|
 GEORGETOWN
- One of Arkansas' newest wildlife management areas will be dedicated
March 4. The dedication ceremony will be held at the Arkansas Game and
Fish Commission's Steve N. Wilson Raft Creek Bottoms Wildlife Management
Area in eastern White County beginning at 10 a.m.
Purchased in 2001, the 4,200-acre WMA is named after former AGFC
director Steve N. Wilson. Until just a few years ago, the area was
almost all farmland, with just 30 acres of trees scattered here and
there.
Flooding damaged or destroyed crops of soybeans many years. A few years
ago, a coalition of conservation organizations and agencies helped get
the land into public use.
The
potential is exciting to biologists, to outdoorsmen familiar with the
area and to wildlife viewers who have had hints of what it holds.
Steve N.
Wilson/Raft Creek WMA is southeast of Searcy and near Georgetown. The
project is a partnership of the AGFC, Ducks Unlimited, the USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Service and the Morrison family of White County.
Much of the land is subject to the flooding whims of the nearby White
River. To get the most potential from the land, it was reshaped.
Undulations of the former farmland were increased and accented by low
levees, curved to fit the land and to direct floodwater as wanted.
Levee work
included scooping earth to form shallow ponds instead of building borrow
ditches.
The plan is to
eventually reforest all the land out of the flood pool, except for some
natural prairie areas. Thousands of young trees have been planted, and
the cypresses are doing well. Several species of oaks have struggled
with the effects of flooding, but enough are surviving to be a start on
the long-range work.
Raft Creek has been a magnet for wintering ducks for years. Other birds
use it, including the endangered least terns. Long-range plans include
building an observation blind or platform on an earthen bank overlooking
the area that floods.
Raft Creek already has made an unusual wildlife impact. A sizable group
of pelicans is making it home instead of going on the long return
migration trip to the upper Rockies region. About 200 of the big white
birds are living at Raft Creek, apparently finding the territory and
available food supply, fish, to their liking.
The
work so far has included several boat ramps so duck hunters and
fishermen can use the area. Raft Creek has about eight miles of creeks
that become boat trails when the area is flooded in the colder months. |
