And then it was gone...

One day last week I was driving down Old emery Crossing Lane in Clarksville on my way to work, and as usual I had a nice distraction before my work day of watching a beaver climbing out on the ice to have gnaw on a tree it had been working on for quite sometime. I watched the fuzzy little bugger for about 5 minutes and went about my way.

That afternoon, I decided the lightign was fairly decent, so I would stop by the beaver pond on the way home to try and get some more shot of the beaver, or perhaps the bald eagle that I had spotted around there recently, if not the eagles, certainly the chances were good to get a shot or two of the Northern Harriers, or one of the three species of Herons that have come to frequent the beaver pond.

Much to my amazement, the pond was pretty much gone. A couple of utility truck and an older green dodge intrepid were parked in the area, being a good boy I went about my business.

the next morning I drove past the pond (or what was a pond 24 hours earlier), and it was bone dry with the exception of a little water running through the natural creek channel. Sitting high and dry was the beaver lodge, and surprisingly enough, there were no herons, no raptors, no deer, fox, beaver, to be seen.

All that was there was teh white box truck with the picture of a backhoe on the side and the green intrepid.

Days later, I learned through a nature photography contact that potentially the city of Clarkville was concerned about flooding, and hired a crew to destroy the beaver dam, and had asked the DNR to trap and move the beaver.

This pond is on the route of the emerging "greenway" path that connects the three cities riverfronts together, and to create a mixed use trail for users to experience the nature, and scenery of the Ohio River Shoreline. What a way to celebrate nature than to tear out one of natures most crucial habitats.

Interestingly enough, if the reports I heard are true and it was done out of flooding concerns, I find that strange, as the pond is located on the river side of a flood wall, in a natural floodplain of the Ohio River, in a very sparsely populated area.

Besides, is it not true that wetlands can absorb and dispense of excess water much faster than regular land?

Of course it is too late to fight the change, after the DNR built an overlook deck, installed a grill and picnic table, and had become a quite busy destination for nature photographers, and bird watchers from all across our area.

Of course we wont stop to mention the increase in species in the area since the beaver pond came about;
Blue Wing Teal
Great Blue Heron
Black-Crowned Night Heron
Green Heron
Great Egret
Northern Harrier
Red-Shouldered Hawk
Red-Tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Northern Shoveler
Wood Duck
Greater Scaup
Bufflehead
Cormorants
Beaver
Red Fox
Eastern Box Turtle
Wild turkey
Grey Tree Frog
Leopard Frog
Bull Frog
American Toad
Northern Water Snake
Red-Eared Sliders
Common Snapping Turtles
Red-winged Black Birds

Just to start of what has been seen around that pond, but hey, those are just animals after all right?