By Brandt Mannchen
On November 30th, I met my buddy, David, at the Candy Abshier Wildlife Management Area (WMA) on Smith Point in Chambers County to do some late in the year birding and to enjoy the fresh air and sunny skies. This WMA is managed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and extends into Galveston Bay.
We met at an observation platform that is used for the Smith Point Hawk Watch. From August through November, the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory funds one or more professional birders (there are also volunteer birders who assist) to count raptors (like hawks) and other birds as they migrate through Texas, Mexico, and Central and South America for the Winter. This information helps determine the size and health of raptor populations in Texas and the United States.
It was the last day of the Smith Point Hawk Watch (as well as “Hurricane Season”!) so I was pleased I’d been able to put in at least one appearance this year. I didn’t expect to see many birds because it was so late in the season and because the weather was chilly (in the 50’s) with a wind blowing 20-30 miles/hour.
However, I was happily surprised about the different birds that we saw. These flying friends included Broad-winged Hawks, American Kestrels, Red-tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures, Black Vultures, Sandhill Cranes, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Northern Harriers, White Ibis, Forester’s Terns, White Pelicans, mergansers, Brown Pelicans, Great Blue Herons, White-tailed Hawks, Crested Caracara, and other birds.
After a very cold and windy hour, David and I departed from the observation platform, paid a short visit to the point of Smith Point (we saw some Brown Pelicans and Black Skimmers), and drove to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which is managed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).
We drove past “The Willows” and proceeded to observe birds at Shoveler Pond. There were many Blue-winged Teal, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Blue Herons, Red-wing Blackbirds, Pied-billed Grebes, Moorhens, American Coots, Tri-colored Herons, White Ibis, Roseate Spoonbills, Neotropic Cormorants, and other birds.
Before we headed for lunch, I drove us to the end of a road that leads to a parking lot and boat canal, just north of the Oyster Bayou Moist Soil Units area. We got out of the car so that David could take photographs of a large flock of White Ibis feeding in wetlands south of the parking lot.
Then, as if it came out of nowhere, I heard and saw a helicopter on the north side of the boat canal buzzing that area. A large flock of Snow and White-fronted Geese rose quickly and started circling the area. Most of them flew to where the White Ibis were feeding and either landed or circled and came back toward where they had been flushed.
I heard shotguns as the birds rose. It appeared to me that the person in the helicopter was harassing the geese and then someone was shooting at them. This wasn’t the way that I understood that ANWR was managed.
When I got home, I called the ANWR office to report what I had seen. I talked with Ms. Christine Fritz, manager of the refuge. She told me that they were in a two-week period of no waterfowl hunting on ANWR. What I had seen was a helicopter, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), that was shooting feral hogs to reduce their population because of the damage they do to wildlife and ecosystems.
Ms. Fritz said that the helicopter pilot would have been focused on shooting feral hogs and would not have been harassing geese. She said she would talk to the pilot later that day to make sure that there was no unintentional harassment of birds while shooting feral hogs.
I told Ms. Fritz that for many years the Sierra Club had talked to various agencies about addressing the feral hog problem on a regional basis. I hoped that FWS would talk to those concerned about feral hogs to see if a regional effort could be put together.
I thanked Ms. Fritz for the information she’d given me. You just never know what you are going to see when you visit the outdoors. That’s one of the reasons I love being in Nature. There is a lot to learn and the scenery and good feelings you have can’t be beat!
Egret photo by Carol Woronow.