Lake Martin Tragedy

I found Lake Martin in February 2002. I ha€™d moved back to Louisiana in December 2001 and had been shooting full time since that April. Specializing in birds, finding Lake Martin was a godsend. During the nesting season from late January until the end of July, there were ten’s of thousands of nesting wading birds, including the Roseate Spoonbill. Shooting was great; from the road the birds were about 50 feet away nesting in the large bald cypress trees and in the buttonbush at their base. The spoonbills would often land near the road in the water, totally oblivious to the bird watchers and photographers as close as 10 feet away. Even more incredible, mornings brought perfect front-lit conditions. Making Lake Martin the place to photograph nesting Roseate Spoonbills. During the last 4 years I’ve managed to accumulate a lifetime of shots of Roseate Spoonbills, and nesting egrets and herons. It has been truly a wonderful experience.

Unfortunately all has not been well at Lake Martin for some time. First is the water quality. Tens of thousands of nesting birds create a lot of waste. This waste elevates the nitrogen content of the water and in turn endangers the health of the buttonbush and other plant and small animal life in the Lake necessary for the continued health of the Rookery. The Nature Conservancy, responsible for the Rookery, partially mitigated this by draining some of the water each fall and then refilling it in the spring. Unfortunately, the pumping equipment isn’t really sufficient for the task, therefore the Lake isn’t drained sufficiently and then in the spring it isn’t always filled sufficiently.

Second, many of the local residents would prefer not to have the birds. Many bird watchers and photographers haven’t always respected the rights of the property owners. Many aren’t careful about parking off the road and traffic jams were commonplace in the spring and summer along the gravel road. Not to mention photographers actually blocking the road while photographing. In addition, frequently uncaring birders and photographers would trespass on the property owners land. In addition, much of the housing around the lake are hunting camps. Several years ago the local rare bird alert mentioned the case of a birder being threatened due to encroaching on a land owners property. There is resentment that the Rookery area is off limits during the spring and summer and concern the hunting will be restricted or banned in the fall and winter. Often this past spring prior to the birds’ departure, the sound of shotguns could be heard near the rookery as hunters practiced skeet. Birds were frequently startled by this activity. Furthermore, there have been reports of roosting ibis being shot during the off season and I’ve even had one gentleman stop and tell me how good they are to eat.

Third are the tour operators. While many tour operators are responsible, and I have a working relationship with one of the best. Many of the smaller operators located at the Lake are less than responsible. I’ve had one operator offer to take me into the rookery to photograph and I’ve had many reports from others that were indeed taken within the Rookery. Airboats have been observed from within the rookery with birds flying in every direction. Satellite images of the site reveal boat trails that have been cut throughout the rookery. There have been reports of violent disputes among the operators and I’ve observed many tours with dangerously overloaded boats and have heard reports of them operating without the required safety equipment.

Then the normal visitors to the Lake, campers, site seers, fishermen, hunters, etc. would regularly trash the place. I’ve seen washing machines, recliners, beer cans and you name it, just abandoned at the lake. Visitors would regularly feed or throw rocks at Alligators. A sad state of affairs for one of the premier birding locations in the coutry.

In April of 2005, birds that had already nested and had chicks on the nest, abandoned a large section in the southern part of the Rookery. I remember thinking this activity was very strange at the time. I was particularly concerned that the abandonment occurred during a weekend. Having observed these birds for the previous 3 years, I remember thinking that it was unlikely that natural forces were at work. At the end of one week, the birds were behaving normally and at the beginning of the next they were gone. There were reports along the Lake that kids had probably chased them always with fireworks from a boat. The Northern part of the Rookery did well in 2005, and the later summer months had more than the usual number of cattle egrets, little blue herons and tricolor herons nesting.

Late January brought the normal return of the great egrets. By late February, not only had the Great Egrets returned, but there was a larger than normal number of Great Blue Herons and Roseate Spoonbills. The area of the Rookery abandoned in 2005, was again not populated with birds, it appeared to be permanently abandoned. However, almost to compensate for the loss of the Southern section of the Rookery, the boundary of Rookery extended further northward. Nesting Activity was observed in February and by the middle of March there were reports of some of the great egrets having chicks. I visited the Rookery on March 15 and remember being very excited about the larger number of birds and how things were progressing. I remember getting a very nice shot of a Great Egret in Flight.

Then came the reports on the web on Saturday March 18th, reports of many of the birds abandoning the rookery. People visiting on Friday evening report things as normal and on Saturday morning reported that at least two thirds of the birds had departed. I returned on the morning of the 22nd, to find only a handful of birds still there and those that were there were spooked by any sound. I remember an ambulance helicopter passing overheads and all the remaining birds in the Rookery leaving for at least 10 minutes and then returning. My next visit was on the 30th and by then, only an occasional bird could be seen overhead. I was there over the next 3 days with a client (doing landscapes thank goodness) and observed Little Blue Herons coming in on the first day, then they to had departed on the second, with evidence of a boat having entered the Rookery over that evening. By the end of the first week of April, the only evidence that a Rookery was ever there were the abandoned nests.

There have been unsubstantiated reports that one of the tour operators intentionally drove the birds from the area near the road with the theory that people would then have to book tours from him to observe or photograph the birds. While this can’t be proven at this point, based upon past events, this would not surprise me. It was also obvious while the departure was occurring that this was not a priority for either the enforcement agencies or the Nature Conservancy. The first two weeks after the problem was critical while some birds remained, yet everyone was slow to react, only making an appearance and doing anything about the problem after all the birds had left.

The official line is that drought conditions probably caused the Rookery to fail. I don’t believe this is the case. There are too many coincidences, the weekend departure, the boat trails in the rookery, the reports around the lake of people with boats in the rookery at night and either gunfire or fireworks. It appears to me that this is just an effort at damage control. If the Nature Conservancy was the Steward of this treasure, they failed in their stewardship.

However, while some event led to the departure of the birds, based upon everything else that was wrong, it was just a matter of time for it to fail. There is great hope that the birds will return in 2007. I share that hope. However, I fear that will not be the case. I’ve been told if birds have left due to trauma, they seldom return. The loss of the southern section of the rookery in 2005 and it being uninhabited in early 2006 bears this out. I fear they do return, it will be generations of birds before it is like it was.

I understand that there had been plans to spruce up the Lake and make it a prime birding stop. These plans included restrooms, a paved road, and a manned visitors center. These plans were blocked when it was learned that hunting would also be stopped at the Lake. Local residents also objected to the paved roads as it would bring tour buses down the road. This investment is extremely unlikely now due to the loss of revenue due to the storms and since it is very likely that there aren’t even any birds at the site.

We’ve arrived at the point where little can be done except hope that the birds return. In a way, if the birds have found alternative nesting sites unaffected by the poor behavior of humans, perhaps it is for the best if they don’t. The water quality is as bad as ever. There’s no on site visitors center as to protect them. No one has been caught or charged with disturbing the birds. Nothing has changed.

For my tours I scurried around and made alternative plans. I found good places to photograph and I even found another Roseate Spoonbill Rookery in time for the second tour in May. While it’s not as large, photography is at least equal to Lake Martin, but a bit more inconvenient and difficult. Unlike Lake Martin, which I publicized, I’m keeping the location of the other Rookery to myself for the protection of the birds. I’m recommending against using any of the tour operators stationed at the lake for obvious reasons.

July 2006