THERE'S A FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON IN OUR MOUNTAINS

There’s a fire-breathing dragon in our mountains.  Should you request a photograph, he is invisible, but breathes his torch upon our coldwater flowages, ever more intensely as years progress.

Pine Creek, PA suffers from early autumn low water.  Photo by Matt Reilly.

    You’re skeptical?  Scientific academies the world over confirm his existence; and should you, being biologically inquisitive, wish to know where such a creature was birthed from, I would inform you that those very same scientists are in concurrence that you and I are the culprits at large. 

    A brute of such stature and appetite, you reason, must have some significant impact on his environment.  This is true.  However, I will counteroffer that he is a habitat generalist, omnipresent.  His impact is slow, yet steady—relatively undetectable to the untrained eye.

    Still, this intangible monstrosity of Sagan speciation affects quantifiable damage.  Our very own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken note (as of last summer) that his very existence on planet Earth results in rising water temperatures and altered streamflow so significant that 62 percent of coldwater fisheries habitat is projected to be compromised without intervention by the year 2100. 

    In layman’s terms, our dragon has the life ambition of forcing our trout and salmon from Appalachia, the continental lowlands and hills, and all but the highest elevation streams of the Rocky Mountain West.  Any individual concerned with ecological diversity, recreational fishing, or economics should consider such an antagonist a cold-blooded murderer.

    Still, he can neither be touched nor seen, and thus we have a decision to make.  Either we intervene, or we refrain, on faith that the dragon is merely a figment of our imagination.

Greg Craven, author of What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, an innovative, rational response to the climate change debate, offers a model that fits our dilemma quite nicely.  In reality, there are four possible actions and outcomes to this question.

    First, our dragon does, in fact, exist, but we decide not to intervene.  As a consequence, 62 percent becomes a very real number, and our trout and salmon are ravaged by a destructive reptile.

    Second, our dragon exists, and we decide to oust him.  As a result, we invest greatly in destroying the invasive fire-breather and save the majority of coldwater fisheries from slow death.

    Third, the dragon is actually make-believe, and we decide not to pursue his execution.  In this case, all is well that ends well.

    Finally, our dragon is, after all, a figment of our imagination, and we do decide to act.  Unnecessary economic downturn is the result, as we invest in dragon-killing measures that are effectively a wild goose chase.

    Mere days following the release of the EPA’s dramatic statement, I was having lunch with a handful of coldwater fisheries conservation professionals, employed by Trout Unlimited, delivering the comprehensive State of theTrout report—a critical look at the risks posed against coldwater fisheries, and the proposed solutions to those problems.  Many of those problems are related to climate change.

    In that setting, the aforementioned model would have served useful, as an aged gentleman sitting in on the discussion dug his heels into the dirt. 

    “Why are we focusing on climate change when the real problem is the health of our coldwater fisheries?” he questioned.

    “Because their decline is tied to climate change,” it was countered.

    The conversation hit a wall.

    What failed to be recognized is that failure to act, based on the claim that climate change is not occurring, gambles with the viability of the ecosystems in question.

    Within our four real options, two require action and two don’t.  Of the two that don’t, the only positive outcome relies on the premise that our dragon doesn’t exist (an idea which is strongly and collectively opposed by the international scientific community), while the worst results in the loss of over half of our coldwater fisheries.  Of the two that do require action, the positive result is a country of relatively healthy salmonids, while the worst reality is an unnecessary investment.

    Thus, it is irresponsible to get hung up on the question of whether or not a scaled beast inhabits our hills.  The question that should be asked is whether or not we should act; and the steward’s answer is “yes.”

    And so we are called to make an assumption:  there is a fire-breathing dragon in our mountains.  For should at last his unhindered wreckage be permitted to culminate, skeptics will see and believe, and all will mourn the loss of our finned protagonists, begging to trade a blinding societal ego recognized for an irreplaceable ecosystem so ignorantly sacrificed.□

*Originally published in The Rural Virginian

AMERICAN PUBLIC LANDS A SPIRITUAL TRADITION

Modern society has convinced the outdoorsman in me that I was born too late.  The rivers that I frequent are suppressed in spirit, their wonder restrained to their actual dimensions by urban sprawl, highways, and water treatment plants.  When I take to the field, I thirst for the refreshing experience of new waters; but I lust for those places tucked away, out of sight, lost in nature—where their essence extends for miles through some black hole of the mind, never threatened by development or the idea that they might, in some dimension, end.

The mighty Saco River at low water, crawling through a White Mountain valley.  Photo by Matt Reilly

    Development.  My parents know what it means.  Their age is told in their memories.  There was a time when Charlottesville, Virginia was not a city, but a town.  Before Walmart and Sam’s Club took their anarchical perch above Route 29, farmer Matheny tended to his cows on the grassy pasture behind a blackboard fence and an illusion that things might never change.  The Rivanna River, in the gulley behind Walton’s culturally-obese babies, coursed higher and stronger through the rolling hills of the Piedmont, its lifeblood not yet stolen by the host of housing developments to come, its finned inhabitants still unrestrained by dams.

