Lake Martin Swamp Tours and Plant Control

In the big picture of things, I guess it never ends.

photo courtesy of Claude Nall

But, we continue to fight for the protection and preservation of My Wild Louisiana, and at Lake Martin where I do my tours,



it is once again under assault in the name of plant control.




And as plants are destroyed, predators such as this alligator gar,



have an unfair advantage of preying on small immature fish, turtles,

A Red Crowned Turtle

baby alligators, and frogs, because they use use the floating mat of plants as a place to hide and thus survive predators.



Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to make garfish or alligators look like the bad guys here, they are doing their job as predators. But when there is no place to hide due to a lack of plants, the predators prevent the hatchlings from surviving to maturity.

A baby alligator hiding in the plants,

and it better hide because, because fish, turtles, alligators, and bull frogs prey on baby alligators which hide in the plants and feed on cricket frogs.

2 photos above and 1 below courtesy of Claud NallA Cricket Frog on a kayak

In a nutshell, the floating mass of plants is not only a food source in the food chain, it is a nursery.

And then when young birds are learning to fly and leave the nest, such as the immature Yellow Crowned Night Herons below,



they need a floating mat of plants as a landing zone until they are more skilled at flying.

The American Lotus which has also been severely targeted by plant control,



is not only beautiful to behold, it has a lot of shrimp flies on which the Prothonitary Warbler feeds as seen below.



A Prothonitary Warbler with feed in its beak

For 15 years now, the state of LA has declared war on aquatic plants

and systematically destroyed the ecology and natural beauty of Lake Martin on 3 sides.



The south side of the lake has, to some degree, been protected by protests from yours truly and the Nature Conservancy in regards to herbicide applications in the rookery.





Although only one application of herbicide last year in the end of September 2010, seemed to indicate that we were winning the war in defense of the aquatic plants

Claude Nall

and the wildlife, such as the White Ibis, which eats aquatic snails, and the Little Blue Heron above, that depends upon a mat of submerged and floating plants for food gathering at Lake Martin.

But as of this year, plant control came out twice in April

and again twice in May and there is no where in any of the swamp, on all four sides of Lake Martin,



where I could go and show people the emerald green natural beauty of a Louisiana swamp without a bunch of dead plants.

Virtually every road used by me and several other swamp tours has now been sprayed with herbicide. Due to the drought and lower water levels, the few little hard to reach places that were not sprayed this year will soon be inaccessible because the water is getting too low to go there.

My biggest issue with plant control is not limited to Lake Martin and the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Because plant control, by use of herbicides, is rampant across the countryside where utility companies spray powerlines and pipelines, then city, county, and state governments spray roadsides. Combined with agricultural application of herbacide. . .we are poisoning the environment and destroying the ecology for numerous species.

Claude Nall



My guess is, due to plant control, we no longer have Bobwhite quail in south Louisiana because they no longer have a place to nest and hide from predators. We are also taking a toll on cottontail and wood rabbits. These are three species which are obvious.

We also have to consider we do not see every plant, insect and vertebrae species which is also affected as a non targeted casualty by this war on plants. This abuse by the chemical companies who sell their products to the state, and use the media to promote and justify this war is a rampant plague of the natural environment as far as I'm concerned.