SAVANNAH, N.Y. – Two American bald eagles perch on the high branches of a dead tree, their yellow eyes trained on muskrats nibbling cattail shoots in shallow Tschache Pool.
As the autumn migration beckons, a great feeding frenzy is under way at the Montezuma Wetlands Complex: A solitary great blue heron stalks fish and frogs, blizzards of sandpipers and plovers peck in mud flats for crustaceans, kestrels swoop down on field mice.
For all its natural beauty, the swampy sanctuary in western New York relies a great deal on human intervention. Its caretakers set fires, spray chemicals, build dikes and alter wetland levels to improve nesting and feeding conditions for the million or more birds and waterfowl that drop in each year.
Why all the tinkering? To offset damage by earlier generations intent on annihilation.
A century ago, the 40,000-plus-acre Montezuma Marsh was one of North America’s largest habitats for migratory birds. It was then drained by canal builders and farmed vigorously for onions, potatoes, cabbage. In the mid-1950s, an interstate highway was built right through the middle of it.
Not only did it survive the onslaught but this recycled tapestry of meadows, ponds, grassland and forests in drumlin-dotted country near Lake Ontario has swelled to 17,000 acres from a 6,400-acre plot rescued in 1937 by the U.S. government.
With political forces lining up in its favor, it might double in size again inside 30 years.
The rich, glacier-formed “muckland” – exposed to sunlight after New York’s canal system was expanded in the early 1900s – is nowhere near the agricultural mecca it once was. And so dozens of farmers, many in sore need of retirement nest eggs, have been cashing in – and in accelerating numbers since the 1990s.
“It will never be farmland again and, always being a farmer, I hate to see that happen,” said Neil Malone, 60, who is hauling in his final corn and soybean harvest in this swamp-ringed town of 1,800 people and turning his 1,100-acre farm over to New York state. “I’m going to miss the hell out of it.”
Agrarian land has fetched $1,200 to $1,500 an acre of late, and the highest bidders are invariably the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and, occasionally, environmental stewards such as The Nature Conservancy. They view the wetlands as invaluable not only for wildlife but a burgeoning band of creatures known as eco-tourists.
“Usually we talk about land-use changes as housing developments taking over – you have a field and, all of a sudden, you’re growing condos. This is sort of the reverse,” said Tom Jasikoff, who manages Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. “We people need this solitude too. As there are more human beings in the world and less natural areas, the places we’ve conserved are going to just become that much more important.”
A 1986 waterfowl-management accord with Canada and Mexico identified the refuge as one of the continent’s key hubs for migratory birds, triggering concerted efforts by federal, state and private interests to buy back up to 36,000 acres of the original marsh and restore the ecosystem – as much as that’s possible.
As it fills out – a split of 9,000 federal acres and 8,000 state acres – the complex is becoming an increasingly vital feeding, resting and nesting ground on the Atlantic Flyway, a superhighway for ducks and geese, shorebirds, songbirds and raptors traveling between Canada and the Eastern seaboard or points south.
Its dozen pools have been lined with embankments to keep water from flowing into the state Barge Canal. Some are slowly drained or flooded in spring or fall to create widely diverse habitats, drawing in more than 300 species of birds that dabble, dive, wade or walk along the water’s edge in search of prey.
Similarly, grasslands are burned, mowed or replenished to keep invasive weeds at bay, improve nesting for mallard ducks, harriers and bobolinks and foraging areas for hawks and owls hunting for rabbits and voles.
“They’re all God’s creatures and we’ve got to respect them,” said LaRue St. Clair, 80, who relies on a scope, a camera, keen eyesight and inventory logs to keep track of the birds as they come and go.
Retired from grinding feed for dairy farmers, St. Clair began his volunteer job after his wife of 44 years, Athena, died in 1993. “I would say there’s no better therapy for anyone going through trouble than this right here,” he said.
Latticed with 30 miles of walking trails and a 31/2-mile gravel drive, Montezuma attracts about 160,000 humans each year. The air is abuzz with twittering, cawing and warbling – a constant, albeit soft cacophony – and yet 9-year-old Christina Samela, visiting from New Haven, Conn., is struck by the stillness.
“It’s kinda like when I go into the library. I feel like I’m supposed to be here, like I belong,” she said.
“You start to realize nature’s not in any hurry,” echoed David Cliffel, 40, a teacher in Glenmoore, Pa., as he stood on the visitor-center deck. Then his gaze was drawn across the Main Pool to the horizon, where an endless flow of traffic whizzed by on the four-lane New York State Thruway.
“Of course, people are in a hurry back over there,” he said, laughing. “But this area reminds me that the whole cycle is still going, that there’s a place for the birds even amidst all the development we get. More and more wetlands in this region have been drained and changed and altered.”
Montezuma turned heads in 1976 when hand-raised bald eagles were released here in the first restoration program of its kind in North America. That success coincided with the quickening demise of agriculture.
Where scores of farmers once worked Savannah’s fields, there are just eight left.
“I got a son and he didn’t want any part of it – you’re gambling a lot of money for a small return,” said Malone, whose farm will eventually be converted back to wetlands and wildflowers. “I guess if you’re into watching birds and swamp creatures, there’s a lot of good things to see.”
Town Supervisor Don Colvin, 79, whose father raised five children on 28 acres of muckland, sold his own 190-acre farm in 1999. “Sometimes I wish I had it back,” he said wistfully as he drove up in his pickup, then added more firmly: “This is going to put Savannah on the map.”
Colvin, who’s been elected supervisor no fewer than 24 times since 1959, used all his political wiles to get an Audubon Nature Center built on the edge of the farm. The $2.7 million building opens to the public this month and a mile of trails already extends into woodland around 30 acres of flooded fields.
Keeping the public engaged is a crucial mission – plans are afoot to build a scenic overlook along the Thruway, which carries 16 million people a year, by 2010. In contrast with largely unaltered, million-acre watersheds in the West or Alaska, Montezuma relies on an unusual blend of bulldozers and biologists.
“It seems the more natural the landscape is, the less extreme one needs to be in the management,” Jasikoff said. “If we could restore the whole ecosystem, then you’re talking about shutting the Thruway down, closing the canal, rerouting Conrail and underground pipelines. You’re talking 400 years of development here. It’s impossible.”
And yet wildlife is proliferating.
“Chemicals in the marsh are a real concern,” Jasikoff said. “But we’re watching the top of the food chain, eagles and ospreys, and they’re just doing wonderful. The birds adapt.”
If you go …
Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge: Entrance to the federal refuge is on Routes 5 &20 between Seneca Falls and Auburn; www.fws.gov/r5mnwr or 315-568-5987.
Hours: Sunrise to sunset, year-round. Admission, parking free.
Visitor’s center: Open from April 1 to Nov. 30, 10 a.m.-to-3 p.m. on weekdays, 10 a.m.-to-4 p.m. weekends. Fall bird migration through November; some birds remain in winter. Take the New York State Thruway to Exit 41 and follow signs to the federal refuge entrance on Routes 5 and 20 in the town of Seneca Falls.
At the state refuge, a new Audubon Nature Center opens in late October off Route 89 near the hamlet of Savannah.
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