    I hear these memories as a young child.  Fear briefly enters and exits my mind.  What will the world look like when I am grown?  But at 8 years old, as far as I know, things don’t change.

    I eventually learned my lesson.

    The woodlot that was destined to be subdivided behind our newly-furnished house was just large enough to be reminiscent of Maine’s “Big Woods” that I had learned of in Field and Stream.  If I walked along the length of the creekbottom, in the shadows of towering ridges, I could escape with the perception of total isolation.

    One spring, I happened upon a stream of moderate girth.  I returned countless times in following seasons, slinging spinners and flies to feisty panfish and pickerel. 

    One day I was startled by the sight of two houses.  Both were under construction; and their backyards had torn into the woodland veil protecting my secret gem, revealing it for all to see, eroding the banks, and slowing the current.

    Sour and cynical over the soiling of my stream, I retreated into my mind to a place where rivers run free and woods seem endless, where constant human activity does not hamper the wildlife activity, and the flora is ornamental by God’s design, rather than that of a landscaper.  It was from this experience that I began to crave wild lands removed from human occupation.

    By the time I earned my driver’s license I was a passionate fly fisherman, completely lost in the sport; and my search for new water took me to where my childhood fantasies existed in actuality—the Shenandoah National Park, where my dad had taken me to grouse hunt and trout fish at a very young age.  Now, with the means to transport myself, I set off into the Blue Ridge when I yearn for the tug of a sprightly brook trout.

    I drive west; and as the roads turn from pavement to gravel to dirt to nothing, and the hardwoods close in above my head as I’m intertwined into the deep, meandering hollows where the freestones run, the shackles of society and modern, complicated life disintegrate into the air.

    I can fish my way through the gorge that the Rapidan River flows through in consensual ignorance.  In my mind, the Park does not end, but extends forever in every direction, as does the river; and the fish in its watery depths are virgin natives—refugees, like me.

    When a brook trout comes to hand, my suspicion is upheld.  The fiery brilliance that adorns its belly and pectorals, the olive river rock along its back, accented by strong blue and red bull’s eyes make me believe that they are a purity in nature, a stronghold of all that has been lost in the world, safeguarded, hidden in the bottom of a mountain stream. 

    But alas, I know this illusion is false.  The trout in my hand is a species endangered by a host of man-made threats; and its range retreats into the mountaintops yearly.  However, unlike the Piedmont stream of my childhood, this one is protected, forever sealed from peripheral development by 197,000 acres of federally-protected land.  To the brook trout, and to me, that thought is full of hope; as it is a symbol of like-minded individuals concerned with the state of the environment doing their best to secure recreational areas and wildlife havens for future generations, to preserve our spiritual haunts.  In a word, it is a promise:  For as long as I, and my children, live, places like Shenandoah will be protected and cherished by sportsmen.□

*Originally published in the Rural Virginian

FALL GOBBLERS IN THE PINE CREEK VALLEY

Dawn greeted us with gloom, wind, and drizzle—the traditional late fall bad-weather mix.

    Only a month prior, my college deferral fish-bumming road trip had lead me to Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek Valley, ablaze with October foliage, though the river suffered severely from record-low water.  As luck would have it, I was given the opportunity to return as part of a media group from TroutUnlimited, but the Valley, one of my new favorite locations, had fallen victim to the changing seasons in my absence.  The abrupt surrounding mountains were transparent—skeletal and hardened by the onset of cold—and the river ran high and dark with the cold rains of late fall in the Northern Tier. 

    In three cars—two pickups and a rented SUV—we caravanned to a trailhead on State Forest property, shotguns, blaze orange, and seat cushions in tote.  Four well-trained turkey dogs rode patiently in the bed, knowing all too well what was coming.

Photo by Mark Taylor, TU Eastern Communications Director

    The air was translucent with fog and the smell of the wet fall woods.  Deliberately, our party trudged up the trail, up the mountain, past rose bushes and hemlocks, watching friends and stand-in turkey guides Rob Mucinski and Ron Magnano send their wiry-haired turkey seekers on the chase with directional gestures.  Somewhere within earshot, a gobbler boomed.

    The grade continued, with no switchback or relief, until the trail flattened out on a bench quickly dubbed “the orchard” for the thick population of apple trees growing in an understory clearing.  Paula Piatt, a representative from Trout Unlimited, had done the scouting the week before, and informed Ron and Rob that the birds had been spotted near the orchard on several occasions. 

Photo by Mark Taylor, TU Eastern Communications Director

    “The dogs will find them soon enough,” Ron reassured the group, confident in the ability of the four-legged hunters.

    As we crossed the bench lengthwise and approached a switchback leading further up the mountain, the dots on the guides’ GPS clumped, and baying ensued.  Standing frozen, we watched as a handful of turkey fled the scene in flight and listened as the rest of the flock beat air on the opposite side of the ridge.

