March 15
The Farmington Bay Waterfowl area was now free of snow, and the open water was better than 50 degrees Fahrenheit temperature. A gusty warm wind was blowing, and the migrating whistling swans were edged up against islands of cattails, looking like irregular snowbanks. A few pelicans huddled together on a sandy stretch of a dike.
The meadowlarks were in full voice, declaring "There is a pretty little place" on the wing or from a fence post. It was their melodious whistling that finally led to protection from hunters. Known as the "marsh quail" along the eastern coast of North America, the meadowlark was formerly hunted as a game bird. Its flight is similar to that of the quail, and it has the same chunky-type body. We agreed with the decision made some years past, as we preferred the meadowlark singing from a fence post rather than served on the dinner plate.
Walking out on Turpin Dike, we saw the fins of carp moving in the shallows of the marsh. They were so numerous they appeared to be butterflies on the "skin" of the waters. Their feeding activities made the water roiled and turbulent. Ahead of us, a carp control operation was being set up.
A seine to catch and hold the carp had been laid out over an area by two workmen. Then the seine was tightened, or drawn together, with great effort by the two men in chest waders, and brought closer to the shoreline of the dike. We could see hundreds of the fish milling and splashing in the confines of the seine. A gasoline-powered conveyor belt was moved adjacent to the men's big truck for loading the catch.
Large dip nets were being used to pick up about six carp at a time (weighing sometimes more than a hundred pounds) and literally "horsed" onto the bank. Here the fish were picked up and tossed into the trough of the conveyor belt that carried the flopping carp to the top, where it would fall into the body of the truck. Sometimes a carp would flop back down, and would have to be carried up again.
We had never seen so many large carp ("mud pigs" to some people), but they were beautiful, actually, with their golden scales gleaming in the bright sun. One of the men told us he had seined some weighing around 35 pounds. In recent years, however, they weighed mostly between 15 and 25 pounds. In one dip net, they pulled in a ten-pound catfish -- an unusually large one for that area. Since catfish could not be removed from the bay by this process, the workman tossed it into the waters on the other side of the road. The few catfish at Farmington Bay Refuge generally are about 14 inches in length.
Because the carp were being taken from polluted waters, they could not be used for human consumption, but would be utilized as food for fish at trout hatcheries. The removal of carp from Farmington Bay Refuge area is a control measure. As they forage for midges and other larvae in shallow, slow-moving waters, the carp root up vegetation from the bottom, and also create a murky screen that prevents the sunlight from getting through to the aquatic plants. The hardy carp is a prolific breeder (one female may lay up to 2 million eggs in a year), and are sexually mature at two years. They gain at least a pound a year, and can live 30 or more years. We were told that, in spite of what appeared to be rough handling, the carp would survive the journey to Idaho. About 70 to 80 tons of carp have been removed annually from Farmington Bay Refuge. With the high level of water this year, the carp had spread further out into the shallows, making it more difficult to seine them in.
Seeing the carp today reminded us of oversized gold fish we had seen before in the past spring and summer, near the mouth of culverts or close to any inlet to the marsh, so we decided to look for the true gold fish. A number in the black-to-gold stage, and some all gold had been seen, but there were none today. These tropical fish are said to lose their gold color when placed in natural waters, and become "wild" gold fish. One wonders how did they get into the Refuge. Likely a one-time gold fish lover, tiring of the fish bowl aspect, had simply dumped them into the nearest stream, which eventually carried them on out to the refuge. Or they could have survived the "flushing" process right from the bathroom. Being as hardy as carp, survival under such conditions would be possible. Gold fish have much the same feeding habits as the carp, and soon can become pests in natural waters where they grow larger. Those seen in the past were from 4 to 6 inches in length.
Later the winds quieted down, and I stopped to examine a growth of Indian Hemp. A few elongated, split pods remained clinging to the slender brown stems. These had some down-tufted seeds still "hanging in there". Remembering Loren Eisley's observations (The Unexpected Universe) about a filamentous seed that, to him, seemed to be scurrying with a definite purpose of finding a proper place to germinate, I removed a few remaining seeds from a pod and released them one by one. Each floated in a different direction, some slower, some faster. They fell beneath or near other plants, and some on loose ground. Not one of these downy-tufted, beak-like seeds settled on the hard surface of the road, or on me, though I purposely tossed several over my shoulder.
But then, anything can happen in a marsh. And what better place to contemplate that tremendously thought-provoking possibility Mr. Eisley had suggested.