Drought’s effect being felt at many waterfowl
October 27th, 2006 by Administrator
Drought’s effect being felt at many waterfowl stopping points in Missouri and Kansas.
Migrating ducks may look at parts of Missouri and Kansas as more of a desert than an oasis this fall.
In a good year, marshes, wet river bottoms and sheetwater in fields make the region an inviting place for waterfowl to stop on their way south.
Not this year. Months of drought have seen to that.
With the duck season set to open in parts of Missouri and Kansas this weekend and next, experts say the landscape is the driest they’ve seen it in decades. And that doesn’t bode well for either the ducks or the hunters.
“I’ve been at Marais des Cygnes for 21 years and this is by far the driest I’ve seen it,” said Karl Karrow, manager of the Kansas wetlands located about 60 miles south of Kansas City. “We’ve never gone into an opening day with so little water in the hunting pools. We probably have 65 percent less water than we normally do.
“We just haven’t had the rain. All the major systems that other areas have gotten have bypassed us. The last time we really had a big rain was the 10th of July — and that’s a long time for a wetlands area to go without moisture.”
But Karrow isn’t alone in his misery. Many other wetlands areas in Missouri and Kansas are facing the same problems.
Even the expected rain this week won’t put a dent in the deficit, officials say.
•At the Four Rivers Conservation Area near Rich Hill, Mo., the drought also is drying up hunting opportunities.
Units 3 and 4, the open area where hunters don’t need reservations to hunt, have been hit the hardest. In good years, those units will have as much as 300 to 400 acres of water. This year, it’s down to 40 acres in Unit 4. Unit 3 is dry.
“Even in our draw units, our water is only 50 to 60 percent of capacity,” said Chris Daniel, manager at Four Rivers. “There definitely will be a reduction in hunting opportunity.
“It will take a lot of rain — and at a fast pace — for things to improve.”
•The drought may wipe out the duck season at the Montrose Conservation Area in west-central Missouri.
There, the lake is the lowest it has been in 20 years and tributary streams are equally low. Unless conditions change, officials say, there will be only three blinds available and there will be no pumping of water into wetlands units.
•The Neosho Wildlife Area in southeast Kansas also is thirsting for water.
The area has a total of about 350 acres of water in two hunting pools. But with the Neosho River low, pumping operations are in question.
“If we don’t get rain, it’s going to be pretty poor,” said Monte Monback, manager at Neosho. “We’ll pump as much as possible, but the Neosho River needs about six inches of rain.”
•The Schell-Osage Conservation Area near Schell City, Mo., also is feeling the effects of a long, dry summer.
The reservoirs that feed the wetlands were drained late last winter to allow for repairs. Following a summer of little runoff, they’re still extremely low.
Workers with the Department of Conservation are using portable pumps to flood pools, but there’s still far less water in hunting units than in a normal year.
•Truman Lake is low, meaning that many of the upper reaches that normally attract ducks will be without water.
•Private duck clubs also are feeling the water shortage. Karrow said that many of the clubs near Marais des Cygnes are dry. And Daniel added that many of the clubs near Four Rivers “are without a drop of water right now.”
What makes the situation worse at those areas is that relief from the drought, in many cases, hasn’t been far away.
Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas, typically among the hardest hit by the drought, received adequate rainfall this summer and has plenty of water in its marshes. It already has attracted 100,000 ducks.
Portions of northwest Missouri also have received rain, and managed marshes such as Bob Brown and Nodaway Valley have water.
But a band along the state line from the central part of both states south is suffering.
In the past, Karrow and other employees of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks could pump water from the Marais des Cygnes River to make up for the shortfall. But even that isn’t a possibility now.
“The forecasts are calling for some rain, but we’ll need a lot of it,” Karrow said. “We’re so far behind, we’ll need significant rain to make a difference.”
But Karrow and others are holding out hope that this will be the case.
They’ve seen rapid turnarounds before — periods where heavy November rains wiped out the frustration of months of drought and resulted in outstanding duck hunting.
“We have good moist-soil food in the pools,” Daniel said. “If we could get the rain to flood that food, this area could be very attractive to ducks. But right now, we just need the precipitation — and a lot of it.”