New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff
Spring slooowly sliding by and an illegal hazardous material dumping on Fish and Game land.
Tuesday 05/17/2005
Spring is seeping into the land this spring along with the seemingly endless cloudy cool days. In a sense it is good as the spring peepers have been like the Energizer Bunny and just keep going, and going, and going. The temperature has been too cold for the American toads to sustain a chorus, but here and there they are trilling. No green frogs yet, but I have a pickerel frog snoring down back.
The leaves are slowly coming on to the trees. When I walked in the woods yesterday there was still more sky than leaves when I looked up. The fields have turned lushly green making me wish I were a cow or deer at times as I gaze at the succulence.
I did finish my sunset woodcock census lines the last two nights. I run the one in Londonderry on a Sunday night to reduce the traffic noise interference. This route has been run for about 50 years. It starts near the Pet Cemetery on Harvey Road and runs South to Litchfield Road then East crossing Route 128 on to Stone Henge Road. It just happens to run past the house I grew up in Londonderry in the 1960's. For most of the early years this was by far the top scoring listening route in the state. More woodcock per mile than any other. In fact I met Carl Lacilade one night when I was a boy as he was conducting the route.
This area has been transformed so dramatically in the last two decades. The runway at the Manchester Airport has been extended south to almost the starting point. I waited a minute or two for a jet to practically take my hat off as it was landing before beginning my two minute listening period at the start. Last year I heard several woodcock, but this year none. Cars and jets and the cool damp evening all worked against me I guess.
Last Thursday I stopped at the Bellamy River Wildlife Management Area on my way elsewhere. I discovered an illegal dumping of some petroleum product at the gate by the parking lot. I typically pick up the beer cans and trash here a couple times a month. The fluid, which smelled to me like heating oil, had been dumped from the back of a pick up, and gushed down the hill leaving a 4 foot swath of dead grass. I called headquarters to report it and a conservation officer to investigate it. A Department of Environmental Spill Investigator showed up as well. It will cost several thousand dollars to clean up the contaminated soil. It is scheduled for clean up this week. If anyone saw any likely truck last week that might have dumped it please let me know. It had to be a 55 gallon drum sitting upright in the truck bed and was dumped about a week ago. All too frequently tires, construction debris and even a washing machine or two have been dumped on to the Fish and Game lands that I monitor in Region 3. It seems like the more land that is open to the public the greater the mess a few leave behind. It is really sickening to think that people could act this way. Hunters could be of great value by closely monitoring the Fish and games lands in their areas.We need more eyes and more arrests of people who treat our lands as their private dumps. It may cost upwards of $5,000 to $10,000 to clean up the illegal dumping at the Bellamy River WMA. Sportsmen's dollars that could have been spent protecting and improving the wildlife in New Hampshire. What a waste of the sportsmen's money!
