August 31, 2005

Area commercial fisherman help put smiles on young faces

United Special Sportsman Alliance seeks more youngsters and volunteers to help create outdoor adventures of a lifetime

Some area commercial fishermen helped give quite a thrill to youth from around the country recently at a catfishing event in Black River Falls.

Mike Valley of Valley Fish and Cheese of Prairie du Chien and Denny and Jim Boardman of De Soto all had a hand in supplying the catfish for a United Special Sportsmen Alliance (USSA) event on July 16 in which 75 youth with life-threatening illnesses or disabilities happily participated.

Valley was asked by longtime friend Brigid O'Donoghue, the president of USSA, if he could supply the catfish for the event. Valley wasn't catfishing at the time so he called Denny and Jim Boardman, who were trapping catfish in hoop nets during the spring spawning season.

The Boardman's supplied about four day's haul, or 500-600 pounds of channel catfish weighing anywhere from 3 pounds to 40 pounds apiece.

"Spawning fish survive much better in captivity," explained Denny Boardman, who noted that when members of the USSA came to pick up the catfish, the Boardman's also loaned them a live tank, an air pump, an aerator and a dip net so that they could successfully transport the fish and release them in a three-acre pond in Pittsville near Black River Falls. Denny said that they also supplied three flathead catfish weighing about 30 pounds apiece.

The well-stocked pond provided plenty of thrills and excitement for the 75 young anglers who caught many a battling catfish while fishing from docks and from shore all around the pond.

"They were catching them one right after another all around the lake," said O'Donoghue. "It was unbelievable."

O'Donoghue said that the young anglers came from all across the United States, including Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Missouri to name a few.

"Our goal next year is to have 120 children," said O'Donoghue, who noted that she is seeking participants from all over, including Prairie du Chien and the surrounding area. "We're always looking for more children." Next year's catfishing event in Pittsville is scheduled for July 29, 2006.

At this year's event, the youth were helped in their endeavors by several pro bass fishermen and pro catfishermen, O'Donoghue said. The catfish were caught on nightcrawlers and numerous other secret recipes. Pro bass fishermen also took children out in their bass boats to catch bluegills, bass and walleye on a nearby 50-acre lake, much to the enjoyment of all.

One lucky fisherman, Ryan Novey of Reedsburg, had the adrenaline rush of hauling in a 25-pound catfish. "He was really excited," O'Donoghue said.

O'Donoghue was quick to praise the efforts of Mike Valley and Denny and Jim Boardman. "He has a beautiful heart," she said of Valley, whom she has known for about 20 years. "Without him and the Boardman's we wouldn't have had all those catfish. It was a much better event this year."

"The thought was there," said Valley, who made it clear that it was really the hard work of the Boardman cousins that supplied the catfish. "All I did was line it up."

Valley and the Boardman's in turn praised the energetic and ongoing efforts of O'Donoghue.

"She's really a super person, the way she helps these kids," said Valley.

"It's a wonderful thing she's doing," said Denny Boardman, who noted that O'Donoghue has sent him much correspondence and many photos. "To see the smiles on these kids' faces, it's amazing. More people should know about it (the USSA). It's a great thing. It's just wonderful. It offers a little glimmer of hope."

Indeed, O'Donoghue and USSA have been granting the fishing, hunting and outdoor adventure wishes of youth with life-threatening illnesses and disabilities from all over the country for the past five years.

This past year, O'Donoghue won the National Outdoor Youth Mentoring Award and USSA granted more than 1,000 wishes worth $1.5 million. The memories of a lifetime, of course, are priceless. USSA and its 100 volunteers nationwide has granted 2,100 wishes in the past five years.

"People just keep giving," said O'Donoghue, who noted that USSA continues to expand by leaps and bounds. "We're growing constantly and we're an all-volunteer organization."

O'Donoghue said that 7 percent of the youth in the United States have life-threatening illnesses or disabilities and that USSA is a grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing those children with the fishing, hunting and outdoor adventures of a lifetime.

O'Donoghue said that she formed the organization in 2000 after granting a wish for a dying man in Texas. "I was so moved by it," she said of the experience.

O'Donoghue said that she is currently working on several projects, including working with the Wisconsin legislature to pass a bill whereby youth with life-threatening illnesses or disabilities could get free hunting and fishing licenses.

"It looks really good," she said. "Once we get it passed in Wisconsin then we'll go nationwide."

O'Donoghue is also working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to put together a learn-to-hunt program and a youth deer hunt for those with life-threatening illnesses or disabilities.

In addition, O'Donoghue has been contacting professional golfers and working with NASCAR and the NFL in order to get sports celebrities to hunt and fish with "her children."

Brigid O'Donoghue, the president and founder of USSA, can be contacted at (715) 884-2256 or by fax at (715) 884-7388 or by e-mail at biotec@tds.net. Her website is www.childswish.com.

