In the Cedar Rapids Gazette today...
https://www.thegazette.com/sports/conservations-top-under-dogs/Conservations top (under) dogs
Wild Side column: Remembering Bob Anderson and Tim Mason, who were among leaders in the outdoors
Orlan Love - correspondent
Dec. 26, 2024 3:36 pm
Bob Anderson executive director of the Raptor Resource Project operates a remote video camera positioned over an eagle nest near the Decorah Fish Hatchery on Friday, April 8, 2011, in Decorah, Iowa. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
The late Bob Anderson, executive director of the Raptor Resource Project, operates a remote video camera positioned over an eagle nest near the Decorah Fish Hatchery in 2011. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)
I have been blessed to know many great conservationists and to call some of them my friends.
My favorites include the late Bob Anderson, the godfather of the Decorah eagles and the guy who put peregrine falcons back on their ancestral homes on the Mississippi bluffs; and the late Tim Mason, the environmental activist who made the National Park Service live up to its mission to protect the sacred Native American grounds at Effigy Mounds.
Both Bob, who died in 2015 at age 64, and Tim, who died in 2018 at age 67, were underdogs who sacrificed to achieve environmental triumphs with never a thought of their own aggrandizement.
Anderson, the founder and director of the Raptor Resource Project, helped save peregrine falcons from extinction, led the successful effort to reintroduce them to their historic eyries on the bluffs of the Mississippi River and then educated and warmed the hearts of multitudes with an internet nest camera that documented the lives of a bald eagle family.
The Decorah eagles were a metaphor for their godfather. As they persevered through egg-chilling blizzards, infestations of pathogenic black flies and tree-felling, nest destroying wind storms, Anderson overcame financial hardship and skeptics who doubted his innovative techniques could succeed.
In the wake of the pesticide DDT's devastating effect on raptors, Anderson quit a good-paying job to move to Decorah in 1996 to devote his life to the well-being of falcons and other raptors. He exhausted his life savings to fund his falcon recovery efforts.
When live falcons were extremely rare, Anderson used artificial insemination to breed captive females at his acreage near Decorah. His chicks, released at nest boxes attached to bridges and power plant smokestacks, had by 2018 produced more than 1,500 progeny — a decisive factor in the birds' removal from the endangered species list.
But those birds would not nest on the Mississippi River bluffs until Anderson devised a technique in which the chicks were released from simulated rock boxes atop a bluff at Effigy Mounds National Monument, imprinting in the chicks’ brains the concept of cliffs as nesting sites.
Friends and associates of the man responsible for the wildly popular Decorah eagles webcam said Anderson likely will be remembered more for his leading role in the peregrine falcon recovery and his successful effort against long odds to restore peregrine falcons to the bluffs of the Mississippi.
Anderson himself considered his role in restoring falcons to the Mississippi River cliffs his greatest accomplishment.
Tim Mason of McGregor stands near a creek Dec. 22 that was recently littered by a farmer leasing the Department of Natural Resources' land. Mason noticed the land was being mistreated and the farmer was in violation of several regulations on the three-year lease. This prompted Mason to take action. The DNR is now taking a closer look at lessees who may be mistreating the land they are renting. (Nikole Hanna/The Gazette)
The late Tim Mason of McGregor stands near a creek in 2011 where a farmer leasing the Department of Natural Resources land was in violation of several regulations. (The Gazette)
Mason of McGregor, a big, tough river rat with a spiritual affinity for the bluffs and backwaters of the Mississippi, bucked big government and big money in his mission to preserve the region’s natural grandeur.
He made his bones in the early 1980s with his effort to save Bloody Run Creek from the ravages of rerouting U.S. Highway 18 around Marquette and McGregor. Though the project eventually went through, it did so with concessions to limit damage to the creek, its valley, wetlands and endangered species.
River and bluff lovers also appreciate Mason for his successful effort to halt the costly and contentious River Bluff Resorts project, a $138 million planned complex west of McGregor in the valley of Sny Magill trout stream.
Mason’s masterpiece — the righting of an egregious wrong at Effigy Mounds — grew out of his lengthy earlier service as a seasonal worker at the national monument, where he learned its features, internalized its mission and cemented his reverence for the land and the mound builders.
Mason said he could not believe his eyes when he began to notice trails, boardwalks and buildings encroaching upon the mounds. Through Freedom of Information Act document requests, he found the facility had spent more than $3 million over a decade to build more than 78 illegal structures.
Mason sought the assistance of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an advocacy group representing government workers, and together they pressured the Parks Service to acknowledge its mistakes and adopt corrective measures.
My most emotional moment as a reporter occurred at Mason’s funeral when six uniformed National Park Service employees filed into St. Mary Catholic Church in McGregor to pay their respects to the man who exposed the agency's desecration of Native American graves it was commissioned to protect.
In hindsight, I wish I’d started a slow clap like you see in the movies when colleagues recognize the hero’s deeds. I’m sure everyone in the church would have soon been clapping, too.
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