VANDALS

A link to the Scona Lodge post is here:      http://garysoutdoorwanderings2.blogspot.com/2012/02/story-of-scona-lodge.html

click on photos to enlarge

Hauling trees to the site

I posted a little piece on the blog last week showing how TWRA places Christmas Trees along the shoreline of these flood control lakes for fish habitat.  Nothing can grow on the shorelines of flood control lakes due to the rise and fall of the water in certain seasons.  There is nothing present on the bottom of the reservoirs for fish to hide from predators or to spawn accept rock and mud.  A team from the TWRA Reservoir Fisheries unit of Region IV drove pins into the ground and anchored over two hundred discarded Christmas Trees, five trees per pin.  When the water in the reservoir rises, the trees will be submerged and the habitat is then active.

Trees, five to a pin, called a pod

This is a fantastic addition to the rocks for habitat!

Its a nice layout and a perfect habitat installation.  A very large portion of the Reservoir Fisheries budget goes into habitat restoration.  It is one of the prime functions of the unit.  Look what happened last week.  See below"

Burned

Not only were the trees burned - the ropes were cut on every pin, the trees dragged onto two separate piles and burned.  That took a lot of effort.

All that focus to make things a little bit better has been wasted.  A lot of effort, money and manpower was expended to create this great place to fish and improve fish population.  It's all for nothing now.

Above:  back to square one



The pins with the black ropes are still present.

At least they used a sharp knife to cut the ropes

Vandal's drink of choice.  They're all over the site.

I can not imagine what would motivate a normal human being to do such a thing.  When I was a  kid I did some goofy things but, never did I do anything destructive like this.  It never entered my mind.  What are these people thinking?  Can they think?   It took a lot of effort to cut all those ropes, pull two hundred trees to piles and burn them.  I wonder if these idiots give their employer half the effort on their jobs that this deed required.


The trees can not be replaced because every selected habitat site has received the required number of trees and there are no overages to spare.


Aside from the financial aspect and the manpower involved to make something nice and good out of this fishing area - another even more important issue is at hand.


When Grandpa takes his Grandson down to the lake fishing for the first time, their chances of catching that first big fish to take home to Grandma is greatly diminished by a bunch.  I guess the worlds full of idiots and miscreants.  I'm shocked to see them present on these great fisheries that the public in general use.  TWRA is simply trying to enhance the fishing experience for the fine folks who purchase fishing licenses and use the fishery resources.  It seems that even good deeds are not popular with some people - I mean vandals.