Courtesy of Idaho Game Warden Magazine By Matt O ’ Connell - IDF & G
During the dog days of summer , I try to beat the
heat and work early in the day , attempting to check the fishermen who have gotten an early start . This morning , that involved loading up my mountain bike and heading for the Boise Greenbelt to check trout and salmon fishermen . It was a quiet morning , at least for checking fishermen , and by late in the morning the heat and the lack of excitement had combined to have me heading toward my truck . While checking a cell phone message , I glanced back up the greenbelt just in time to see a man do a good deed .
Without being asked to and without having observed me , he walked down to the shore of Veterans Park pond and picked up a plastic bag full of garbage and then walked across the greenbelt to put it into a garbage can . When I hung up the phone , I hollered a Thank You to the man , who replied that it was nothing . He told me that he often picks up litter along the greenbelt and stated that one of the most frequent things he picks up is plastic worm containers left by fishermen . It was disturbing to hear that coming from a non fisherman , and it made me sad to hear that type of statement . I thanked him again for doing the right thing and went on my way . He was someone trying to be part of the solution .
Earlier this spring , I was watching a man shooting near Blacks Creek Reservoir south of Boise . To set the stage , the Blacks Creek Reservoir area has long been a hangout for target shooters , plinkers , mudboggers , and the assorted fisherman . It is also an important migratory bird stopover and safe haven ; a small oasis of water in the sagebrush desert . Most of the time , the shooters and other recreationalists were just good folks trying to be safe and to have a good time . They packed out their targets and other debris and no one knew they had been there . Somewhere along the line , computer monitors , televisions , and living room furniture became better targets , and the Blacks Creek area began to look like the de facto Ada county landfill .
Most of the users assumed that it was public land , which must have made it okay to trash in some weird sense of logic .
The type of logic which implies- Someone else will clean it up , it is public land . When the Ada County Sheriff ’ s department posted much of the area around Blacks Creek with No Trespassing signs , and yours truly began to show up and tell people that they were on private ground and needed to pack up and leave the area , some people began to look around at the piles of garbage that had forced the landowners to finally say enough is enough . That man I was watching was on that private land shooting , and he shot and exploded several glass bottles before leaving a bag of glass bottles behind him as he left the area . When I asked him why he had left the bag of bottles behind , he told me that they were for the next shooters to use for target practice . I issued him a citation for littering , hoping that might reinforce the concept that littering on private or public land is just not acceptable . He was someone who was part of the problem .
To see someone voluntarily taking time out of their routine to do an act of good is a refreshing thing to see . The fact that I see those acts so infrequently makes them stand out in my mind , which is not a good thing . In the case of Blacks Creek Reservoir , organizations like the Audubon Society and Federal Agencies like the Bureau of Land Management decided to try to make a difference . Meetings were held , trying to involve a diverse group of citizens and organizations to try to clean up the area and to protect it from further degradation . Hundreds of people volunteered their time to help clean up the area , and it has made difference . I was patrolling through the area the other day , and the litter clean up has made huge difference . A small grass roots effort to protect an area which is biologically important and could have easily gone by the wayside has gained momentum . New interpretive signs spell out the importance of the area to birds , and spell out the private land issue . Initially , someone cared enough to start the positive process of protecting that area , and it has blossomed into an ongoing trend toward better things .
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