U.S. wetlands drowning

By George Synder, Bee Staff Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005

SONORA ‹ Marshes and wetlands are big news these days.

Especially in Louisiana, where wetlands make up 40 percent of what's left in the continental United States. Louisiana is also where 80 percent of our national wetland losses have been taking place.

According to National Geographic magazine, some 1,900 square miles of what used to be an astounding waterfowl and fishery habitat has sunk into the Gulf of Mexico since the 1930s.

Even so, those bayous, marshes and barrier islands still pump out an estimated $300 million of seafood each year, let alone providing housing and groceries for unknown numbers of birds and animals.

Unfortunately the state continues to lose about 25 square miles of marshland a year ‹ or about an acre every half-hour.

Not going to belabor the point of how that happens.

We all drive trucks and cars using oil from offshore rigs pumped through marsh destroying pipeline channels.

We all also paid in the federal tax dollars that put in the levees that in the long run prevented nature from doing her thing ‹ in this case letting the Mississippi River deposit silt and keep the marshes, which also serve as a buffer from storm surges, from sinking into the sea.

The severe loss of wetlands, anywhere, is bad for both animal and man.

On the other hand, there is some good wetland news in our part of the world.

Got word from Ducks Unlimited that they've hooked up with the California Wildlife Conservation Board to manage a nearly $1 million grant aimed at improving some 4,680 acres of tidal and seasonal wetlands in San Pablo Bay.

The money comes from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.

Working with them will be the California Department of Fish & Game, California Coastal Conservancy, Napa County Flood Control District, California Bay-Delta Authority, Dow Chemical, Marin Baylands Advocates, Marin Community Foundation, Sonoma Land Trust and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The San Francisco Bay Estuary, which includes San Pablo Bay, is the nation's second largest estuary, after Chesapeake Bay, yet it is down 90 percent in the natural marshland category.

The marshland restoration will be a great boon to the waterfowl and shorebirds passing through during annual migrations along the Pacific Flyway, which also includes the Central Valley.

San Pablo Bay, according to DU, supports one of the largest concentrations of canvasback in the country as well as other species like northern pintail, mallard and scaup.

Those and a couple of dozen other waterfowl species and shorebirds will be big winners in this project, as will many fish species, including chinook salmon and striped bass, since marshlands help keep good water quality and provide nurseries for young fish.

It won't hurt those that hunt or fish for them either, particularly in the public Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area.

George Snyder's Hunting and Fishing column appears Thursdays. You can reach him at 536-9005 or gsnyder@modbee.com.

Posted on 09/08/05 00:00:00
http://www.modbee.com/columnists/hunting/story/11191662p-11944099c.html