Ways you can help Tennessee fish and wildlife—TODAY
This Monday, April 22nd, marks the 49th observation of Earth Day. Conceived in the aftermath of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Blowout, in which three million gallons of oil created an 800-square-mile slick that killed over 10,000 dolphins, seals, sea lions, and aquatic birds, its mission was to inspire environmental awareness and to promote policy change regarding the protection of natural resources.
Sponsored by the non-profit Earth Day Network, the day of observance swiftly grew into a global phenomenon.
The success of the annual event in achieving its original mission is undeniable, albeit difficult to quantify. Hundreds of millions of trees have been planted as a direct result. $7 billion in grants have been created and disbursed by the EDN. Countless acts of legislation have been proposed, debated, and enacted as a result of the group’s efforts. The Global Water Network, the National Civic Education Program, Women and the Green Economy, and countless other initiatives, movements and organizations all trace their origins to the EDN and Earth Day.
That being said, world-wide organizations and action networks, petitions and protests, and associated means of effecting change are not everyone’s cup of tea. Some regard them with suspicion, others with a sense of being lost in the enormity of the undertaking, a condition in which an individual’s contributions may feel insignificant. Fortunately, even small acts of personal responsibility can have a dramatic impact. It’s a point I’d like to make, and as “all politics are local”, I’d like to begin with a personal anecdote.
My love affair with the great outdoors began at the tender of age of three. That’s when my grandfather, armed with a couple of cane poles and some bread for bait, took me fishing for the first time. Suffice it to say, I was hooked (figuratively).
There are many people who have ethical qualms with angling, and that’s certainly a conversation we can have, but the takeaway should be that an appreciation for the natural world comes more readily to folks who have a direct interaction with it. At least, it should. Sadly, bewilderingly, it is not always the case.
You see, for all the innumerable opportunities Chattanooga and the surrounding areas offer for angling, my close group of friends and I spend most of our time at the Tennessee River, most often down by Chickamauga dam. It is easily accessible, and years of fishing the area have given us insight in to the topography of the river bed, the seasonal cycles of the wildlife, and how to “read” the water. We are regulars, and we are not alone.
The more time you spend there, the better you come to know the other regulars. You know their names, you know about their families, their work; there is a sense of camaraderie among the genuinely diverse group of people for whom the river and its abundance provide so much joy.
Two things unify this otherwise motley assemblage of men, women, and children of every conceivable background: a love for the sport and more importantly, respect for the river. “Big Ed” is a fellow whose presence down at the dam is as ubiquitous as the blue herons that line the bank.
Ed never leaves with more fish than he plans on eating for dinner and Ed never leaves trash or refuse of any kind behind. If you checked the area before he got there in the morning, and again after he left in the evening, you’d never know he’d been there at all. This is true of all of the regulars. Honestly, it’s true of most of the strangers who come to the dam as well, but there is always that cadre of knuckle draggers for whom the world is a toilet.
After 25 years of fishing our beautiful river, I still cannot understand what motivates (or fails to motivate) those individuals who cannot visit the water’s edge without leaving behind a pile of cans, bottles, plastic bags, empty bait buckets, retail packaging, rotting meat, and most irresponsibly of all, yards and yards of discarded fishing line. It is this last that creates the most dangerous and immediate threat to wildlife.
It was late winter, our first trip to the river this year, when I noticed the heron. He was a little over four feet tall, a mature animal, and he seemed to be having difficulty making his way among the rocks. It didn’t take long to see why. Tightly wound around his left leg, just above the knee, was a length of heavy duty fishing line, the kind people use to haul monster catfish out of the water. It may as well have been a garrote.
It was heartbreaking to see, frustrating to know that I could not help him (herons can be extremely dangerous when cornered, injured, or frightened) and infuriating to know that this magnificent bird was most assuredly going to lose his leg and his life because some shabby dullard couldn’t be bothered to carry his trash 50 yards to the garbage can on his way out.
That’s the damnably exasperating point of this particular brand of polluters. You literally cannot get in or out of the area without passing two waste receptacles maintained by the parks department, yet every visit yields bags of refuse, some of which will be washed away to accumulate downstream, some of which remains to pose a hazard to the creatures whose lives are inextricably bound to the river.
So it falls on the rest of us, friend and stranger, to remove the things left behind by the grossly selfish and negligent, and we do. It was only week ago that a fellow came down to the walkway, no rods or reels or gear, but he seemed to be walking with a purpose. On his return trip, he was carrying several bird nests of discarded line, some with hooks still attached. His only purpose that day was to come remove what someone else callously left behind. No heron or muskrat or beaver or any of the other multitudes of animals that call the river their home will be snared by that line now.
There are local organizations dedicated to preserving the river and our other waterways. Tennessee River Rescue and Georgia Adopt-A-Stream are two of the best, but there are many more and all are deserving of support, be it time, money, or effort. They do good work.
Still, not everyone has the time or money, which is why I want offer this message for Earth Day 2019: EVERY effort counts, even the smallest gesture.
In fact, maybe small gestures matter most since more people can make them. Kudos to the folks who can dedicate a weekend, or a week, to cleaning up the mess someone else made.
My admiration and respect for those folks knows no bounds and I hope to join their ranks someday when the bills are less pressing and work is less demanding (2079 is the current projection for that) but in the meantime, doing what you CAN do matters.
Admittedly, it can be galling to think, “Why do I have to fix what someone else broke? They’ll never pick up after themselves if someone else is doing it for them.” I have come to understand that they’ll never pick up after themselves whether anyone else does or not, and any justifiable resentment one may feel towards these people is quickly overshadowed by the satisfaction of seeing the tangible results of your own work. The effort is minimal; the reward is immense.
You needn’t be an angler or hunter to appreciate and respect the water and the woods, though I think people who pursue those activities ought to be at the forefront of the conservation movement. Neither do you need to devote your life full time to activism or volunteering. There are people who can, and do.
For the rest of us there remains an endless supply of opportunities to contribute, the value of which must never be underestimated. Every act of responsibility and stewardship contributes to the greater whole, but also serves as an example that can inspire others to follow suit.
To be sure, some folks will never value the natural world. If it isn’t air-conditioned with free Wi-Fi, they want none of it. Some will insist on politicizing any thought of conservation—tribalism is like that, a great shortcut to actually thinking—but I believe more people than not will join in if they can see that their contributions matter, and that, collectively, we can have positive, sustainable impact.
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.” —Wendell Berry