We were pleased to read two stories about conservation in Minnesota and North Dakota this weekend.
The first is Greg Stanley's article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota's river giants steadily returning after dams removed. Stanley reports:
Few things are harder to describe than the shock of encountering a paddlefish on a central Minnesota river. The prehistoric giants, with long shovelnoses, look like they belong on the wall of a museum.
They were gone for more than 100 years, almost entirely extirpated from all of Minnesota's rivers except a few deep pools in the Mississippi and St. Croix.
Now they're back. One by one, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is removing the dams that killed them along with dozens of other all-but-forgotten species. Without dams blocking them from their breeding grounds, the state's river monsters are coming back to life.
"It's remarkable," said Luther Aadland, longtime DNR river ecologist. "I've done all sorts of river restorations throughout my career, but nothing has compared to removing a barrier in terms of the benefit to that river system."
During the past 150 years, river dams have caused the greatest loss of biodiversity in the state. As soon as a dam goes up, about half of the species above it die off, Aadland said. Those that need miles of uninterrupted, free-flowing river are penned into smaller and smaller areas.
Hundreds of Minnesota's dams were built more than a century ago, many for reasons long forgotten. Some were built to prop up ponds to rear game fish, others for long-closed sawmills or to create better duck hunting ponds. . . .
The DNR's removal effort has primarily targeted small, low-head dams, which are especially dangerous to swimmers. Low-head dams, which are most abundant in the Midwest, create a powerful undertow that can become almost impossible to escape.
A 2010 Brigham Young University study found that such dams had caused hundreds of drownings throughout the Midwest between 1974 and 2009, including 53 in Minnesota.
In Granite Falls, the DNR removed a dam on the Minnesota River in 2013. Before they took it out, a dozen residents, the City Council and the Yellow Medicine County Board all raised concerns about losing waterfront. They worried that without a dam the river would run several feet lower much of the year, leaving a muddy, weedy shoreline.
Nearly a decade later, it's hard to say just how much the shore was affected by the dam removal, said John Berends, who represents the area on the Yellow Medicine County Board.
A boat launch no longer reaches the water above the former dam site, Brennan said. And some corners of the river now have weeds. On the other hand, more people seem to be fishing along the shoreline, he said.
When the dams come out, the biggest ecological benefits to the rivers happen out of sight, beneath the surface.
The DNR has removed more than 50 dams since the mid-1990s, either restoring rivers to a natural flow or replacing them with man-made rapids. After removing the dams, an average of 73% of the lost species return, according to DNR records.
It took just one year for paddlefish to make it back to the Minnesota River at Granite Falls after the dam was removed in 2013.
Sauger, sturgeon, bowfish, blue suckers and giant catfish, to list a few, have all returned to find their old spawning grounds on streams and creeks, areas they had been blocked from for decades. Common game fish such as walleye and northern pike that had been wiped out of some stretches of the Minnesota and Red rivers have also returned. . . .
Dam removal faces resistance in some communities, Stanley reports. It's a welcome update for us on a 2013 post, where we mention the removal of the dam on the Minnesota River at Minnesota Falls, Something fishy going on in Minnesota River.
The Stanley article about river conservation in the Strib dovetailed nicely with an Associated Press piece published in the Bismarck Tribune, North Dakota outlines 'Meadowlark Initiative' to restore native grasslands:
The North Dakota Game and Fish Department has unveiled a plan to bring landowners, conservation groups, scientists and others together to restore native grasslands.
The agency said North Dakota has lost more than 70% of its native prairie, which is essential for wildlife, pollinators, ranching operations and communities. About 60% of the nearly 5 million wetland acres in the state have been converted or lost.
“When we talk about native prairie in the state, we need to acknowledge who the owners and managers of our native prairie are,” said Greg Link, the department’s conservation and communications division chief. “In most cases, we’re talking about ranchers and producers who run livestock on that prairie. We need those folks because they’re important in keeping that prairie healthy.”
The so-called Meadowlark Initiative is named after the official state bird known for its unique song. The western meadowlark populations in North Dakota are continuing to decline, wildlife officials said.
Game and Fish and 13 contributing partners a year ago submitted a grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Regional Conservation Partnership Program, seeking to leverage more than $12 million in partner contributions with $10 million of federal funding. Last spring, it was selected as one of 85 successful projects nationwide.
The program allows producers to plant marginal cropland back to diverse native perennial grasslands for grazing. Funding is available to establish the grass and to install grazing infrastructure, such as fencing and water. Producers also are eligible to receive rental payments for the first three years as the land transitions from cropland to grazing land. . . .
There are more details at the Meadowlark Initiative, including this:
The decline of North Dakota's prairies impacts not only grassland dependent species, but also people, communities, lifestyles, future generations, heritage and quality of life. Water, soil, energy and food are all intertwined in the fate of the prairies. And long-standing trends are raising the alarm about the fate of all those components.
- The Western meadowlark is declining 1.3% per year in North Dakota
- 53% population loss in grassland birds since 1970 (about 720 million birds).
- 72% of the native prairie has been converted to other uses
- The number of U.S. cattle ranches is declining 1% per year
- 1 out of 4 bumble bees are at risk of extinction within 50 years
- 60% of the nearly 5 million wetland acres in North Dakota have been converted or lost
Go check it out. For urban North Dakotans, there's also a link to Gardening for Pollinators, though North Dakota's legislature doesn't seem to have gotten to a Lawns to Legumes program yet, as Minnesota's lawmakers have funded.
Here in the Sisseton Hills of rural northeastern South Dakota, we see pastures being turned into cropland, often with fences still standing at field edges like a ghostly outline of the grass where cattle once grazed.
But Roberts County is still home to many meadowlarks, and South Dakota is second in the U.S. in land contributions to federal grassland conservation program, Rebekah Tuchsherer reported in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in September.
We'll appreciate our region's freed rivers--and the paddlefish--along with the little bluestem and prairie flowers, as long as policymakers push for conservation.
Infographic: From North Dakota's Meadowlark Initiative webpage.
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