Passenger Pigeon by John James Audubon. Image from Special Collections Toronto Public Library CC BY-SA 2.0
All extinct, all lamented, and all caused by human action and inaction.
Some combination of market and over-hunting and the destruction of habitat were the causes of these extinctions but an underlying factor was neglect. Some folks noticed the dwindling numbers but not enough cared enough to act and demand that the birds be protected.
I thought of these and other extinct birds when I reviewed the February DNR Board agenda. It has several items to which SoWBA members should attend but the first to catch my eye was a fabulous land purchase at Devil's Lake State Park. The land is 100 acres and is one of the last major inholdings within the Park's boundaries. It includes prairies, savannas, oak woods, and one of the tallest and most stunning geologic formations in southern Wisconsin (one can see Blue Mounds State Park from it!). It's also in the Ice Age Trail corridor and will host a wonderful segment of that trail. It will be open to many forms of outdoor recreation; I bet birders and hikers will discover and rejoice in it really soon. And, it's a bargain. The Conservation Fund purchased it and is selling to the DNR and us basically for half price, about $300,000. That's one of the great conservation bargains of recent Wisconsin history.
If you hike, bird, hunt, care for rare habitats, love Devil's Lake State Park, or you're a business owner in this neck of the woods for whom tourism is important, this is just fabulous news.
So, why did I keep thinking of the Passenger Pigeon (by the way, Wisconsin was the major nesting area for pigeons in the Midwest)? Because the Devil's Lake purchase might be the last major Stewardship Fund purchase before it becomes extinct. Probably anyone reading this has now read numerous articles from a variety of conservation organizations detailing the compelling and unassailable reasons the Legislature should renew Stewardship with enough funds to make more great land purchases possible. This possibly last purchase exemplifies all the reasons to have an effective Stewardship program. Please, keep working to save Stewardship.
Devil’s Lake State Park by Kenneth Spencer FCC
You can do two things. Contact any state senator you know and ask him or her to support Stewardship. Okay, you're sick and tired of this request from me and other advocates for Stewardship. I worked for a State Senator for five years. He paid attention to constituent requests and sometimes the numbers of them helped convince him to vote a certain way. Even more, sometimes one that offered a compelling experience or recast an argument in a new way made a big difference. Or, remember the parable of the Widow and Unjust Judge. The Widow beseeched the Judge so often and so energetically that he finally granted her request. By that point he actually feared her a bit—maybe he was up for election in a swing district.
Secondly, the Conservation Congress will vote on a resolution in favor of a strong Stewardship program. Participate in those hearings and support the resolution. More on that process later.
Bad enough to lose the Passenger Pigeon; let's not have Stewardship blink out of existence too.
Topf Wells, advocacy committee and former SoWBA board member
