A ruined pheasant spot

The Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge used to be one of my favorite places to hunt.

It isn’t any longer.

A campaign to rid the refuge of Russian olive trees has essentially ruined the pheasant hunting there. Oh, there are still some birds, but they’re leaving with the olives.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, removal of the trees is necessary “to facilitate native prairie management ...”

I realize this is a Herculean task considering that the refuge is crisscrossed with ditches, canals, artificial ponds, power lines and roads. And it’s a lot more marsh than prairie.

The grand plan called for the USFWS to eradicate at least 25 acres of Russian olives. In atypical government fashion, however, they’ve already cut down 37.1 acres.

I was told a few years ago, when this nonsensical logging began, that buffalo berry, a native shrub, would replace the olives. Now I’m told that “the poor soil and ecological site conditions on the refuge do not support shrub habitat.”

I’m well aware of the irony in protesting the removal of an invasive species (Russian olives) so that I can hunt another (Chinese pheasants). But the Bowdoin, despite being designated a waterfowl refuge, is used far more by pheasant hunters (or used to be) than waterfowlers. Neither is it an island of prairie pureness in a sea of development. The prairie stretches a long way in every direction.

There’s also an outfit up here already “preserving the prairie,” but just like cowbell, I suppose you can’t have too much.

I wish the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks managed the Bowdoin instead of the USFWS. The state does a far better job of providing habitat and hunting opportunities than do the feds. FWP also cares what folks think. The USFWS, on the other hand couldn’t give a damn.

Pheasant hunters were about the only people who cared about the Bowdoin. The place receives very few visitors the rest of the year. In the winter it’s often inaccessible. In the summer it’s hot and swarming with mosquitoes.

So when whoever replaces anti-Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke decides to downsize the refuge, there won’t be anybody left to care. Those that used to were ignored and alienated.

There won’t be any collusion.

There won’t be any meddling.

There won‘t be any pheasants.

The refuge will be reduced to an abstract concept that nobody really understands.

How sad.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].