Habitat Workshop

[blake]

Habitat workshop being offered free of charge on Monday, March 21, 2005 in the Page Room, 3rd floor of the Courthouse in Clarinda. 9:30-12 or 7-9 p.m.

Personnel from DNR, NRCS and others will be on hand to discuss techniques to help the landowner improve or establish wildlife habitat thru information on cost share programs, food/cover plots, tree planting, seeding of native grasses and other conservation enhancement programs.

Workshop is sponsored by Page County Soil & Water, Page County Pheasants Forever and Page County Conservation Board.

 

[blake]

ttt

 

[Big Timber]

We appreciate the info Blake!

Are you planning on attending?

BT

 

[blake]

Yes I will be attending this evening.

 

[blake]

I attended the Habitat Workshop here in Clarinda on 03-21-05 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting was sponsored by the Page County Conservation Board and the Iowa DNR. Quest speaker was DNR Officer Kevin Andersen.

For those wanting to get involved in promoting wildlife habit there appears to be numerous programs available. Some programs such as the Habitat Check-off offer financial assistance often up to 50%. Other program available provide seeds, trees, financial assistance with Habitat Buffers e.g. and all provide a wealth of information that has been tried and tested. Now before anyone gets the idea that since the state or federal government is in some cases funding half of these programs it is inexpensive, in many cases it is not. One would need to contact their county conservation office or the DNR to get an estimate for habitat improvements you wish to make.

The DNR has a program that actually pays landowners for up to 40 hours for the labor to cut down certain types of trees for habitat improvement.

I also learned that the local chapter of Pheasants Forever organization gives away a limited amount of native grass seed (up to 25 pounds per person) on a first come first served basis until the seed supply has run out for a fiscal year. The Page County Pheasants Forever also has a tree planting machine that one can borrow and use. I do not know if every chapter of Pheasants Forever has one or if they loan out their tree planting machine.

There were 17 landowners in attendance. Some of these landowners had been involved in promoting wildlife habit for 20+ years, some less. Several attendees myself included knew very little about wildlife habitat and were there with the hope of gaining more knowledge on the subject.

During the meeting each person in attendance was asked to introduce themselves to the others and tell everyone why they were at the meeting. I found it interesting that less than half of those in attendance were hunters. Most of them were wildlife enthusiasts and allowed no hunting on their property. Some allowed hunting intermittently only as a means of controlling an undesired species.

I came away from the meeting slightly disturbed by what I heard when some of the attendees were telling why they were there.

"I am here to see about funding so I can create my own private sanctuary"

"I want make a sanctuary for wildlife to protect them from hunters"

"I want my own wildlife sanctuary"

"I want a place for my family to enjoy wildlife"

I will not dispute that the landowner has the right to do with his or her land as they wish. So let me pose this question: <font color="green">Should the state taxpayers pay for subsidizing private sanctuaries, or for properties that the landowner does not allow hunting?</font> I think it would be interesting to hear from some of you members as to your thoughts. As always please be respectful.

In closing I would say that this meeting was very informative and for the most part I think positive. I do believe that promoting wildlife habitat is very important for all of us.

Ron

 

[tracker]

Blake, that is a great question you have presented. There are alot of programs that are out there and where do you draw the line? There are alot of people enrolled in CRP programs, you have the pond building with DNR stocking, forrest reserve, etc.
The forrest reserve program can effect the taxpayer in a couple different ways. Not only could the taxpayer not hunt the reserve because it is on private property, but the ground is also tax free, and the county that it is located in looses the taxes that would be generated from the property. This hurts the southern counties in Iowa more than a person realizes.

 

[Ghost]

Sure the forest reserve program takes a lot of land off the tax books. And yes, it is up to the land owner to decide if they will allow hunting on this land.

I personally would rather have all this land off the tax books and "reserved" for wildlife than to be on the tax books and turned into a housing development or cow pasture.

 

[kbgibby]

Blake,

Thanks for sharing the info and posing this question. These folks have a right to do what they wish with their land and they pay taxes as well. I doubt many of them are also installing high fences so even if they don't allow hunting on their property, the habitat is still benefitting wildlife over a wider area.

I'd also like to see the DNR and Pheasants Forever push a little harder to educate the sanctuary builders on the benefits of hunting when they hand out the seed.

Overall though, I would much rather see money going to these folks than to a greedy corporate farmer who's being subsidized to tear out fence rows and farm the ditches.