gazette article

By W. ROBINSON    May 23, 1972

Spring seems a strange time for a conservation-minded organization like Ducks Unlimited to bring its big drag lines into the Pitt Wildlife Management Area (Pitt Polder Green belt). -

Surely it would have been better for the wildlife, particularly nesting waterfowl, had the work been carried out during the fall and winter. This last winter would have been ideal – what with the warm dry weather we had.

But I understand the diggers were busy on Douglas Island, presumably preparing another duck-producing area.

     LEFT ALONE

     We have been assured by the Fish and Wildlife that the crucial new dyke which will traverse one of the nesting areas of the sandhill cranes, will not be worked on during their nesting season. However, the whole marsh area under development is only a matter of some 2,000 acres and, enclosed as it is by the mountains, any activity of those large machines will not exactly go un-noticed by the cranes. - We understand also, that the fish and wildlife people intend to use an airboat as transportation for the workers. And we all know what an unearthly racket they make! We have heard that U.S. residents use them on the marshes in Idaho, but hose marshes are vast open areas. Here, the sound will be caught by the mountains and thrown back and forth across the marsh. The helicopters are bad enough but they don't hold a candle to an airboat!

WATCH WIRES

      In a matter of a week or so the cranes should be returning. This year they will find Hydro wires strung across their nesting grounds. They'll see the draglines at work in their marsh — men and machines, where up to now there has been isolation. Their small sphagnum bog at Green Hill has been drained to accommodate trails for a pheasant-shooting farm. Pasture clearing operations are encroaching on yet another nesting area just south of the

How much more pressure can these birds take before they abandon this, the last foothold in their ancient nesting grounds of the Pitt Valley? Are we to lose, as a resident, this magnificent bird,

relic of prehistoric times and closest living relative of the whooping crane?

Ducks and geese can be raised in barnyards and most of the pheasants shot these days are raised the same way. But sandhill cranes need the isolation of wild marshes in order to breed and raise at least one of their two annual offspring. It is really too much to ask that they and their marsh be left alone?

We have been assured by the fish and wildlife that the project will improve the feeding opportunities of the cranes. I have no doubt that it will, but at the expense of the conditions necessary for nesting – namely, isolation and large expanses of brush and sphagnum. The most damaging change will be the loss of isolation.

Why encourage these hordes of people into the area by providing accommodations for more and more types of recreation? Horseback riding, boy Scout camping, bicycle riding, falconry, dog trails, bird-watching, hiking, biological studies, canoeing, nature interpretation centers, viewing ponds with pinioned birds, oh yes, and hunting(how could I forget!) are some of the suggested recreations under consideration by the fish and wildlife. I’m rather surprised that they haven't mentioned reopening the ‘drag-strip', after all, it attracted a lot of people after midnight.

The Pitt Marsh cannot be all things to all people without losing its self in the bargain.

Our field trip this weekend will be on Saturday when we will visit the UBC Research Forest hoping to see some blue birds on migration. We meet at the gates at 9 a.m., bring your lunch but not your dogs. They are not allowed in the forest because of the deer. ---