Dime Project Controversial Habitat

 While scouting for my project I drove all around my area taking random pictures until I came to a dirt road just west of the I-15 between the University Ave on ramp and the Provo/Springville exit. It was a snowy day and the road looked very pretty with snow covering it and the trees.

As we drove I took pictures of horses, cows and some fallen trees that looked like beaver had been eating them.

As I was taking pictures of the living trees I noticed several balls in the trees. As I got closer one of the balls lifted off into flight. They were Northern Harrier Hawks.

 I watched them soar over the marsh, also known as Provo Bay. They circled around and around and then dove down looking for food. There were a few other birds flying around.

During my research to find the speices of Hawks I had photographed I came across a recovery progam for the June Sucker Fish. The June Sucker fish lives in Utah Lake, there are no other place in the world that they live naturally. The phragmites which can grow to 15’ tall is an invasive plant that has taken over miles and miles of shoreline and leaves the small June Sucker fish no place to hide from the carp which have over run the lake. The June sucker fish was put on the endangered species list in 1986 due to a critical habitat caused by a combination of the phragmites and the carp.

There are plans in place to kill and remove the noxious plant to take back the once inviting beaches and to help the June sucker fish replenish and be removed from the endangered species list.

Thinking back to the marsh where I saw the hawks I thought about all the phragmites I had seen and how those were contributing to the depletion of the June sucker fish. I wanted to go back and rip those weeds right out of the ground but as I started going through the pictures of the hawks I began to wonder if the project to reclaim the shoreline and help the june sucker fish population might have a negative impact on the Harrier Hawks and the other birds and animals that live in the phragmites. In addition there was the evidence of beavers in the surrounding ponds, which also might be impacted by the removal of the phragmites.

 

 

 All in all I just am not sure that the removal of the phragmites will have a positive affect  eco system of the lake. I am concerned that by taking out the phragmites it will destroy the habitat for the smaller birds and mammals that the Harrier Hawk feeds off on, leading to the reduced number of all of the wildlife who make their home in the marsh. The Harrier Hawk is beautiful and I would hate for the numbers of that bird to decline.