A sign that might have saved grassland birds, but now gone.
A few weeks ago the Dane County Parks (DCP) hearing on dogs at Pheasant Branch was covered in Middleton's weekly wiper, Middleton Times Tribune (MTT). As I've experienced in the past with its editor, journalistic integrity comes up a bit short with the one-sided garbage they often publish. You can read the full piece here, but I'm going to provide a few clarifications and corrections below.
The piece, written by Michelle Philips of the MTT, has a ring of truth here and there, but missed reporting on some key specifics. For example, she wrote:
“He [Darren Marsh] was followed by Lloyd Eagan of FPBC, who said the goal is to preserve the area for generations to come. Eagan said in the past nine years dogs off leash have become more of a problem, which is why the task force was formed. Surveys were also sent to members of the Pheasant Branch Conservancy, 36 percent of which were returned, and interviews of people in the park were conducted as well.”
What was left out of the paragraph was that the survey showed 63.69% of the Friends of Pheasant Branch Conservancy's membership support banning dogs from the prairie parcel. Kind of an important detail, I should think, and shouldn't have been left out of the article.
Later on in the piece it gets to my participation at the hearing, which was not on the agenda, nor was I asked to prepare anything for it. In fact, I wasn't even going to attend until a last minute change of plans. Leading up to the hearing, I had asked DCP and FPBC repeatedly if they wanted me to say anything, but they didn't acknowledge my question.
“In addition, FPBC relied on field data from local birder Mike McDowell. McDowell stated that by observing the bird in the area over the past 30 years, he has notice a decline in the number of ground nesting birds in recent years. 'My census data is all online and public document,' McDowell told the crowd. My findings show it is not predation by native mammals. It is correlation, not causation. I can’t prove it, but it’s a strong correlation.' He said that places that don’t allow dogs don’t have a problem.'”
Red Fox with a rabbit at PBC's creek corridor.
I never said that my findings show it is not predation by native mammals. What I said was that, while I'm sure there is some predation by native mammals, one does not find an abundance of foxes, coyotes, skunks, weasels, raccoons, and other carnivorous mammals at the prairie. However, during the day, one does find a high number of pet dogs there. For the most part, native mammals hunt south of the prairie in the woods and along the creek corridor, primarily eating small mammals and fish. I also made the point that native birds and these particular mammals have evolved and cohabited in one another's presence for tens of thousands of years. It would be odd that they would suddenly develop a hankering for birds and bird eggs when there is an enormous abundance of rabbits, ground squirrels, chipmunks, and rodents elsewhere at the conservancy. But everything I said was met with scoffs and jeers by the majority of attendees (70 to 5).
Saying it here, but not at the hearing, it’s my contention that whatever is responsible for the cause of PBC’s avian extirpations and declines, dogs will only add to the problem and don’t belong at a nature conservancy like Pheasant Branch’s gem of a prairie. The skepticism I faced at the hearing was so utterly reminiscent of climate change denialism that it’s positively befuddling to me it could come from an enlightened community such as Northlake.
Then after that:
“Immediately, members of the audience began to resist the data presented, shouting out comments. They felt that McDowell’s observations were not proof of a problem. They also had concerns about no citations of professional findings from the area, but rather other states and Australia.”
So much for citizen science, eh? The above glosses over comments that were made. Person after person stood up and began saying things that were either absurd or entirely untrue. For example, one woman said she has lived next to the prairie for over twenty years and has never once observed an off-leash dog. This is demonstrably not the situation, as I have documented elsewhere. A man stood up, provided some unrelated credentials, and immediately suggested that he and the people before him, with their mere minutes of input, had just effectively debunked the Oregon Metro Parks review cited by the FPBC. Amazing! 75 papers debunked in 5 minutes! All I could do was shake my head in astonishment at the brainlessness of it all.
As the buffoonery continued, I finally got up from my chair and said “I can't listen to another minute of this ignorant drivel. I'm out!” and headed to the door. Naturally, the largely hostile crowed applauded. I turned and asked the group “How many of you have ever seen a Le Conte's Sparrow at the prairie? How about a Harris's Sparrow? See? You don't even know what's there.” OK, so perhaps those weren't the best examples, but I could have said Common Yellowthroat and Willow Flycatcher which would have rendered the same blank stares back at me. I opened the door and walked out.
In the MTT piece, this became:
“Minutes into the input, McDowell became angry and stormed out of the room after stopping at the door, “You don’t even know what’s there folks. Ignorance. Bye.” He shouted and pushed through the door.”
To be sure, it really was a push, and not a pull door. I did, in fact, push it open.
Nothing like diminutive journalistic pablum, but what can one expect from a rinky-dink rag like the MTT and its hack editor and journalists? Anyway, a few days after the meeting I heard from one of the FPBC board members who told me “You made it a lot harder. The meeting shifted to leash compliance instead of people learning new things about birds and the value of exclusion. I can only hope the parks staff understands the things you taught us about predatory threats perceived by birds...” Annoyed, I responded “My role was to inform DCP and FPBC of an observation, hypothesis, and how to test it. I've done that. DCP and FPBC should have better informed the public on what I reported – that part was your role.”
Would you have stayed? Dottie didn't. Sylvia didn't. Catherine didn't. They all eventually left as the piffle kept pouring out of Northlake's pie holes; they weren't there to listen and learn.
So, after all the backchannel correspondence and meetings over the past several months, the Friends of Pheasant Branch Conservancy at least agreed with me that dogs (even leashed) should not be allowed at the conservancy’s prairie. This would be a win for birds (and other wild critters), but unfortunately Dane County Parks appears to disagree. Though technically I feel like I won the argument, Dane County Parks is more interested in park recreation and less about wildlife and plant conservation. Therefore, I don’t think another dollar should be spent on habitat restoration on what has fundamentally become a glorified dog park. Though it is not entirely FPBC’s fault, I recommend that my Wisconsin naturalist friends who want to donate their conservation dollars do so to places like The Prairie Enthusiasts, The Nature Conservancy, Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, or Madison Audubon Society. If you want to give money to a nearby natural area that’s true to the mission of a nature conservancy, Pope Farm Conservancy in the Town of Middleton is more than worthy.
© 2018 Mike McDowell