Cougars, Quail, and Coal

                       Cougars, Quail, and Coal

Arkansas and Cougars: A lot of my column’s email comments have been from what most folks are calling the “Cougar Column.” The emails were full of sighting from nearly every part of the state, and two of the confirmed sighting were in the city limits of Little Rock. Well, according to the Game and Fish Commission, those sighting were something akin to seeing flying saucers, but I think, with a little more documentation, we might sway over some of the doubters. 

If we record the cougar sighting, I believe we can make a reasonable estimate of how many cougars are in the state. I already have a number of sighting, and if we can log several more, I will pinpointed them on county maps. I’ve got the maps, and a good number of sighting, but from the comments, I know many other sighting could be reported. If you have seen a cougar or know someone who has seen one, report it by email to me and give me the county where it occurred. After the reports are in I’ll highlight the areas where multiple sighting have been reported. I have a feeling we will be surprised at how many confirmed sighting we will have, and by using the data, I think we can make a reasonable estimate of the number of cougars in the state.

Just as I was writing this column, I receive a sighting in Southeast Arkansas, and this one was with a game camera. I’ll give details later in the sighting summary.

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We’re winning the War on Coal! Yes, we are! And even with the President on the Coal Companies’ side, there has been a coal fired generating plant shut down on the average every 19 days since the President took office. But here’s the really good news: In February one of the top five coal fired plants in the nation shut down, the Big Brown Power Plant in East Texas. And this is even better news for Arkansas. Why? Well, numerous studies have shown the mercury emitted from burning coal goes into the atmosphere and comes down with rain to enter the food chain of aquatic species. The Big Brown Power Plant, an East Texas coal plant, was one of the largest emitters of mercury in the United States, and since weather systems move west to east, the air born mercury from that plant rained down on Arkansas. That is part of the reason many Arkansas fish end up being mercury contaminated. Studies have shown during the early pregnancy a woman’s fetus can have irreparable damage if the mother eats mercury contaminated fish. The most common birth defects are a lower I. Q. baby.

  According to a study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center done in 2012, the Big Brown Power Plant caused 55 deaths, 1000 asthma attacks, and 82 heart attacks in 2012. Its retirement will save $1.6 billion annually in public health cost according to a study by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Big Brown is the third Texas coal fired plant to retire in 2018. But what about Arkansas? Well, officially, we’re right in there fighting---on the coal companies side! Yes, our attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the EPA to keep it from enforcing the Arkansas’s plants to comply with the Clean Air Act mandates to restrict emissions. The lawsuit says it is too expensive, based on the coal fired plants calculations. The EPA calculations are about a quarter of the coal fired plants figures. Who do you believe?

Our three coal fired electrical generating plants aren’t as big as Big Brown, but they are very significant, and they are contributing to the lower air quality and of course mercury contamination of our fish. Of course, in the long run the switch to natural gas would not only clean up the atmosphere and reduce the mercury in fish, but reduce the cost of electricity. The coal fired plants that are closing are not necessary because the companies want to be environmentally friendly, but because natural gas is cheaper.

Our attorney general is on the losing side of the War on Coal, and Arkansas is dragging the bottom as always. I’m thankful our attorney general didn’t eat mercury contaminated fish during her first months of pregnancy, and that she has a beautiful, healthy baby…but what about the young lady from Moro Bay…who didn’t know about the mercury warnings?

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Arkansas and Quail:  If you have been following the flurry of ‘bring back the quail posting’ from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, you know those folks believe the quail habitat in Arkansas left about the same time the last wolf pack did, and if we can convert the state back to pioneer days with quail habitat out the gazoo, then the quail will fill the state again. What have those boys been smoking? Of course, if they don’t muzzle a couple of million feral hogs, having great quail habitat won’t bring back the quail. Let’s look at the disappearing quail problem on a statewide basis, and consider this: If a single feral hog finds and eats one nest of quail eggs a year, how many quail eggs will 2,000,000 feral hogs eat in a year? I rest my case.

Yes, that’s my take on the loss of Arkansas quail. Since my first article on the loss of quail a good friend, former El Dorado Mayor Larry Combs, pointed out that about the same time the quail turned up missing, the killdeer birds followed them out the door. Well, what does that have to do with the missing quail? Quail and killdeer are ground nesting birds! Get it? Those birds lay their eggs on the ground! Now, is it just a coincidence that the population of both birds has dropped like a rock---uh, yeah---just as the varmints and feral hog population went thru the ceiling? Uh, huh, just like the Buffalo National River became polluted after the hog farm started its operation.

I live on 37 acres on the edge of El Dorado and 20 years ago I had a large covey of quail on the property. I would estimate at least 20 birds. I could whistle up the quail every afternoon, but slowly the covey became smaller and smaller until about 10 years ago I heard the last whistle. The quail are gone, but the quail habitat is exactly the same. Nothing has changed, except in place of the quail, I have feral hogs, fire ants, possums, and coons, and these animals and insects will eat anything that doesn’t bite back. 

We still have millions of quail habitat acres in our state, so if we don’t have quail in great quail habitat it means habitat restoration is not the problem. Maybe, we need a woman on the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to get those old geezers to look outside the box. Or maybe the governor is saying, “There aren’t any qualified women, and women don’t hunt and fish.” Is that what you’re saying, Governor? If not, then why don’t we have a woman on the Commission?