks to our big rivers and the abundance of large reservoirs here, Missouri always has a sizeable winter eagle population," said Forbes. "The number varies between 2,000 and 3,000 from year to year, depending on weather conditions."

Forbes said conducting the survey each year allows the Conservation Department, working in cooperation with other state and federal conservation agencies, to monitor long-term population trends. If a downward trend develops, the agency would seek to learn the causes and act to remedy them. For now, though, everything seems to be going smoothly for eagles.

Approximately 170 Conservation Department employes took part in the 2004 midwinter eagle survey. Besides the bald eagles they identified positively, they counted one golden eagle, 466,932 snow geese, 128,246 Canada geese, 641,185 ducks, 17 trumpeter swans and 12 unidentified swans.

-Jim Low-

LEWIS AND CLARK QUIZ

How many Corps of Discovery members kept journals?

Answer: Nine. Although the expedition's officers get nearly all the literary credit these days, other Corps members were encouraged to keep journals as a hedge against losing invaluable records by accident. All made duplicate copies of their journal entries periodically for the same reason.

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