Wednesday, July 13, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Think Twice
You’d think, with all the
hoopla we hear about car-
ing for our forests and being
careful with fire, people
either living in and/or visit-
ing Sisters Country would
be more in line with the
Conservation Ethic.
Not so! Last Memorial
Day weekend some idiotic
ATV-user tore down the rail
fence set up to protect Prairie
Farm meadow from mud-
boggers and ran an ATV all
over the meadow — that
was healing from past mud-
bogger damage — leaving
more ruts and torn-up toad,
frog, salamander, butterfly,
elk and deer habitat in ruins.
I couldn’t believe my eyes
when I first saw the blatant
evidence of ATV destruc-
tion. At that moment all
ATV riders roared through
my memory regarding other
places I’ve seen where they
intentionally devastated the
land.
The operators of those
ATVs that trash ponds and
streams, and run wildlife
habitat literally into the
ground, don’t think twice;
they just open the throttle
and shout with glee at the
destruction and havoc they
create.
It wasn’t until I forced
myself to think about the
many other responsible ATV
operators I know who would
have been just as devastated
by the gut-wrenching dam-
age at Prairie Farm — and
who wouldn’t stand for such
behavior — that I calmed
down.
It was bad enough to find
the campfire from the previ-
ous occupants still smolder-
ing in their beer-can-filled
fire pit when we pulled in
under the trees, and find
trash strewn about. Had the
huge chunks of firewood left
in the campfire ring caught
fire with no one there to
control it, the lovely camp
spot at Prairie Farm would
have been no more — along
with the forest surrounding
it. One of my grandchildren,
teenager Joseph, discovered
two cans of unopened beer
among the litter, popped
them open and poured them
on the smoking embers of
Three Sisters Lions Club
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Sunday, July 17, 9 am-2 pm
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the fire.
I happened to be at Prairie
Farm with my family, made
up of two older sons and
daughter with their children.
We’d made the choice to
go there and enjoy the area
because it’s a much-loved
site my wife, Sue, visits on
her annual butterfly counts,
and one of the few places in
the immediate area where
western toad populations are
making a comeback.
This is the time of year
when juvenile toads and tree
frogs that hatched up there
in the old sawmill pond
are changing from pond-
dwellers to citizens of the
dry lands. We found several
tree frogs wandering around
in the meadow, leaving their
world of water for that of the
meadow and forest.
They still had vestiges
of their tadpole life behind
them, carrying what was
left of their swimming tail,
and clambering around the
meadow grasses on infirm,
newly formed legs. At that
moment in their lives they
are unable to eat and breathe
through their mouth —
absorbing oxygen through
their skin and literally liv-
ing off the fat of their tails.
Their digestive system and
The average adult is
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2 TEETH
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15
drone photo by sam anderson
atV damage to Prairie Farm meadow.
breathing mechanism is
going from a vegetarian to
an animal diet, and from
gills to lungs.
Who knows how many
were murdered, squashed to
death by the, “I wanna do
my thing!” operator of that
run-amok ATV?
It rattled my chain to
think — and caused me to
think twice — that here, in
this magnificent Land of
Freedom, we may have to
install spy-cameras in places
like Prairie Farm to catch
those nutsos who conduct
themselves illegally, doing
that kind of damage. Those
people who appear to have
the ha
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8771
no idea what citizen respon-
sibilities are required to keep
this country’s land natural
and beautiful.
Wildlife biologists use
cameras placed in secret
locations to watch the behav-
ior of a wide variety of wild-
life to better understand their
lifestyle. Unfortunately, it
seems to be time to use the
same kind of devices to
watch for those people’s
behavior who just don’t care
what their destructive action
does to the land; take away
their machines and license,
and thereby put them away
in jail to give them time to
think twice.
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