To the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission:
Gentlemen: I wish I could say ladies and gentlemen, but evidently our governor doesn’t think ladies hunt, fish or enjoy the outdoors. “Governor, this is 2019 not 1919!”
Now, this isn’t Richard’s radical conclusion about ground nesting birds being wiped out by feral hogs. The comments below are based on studies made in Australia focusing on their efforts to control feral hogs brought into the country by early settlers. The settlers brought 49 hogs in the 1790s, and today they have more feral hogs than people: 23,000,000 to 21,000,000. The huge increase, according to Australian studies, is because, without any predators, the hogs can increase by 80% a year, and for you math-limited Arkies, that means Arkansas could overtake Australia in another decade or two. Just think about that little fact for a minute as we consider Australia’s problem.
According to Australian studies, the millions of feral hogs are threatening to send numerous endangered birds and mammals to extinction. These hogs are rapidly destroying Australia’s unique wildlife, and the studies made have confirmed, where feral hogs are abundant, ground nesting birds disappear. Habitat is not a factor in the loss of ground nesting birds in Australia.
Of course, they are desperate to restore their ecosystem, which is obviously broken, and here’s a quote from a recent Australian scientific publication: “A new study shows Australia’s biodiversity is diminishing as native species are threatened by introduced animals, and suggests the reintroduction of “apex predators”” including dingoes (think wolves light) and the Tasmanian tiger across the country could help restore order.” (I promise I didn’t make that up.)
Of course it stands to reason that here in Arkansas, since we have the same problem, the loss of quail and turkey, which are ground nesting birds, and with the same factors, the increasing numbers of feral hogs, those hogs are the reason for our loss.
Let’s look very closely at our missing quail and diminishing number of turkeys in the state. First, let’s consider habitat. Sure, we have seen huge amounts of habitat disappear, but there are still millions of acres of quail habitat without a single quail. So Commissioners, why do you keep harping on habitat? Let’s get right to the point: if you admit a broken ecosystem is the real reason our quail are gone, you would be faced with the task of restoring the ecosystem that produced an abundance of quail. Of course, it is easier to point at habitat while you scatter a little grass seed over a clear-cut timber harvest than it is to restore the ecosystem that has been altered until it is ideal for a group of ground scavengers such as feral hogs, coons, possums, and armadillos, and it’s easy to understand why these scavenger species have expanded. All of those species reproduce with abundance without human or animal predators to keep them under control, and their population will and has mushroomed. That is exactly what has happened in Australia.
In Australia they started with a very limited number of predators and as they eliminated most of the remaining apex predators, the number of hogs expanded to the current unbelievable numbers.
Here in Arkansas, since feral hog’s natural predators have been reduced to functioning extinct, and without any hunter incentive to make a significant reduction in their population, they have overrun the state. It is not a coincidence that our quail disappeared as millions of feral hogs, coons, opossums, armadillos and fire ants literally mushroomed in our state.
Yes, feral hogs and other scavengers have virtually eliminated the quail in our state, and since wild turkeys are ground nesting birds they seem to be following the quail out the door. Just recently in a report on turkey hunting the writer of the story commented they were hunting in “perfect turkey habitat, but the turkey were almost absent.” Well, of course with several million feral hog roaming the Arkansas woods, a few thousand turkey nests provided a snack for some of those hogs.
Commissioners, it is time to bite the bullet, and do the obvious: forget habitat, put a bounty on feral hogs, and restock the apex predators, and our ground nesting quail, turkey and killdeer will return. A good friend, who is a prominent member of a number of Arkansas Commissions and chairman of several, offered this solution, which I think is brilliant.
“Make it a Game and Fish Commission regulation that to purchase a new hunting license, you must present proof you have killed a feral hog during the prior hunting season, by showing an ear or tail.”
Wow, that would send an army of hundreds of thousands into the woods to kill feral hogs, and the main beneficiaries would be the hunters who reduced the numbers of feral hogs in the woods. You can’t beat that solution, Commissioners; put it on the books.
Well, with Fayetteville trying to eliminate the Bradford Pear tree, I guess El Dorado, the Bradford Pear tree capital of Arkansas, needs to declare, “Keep your hands off of our Bradford Pear trees!” Yes, we do have a lot of Bradford Pear in El Dorado. Just in our downtown alone we have hundreds of Bradford Pear, and I personally planted at least 500 of them in and around our award-winning downtown. We have just passed the blooming time for our Bradford Pears and this year, after the Biblical Rains, they were overwhelmingly beautiful. Of course their leafy foliage throughout the spring and summer adds immeasurable to the ambiance and helps to reduce our summer air conditioning bills, and in the fall we always marvel as our Bradford Pear trees turn a brilliant red.
In downtown El Dorado, our Bradford Pear trees are sturdy mature trees. Most of them were planted in the 1980s, and all of these trees have been properly trimmed. We learned you just don’t plant them and walk away, but prune and shape the trees to keep the widely spreading limbs from splitting off from the trunk of the tree. It seems the arborist in Fayetteville could use some instructions on how to maintain their trees. I’m at a loss as to how the smell of those flowering trees could be repulsive.
However, back to trees: El Dorado’s downtown is a good example of how an urban canopy of trees can enhance a downtown or for that matter any piece of property. Arkansas is full of ugly, and trees can hide a lot of it. Of all the improvements that have been made in downtown El Dorado, the +1,000 trees that have been planted are the top of the list in making downtown’s comeback. But we do have more than just Bradford Pear. We have a variety of trees such as cypress, sweet gum, pin oaks, ginkgo, and crepe myrtle.
For the money spent in any town, the planting of trees gives the greatest return per dollar. Numerous studies have shown retail sales increase, businesses have more foot traffic, and the overall ambiance of any area with trees increases the appraised value of the property with trees versus a bare property without trees.
Richard Mason is a registered professional geologist, downtown developer, former chairman of the Department of Environmental Quality Board of Commissioners, past president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and syndicated columnist. Email [email protected].