    “It’s a clean break,” Ron and Rob agreed.

    A clean break is essential in fall turkey hunting.  The trained dogs are taught to ambush a flock with the hopes of pushing them into immediate flight and dispersing them radially.  Only then can a caller reliably reassemble the frazzled flock with gentle kee kees and clucks.

Photo by Mark Taylor, TU Eastern Communications Director

    Wasting no time, everyone in the group stashed their blaze orange and traded it for camouflage.  Chairs were unfolded, layers adjusted, and bathroom breaks taken.  It takes a certain level of preparation to sit motionless on the forest floor for an hour or more.

    The party split to take up stand locations on each side of the ridge, while the guides took stands behind the shooters, covering the praised dogs in camouflage burlap to quiet them.  In moments, the woods were once again silent, and the calling began.

    Ron and Rob seemed to be talking to one another as they took turns kee keeing from across the ridgeline.

    Rain picked up and the wind swirled and subsided.

    Just a bit more than an hour had passed when the tone of Ron’s calling changed tone.  A shotgun blast followed, as I squinted in curiosity in his direction.

    A bird was down!

    We continued to sit and call for another half hour with no luck; and so we made the decision to break cover and check on the rest of the party. 

Photo by Mark Taylor, TU Eastern Communications Director

    Don Knaus, a local Pennsylvanian outdoor writer, emerged from the woods with a fine bird clutched and displayed by the legs.  Excitedly, Don recounted his encounter with his first fall turkey shot with the aid of trained turkey dogs.

    Don’s bird was the first and only harvest of the day and the trip; and despite the humble apologies of Ron and Rob who had wished for more shots, each and every one in attendance was pleased and excited to share the experience.

Originally published in The Rural Virginian

VOWA AND SFRED--THANK YOU ALL

It's been a crazy week.

        I have been truly blessed by many over the past few days, and have had the opportunity to meet countless friendly new faces, ones that I know will remain friends and associates for a long time to come.  I owe deep thanks to the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association and the members of the Sportsmen For Responsible Energy Development (SFRED) coalition--Trout Unlimited, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and the National Wildlife Federation.

        Starting last weekend, the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association, a wonderfully supportive group of which I have remained a part for the past three years, selected my essay entry as a winner in the VOWA-Bass Pro Shops High School Essay Contest; and I was invited to the annual conference, along with four very talented student writers.  This honor I have received for the second time now, first for "The Homecoming," and most recently for "Every Dog Has His Day," and I can not begin to describe my genuine gratitude.  Many of the members of VOWA are true icons in Virginia's outdoor literary tradition.  Their approval is truly humbling.

Left to right:  Victor Harangozo, Michael Gates, Matthew Reilly, Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Joseph Ward, Khoa Tran, Caroline Armstrong.  Photo by Rob Thomas.

        I attend the annual VOWA meeting every year for the excellent speakers and networking opportunities that it offers.  The majority of my opportunities for growth have been products of this meeting, and I would urge anyone interested in outdoor communications--be it writing, photography, blogging, videography, etc.--to surround yourself with and learn from this group.

        Among the acquaintances I made this year were Clarke C. Jones, author of Virginia Wildlife's Off the Leash; Phil James, local Albemarle County historian and columnist for the Crozet Gazette; Ed Felker of Dispatches From the Potomac; and Sally Mills, editor of Virginia Wildlife.

        Next up, a trip to the Nation's capital sponsored by the Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development (SFRED), with three high-caliber teenagers--Rebecca Brown of Conrad, Montana, Haley Powell of Rock Springs, Wyoming, and Jarred Kay of Flagstaff, Arizona.  Our hosts were charismatic, enthusiastic SFRED leaders Chris Wood, Brad Powell, Corey Fisher, and Keith Curley of Trout Unlimited; Ed Arnett of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Kate Zimmerman of the National Wildlife Federation.  

Left to right:  Haley Powell, Jarred Kay, Matthew Reilly, and Rebecca Brown.
Photo courtesy of Mrs. Brown.

        In this context, we were swept through Washington's bustling infrastructure, always on schedule.  Influential conservation officials awaited our arrival at various corners of the city.  Mary Wagner, Associate Chief of the US Forest Service; Sally Jewell, US Secretary of the Interior; and congressmen from each represented state were all generous enough to sacrifice time from their complicated schedule to receive who they so emphatically dubbed "the next generation of leaders in conservation."  From socializing with the others, I feel I can speak for all involved--the pleasure was all ours.

Haley Powell (left) and Rebecca Brown (right) with Secretary Jewell.
Photo courtesy of DOI.

        Chris Wood, CEO of Trout Unlimited, and his wife Betsy hosted the last evening's wrap-up dinner in their warm and welcoming home.  What do a bunch of conservation biologists and outdoorsmen talk about at dinner?  Fishing was the main subject, but elk hunting had something to do with it.

        Thanks VOWA and SFRED, the US Forest Service and the Department of the Interior, and thank you Woods, for inviting us into your home.