Februry 23, 2008 Outdoor Column

AT WOODS EDGE

Seeing the forest for more than the trees

By Brad Stefanoni | The Morning Sun

You may have read of my annual sojourns to the watered woods of Arkansas for some of the finest green timber duck hunting found anywhere in the United States, but few other than Mrs. Woods Edge know that shooting mallards is not my primary motivation for making the trip.

Arkansas' Grand Prairie region lies within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. This vast alluvial wetland area once encompassed more than 24 million acres of the Mississippi River's floodplain, stretching from southern Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. A mere 20 percent of those original 24 million acres remain intact today after America's thirst for more agricultural lands swallowed the majority of those original historic bottomland hardwood forests.

To give one an idea of the significance of this floodplain, the Mississippi Alluvial Valley drains nearly 40 percent of all rain that falls on the continent of North America.

The Mississippi Alluvial Valley serves as the primary wintering ground for mallard ducks in North America. A duck hunter needs only to spend an hour in a flooded bottomland hardwood forest to realize that hunting mallards is an extremely nearsighted view of the impact this vanishing habitat has on wildlife diversity.

Prior to the agricultural revolution, heavy fall rains in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley caused creeks and rivers to swell with runoff water and overflow their banks. The hardwood forests that bordered those waterways would naturally be inundated with water, thus exposing new food sources such as acorns, moist soil plant seeds, and a smorgasbord of aquatic invertebrates.

Mallard ducks would flock to these areas by the thousands to feed, rest, and seek thermal protection from cold winter winds. And, where one finds ducks one finds duck hunters.

Most, if not all, duck hunting in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley in the early 20th Century took place in the woods. Duck hunters soon realized that calling to the ducks with their mouths or primitive duck calls would help bring the ducks closer to their "honey holes." Decoys evolved next as artisans began to carve wood into the shapes of ducks.

As simply as that, a tradition was born.

The sport of duck hunting has seen a myriad of changes in the last 100 years - from battery powered spinning wing decoys to Gore-Tex to duck calls made from acrylic and polycarbonate. But, when you step into the flooded timber around Stuttgart, Ark., you take a step back into a simpler time reminiscent of days gone by. A realistic-sounding duck call, a handful of decoys, and some good friends are the only ingredients needed for a sensory feast of the natural world.

I fear that, as these critical wetland areas continue to disappear, the next generation of duck hunters may not have the opportunity to watch the sun rise in a flooded pin oak forest. The Father of Wildlife Management, Aldo Leopold, called such places "great possessions" in his book A Sand County Almanac. He once wrote, "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot."

Mrs. Woods Edge and I fall into the category of the "some who cannot." We hope we can demonstrate to our two boys a conservation ethic that helps to ensure their generation - and many to follow - have the opportunity to see an amber sunrise in the flooded timber.