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Spring Event Focuses on Wilderness

Posted on: Tuesday, 4 April 2006, 21:00 CDT

By Annie Nelson, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.

Apr. 3--Six-year-old Connor Canote knows a thing or two about how a riparian corridor can stabilize the erosion of stream banks and how gasoline and oil can leak into a stream, damaging the life in it.

"Yeah, and car boats can go on the water, and they can blow up," he told Scott Voney, a fisheries management biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, of another possibility for stream contamination. "Gasoline is dangerous; that's why only adults can get it."

Connor and Voney were among hundreds who took part yesterday in A Day with Wildlife at American Legion Post No. 202 on Route WW. It was sponsored by the conservation department, the Downtown Optimists and residents.

"It's an opportunity for the general public to make contact with agencies they normally might not have," said Jim Loveless, city councilman and wildlife biologist for the conservation department.

The popular spring wildlife day, timed to coincide with the change of seasons, is intended to get kids thinking about spending time outdoors. "We usually get 1,500 to 2,000 people before the day is out," said Spencer Turner, one of the original organizers of the second wildlife day in Missouri.

Storms threatened on the horizon as Mayor Darwin Hindman and his family walked out to the baseball fields at American Legion Park. His 9-year-old grandson, Jack, wanted to take a crack at the skeet shooting. Jack said he had never shot a gun except for an Airsoft pistol BB gun.

He took his three shots, missed the clay pigeons and left with a bright red spot on his arm where the shotgun kicked back and hit him. "It was cool," he said.

The exhibit table for Friends of Rock Bridge State Park displayed origami dragonflies the exhibitors used to engage kids about the importance of clean streams.

"Do you like mosquito bites?" Jan Weaver asked 11-year-old Breonna Berends. "No," she replied with disgust.

Weaver explained to Berends that dragonflies eat mosquitoes and need clean streams to survive.

Berends said she never knew that dragonflies eat mosquitoes. "We have to help animals, so streams won't get dirty and they'll die," Berends said.

One kid who was not as impressed as most was Connor. "I already knew everything," he said confidently. "I watch movies about animal life."

The most recent was a film he saw in school about animals such as snakes. Connor said he likes snakes but that his mom freaks out when she sees them. He added: "If they attack me, I always kick them back. Hard."

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To see more of the Columbia Daily Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.columbiatribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Columbia Daily Tribune

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