Wildlife on a small scale is protected at area refuge

When most people think about wildlife, they think of deer and bears and bald eagles. And when most people in the Clayton County area think of wildlife refuges, they think of the Upper Mississippi River National Fish and Wildlife Refuge - our area's largest and most well-known refuge.

But did you know that there is a wildlife refuge in our area for snails?

The Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge covers 781 acres in nine different units, six of which are in Clayton County. The refuge was established in 1989 to protect a unique habitat that is home to the endangered Iowa Pleistocene snail, a tiny creature that was thought to be extinct. It was rediscovered in the mid 1950's, and later placed on the Endangered Species List. The snail has been around for 300,00 to 500,000 years, according to fossil records. The snails were common inhabitants of the area in front of the advancing glaciers of the last Ice Age. Most of the areas where this snail survives are in Iowa.

Not surprising for an Ice Age critter, the snails like it cold. They live on steep, rocky, north facing slopes that have a unusual cooling system. Small openings or vents from underground channel cold air out onto the slopes, providing the cool temperatures the snails need to survive. The vents are connected through underground chambers to sinkholes. Scientists call them algific (pronounced al-ji-fic) talus slopes. Other plants and animals that like the cool temps also live on the slopes, such as moss and ferns, and trees that are more common in northern forests, such as paper birch and balsam fir.

Another important inhabitant of the algific talus slopes is the threatened flower known as the Northern monkshood. Named for the shape of its flower, which resembles the hood on a monk's robe, this species of the plant is also specifically adapted to cool, moist environments that only occur on algific talus slopes and some sandstone cliffs. A number of other rare and unusual snail and plant species also live on the slopes.

Cathy Henry is the biologist who cares for the Refuge and keeps track of the snails and the monkshood. Her office is at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife district headquarters in McGregor. It is her job to climb up and down the steep slopes of refuge lands to monitor the sites.

Part of her work involves basic research and gathering data. For example, she has set up remote devices on some of the slopes that measure the air temperature at the vents. While she often checks vent temperatures when she visits a site, there was no comprehensive, long-term data on when air temperatures at the site vary or change. In summer, vent temperature can range from just above freezing to about 55º. Botanists and other scientists and interns also conduct research on the slopes.

Trapping snails

Henry also conducts a snail count every June. Counting snails that are only about a quarter of an inch in diameter seems like it would be difficult. How do you find them in the leaf litter on the ground? To solve this problem Henry set a sort of trap. By simply placing boards on the ground on the slopes, an environment is created that attracts the snails. Snails found on the boards are then counted, measured and marked with a number. She records data on their age and size. Henry says it is fun when a previously marked snail is recaptured. The tiny creatures can live for five to seven years, she notes. No specific count of all of the snails at all of the sites is possible, but Henry can get an estimate of how many snails are on a slope, and if it is a healthy, reproducing population.

All of this effort just to save a tiny snail seems excessive to some people. But Henry emphasizes that all living things are part of the web that forms a complete ecosystem, and that the loss of one species can mean the loss of many more. "there are things we can learn from them, since they've survived since the last Ice Age," Henry said.

Sink hole seasons

In summer, algific talus slopes draw warm air into sinkholes where it travels across underground ice and is cooled before coming out of the vents in the slopes where the snails live. In winter, the process is reversed and cold surface air is drawn into vents and exhausted out of sinkholes, and sometimes forms steam. Part of Henry's research is to determine when exactly this air movement reversal occurs. "We want to try to understand the whole system better," Henry emphasized.

The sinkholes that are a key component in this little-understood system are often filled or damaged by human activity. Sinkholes that occur in farm fields are the most endangered, according to Henry. People may use them as a dump, or the agricultural runoff that flows into them may affect the plants and animals that occur on the vents on the other side. The Refuge tries to acquire the sinkholes above the algific talus slopes it protects, but sometimes it is not clear which sinkholes are connected with which vents. Henry would like to try to conduct a study, perhaps using a smoke bomb, to try to map some of the underground channels that make up an individual system.

Currently, Cathy Henry is completing the comprehensive conservation plan that will guide Driftless Refuge management for the next 15 years. The plan calls for adding enough lands to the Refuge to allow the snail to be removed from the Endangered Species List. "We're primarily targeting snail sites," Henry noted. Eventually, the Refuge may include a total of 2,275 acres in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois, but adding lands to the Refuge depends upon federal budgets and willing sellers, an unpredictable combination at best.

Most of the nine units of the Driftless Refuge are closed to the public. The slopes are fragile places that are difficult to access and walk on. Hunting and wildlife viewing is allowed on two of the larger units. The 208-acre Howard Creek Unit, near south of Farmersberg on County Road X28, has an interpretive kiosk and the Fern Ridge Unit on Grape Rd., near Elkader, is also accessible. For more information on the Driftless Refuge, call Cathy Henry at (563) 873-3423.