03/01/2010 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Possible Explanations As the issue moved to the Lino Lakes and Centerville city councils in March 2002, it ignited a debate that pitted the community's beloved herons against the local passion for boating and water skiing. As the councils considered a proposal to establish a formal slow no -wake zone near the Peltier Lake heronry, Scott Lanyon -a local resident, ornithologist, and director of the University of Minnesota's James Ford Bell Museum of Natural History- presented a list of 10 potential disturbances causing rookery abandonment. In addition to high -speed boating, Lanyon offered a variety of humanmade and natural reasons. Some were dismissed, such as harassment by the island's resident bald eagles. There has never been a reported incident of an eagle acting aggressively toward a heron on Peltier Lake. One year, four heron nests even shared the same tree with an eagle nest. Other possible reasons only partially explained the abandonment. For example, highway construction on nearby Interstate 35W during spring 2000 could not have caused rookery failure in 2001 and 2002. Lindner, vice president of the Minnesota Water -ski Association, cited the closing of a nearby fish hatchery and the removal of bullheads and carp from Peltier Lake as possible reasons because both might have been food sources for the birds. Jeff Perry, natural resources specialist for Anoka County Parks, doubts food scarcity caused the herons to leave. "The whole corridor of wetlands within the Rice Creek chain of lakes provides very high - quality habitat for feeding. It's full of fish, invertebrates, and amphibians," he says. "These herons were documented flying as far away as 20 kilometers to feed." Herons Come Back Council meetings deliberated on the slow no -wake zone for two months, and never did unanimously agree on water - skiing as the primary cause for rookery abandonment. But the potential for disturbance from high -speed boating was the cause they acted on. "Of all the potential causes presented to the council, that was the one we could do something about," says John Bergeson, mayor of Lino Lakes. The slow no -wake zone measure carried unanimously in both councils, and it was in place just after March. But the buoys were placed by Anoka County Parks in June 2002 -too late to save the nesting season for that year. n 2003, with the slow no -wake zone in place, the herons came back to nest. And this time they stayed. The DNR estimates more than 300 pairs of great blue herons and 12 pairs of great egrets successfully nested in the Peltier Lake rookery in 2003. That's about half of the rookery's nesting population four years ago. But at least there's hope it will remain active. Another Season