YOUR LIFE BY THE POSEY COUNTY NEWS ASSISTANT PROPERTY MANAGER SCOTT AND PROPERTY MANAGER
MCCORMICK MARK POCHON
Z.STRAW
HOVEY LAKE FISH & WILDLIFE AREA
8,000 ACRES OF NATURAL BEAUTY Z.STRAW
MOTHER NATURE
hasn’t made work easy for Property Manager Mark Pochon and Assistant Property Manager Scott McCormick at the Hovey Lake Fish and Wildlife Area. A great equalizer, Mother Nature flooded the Hovey Lake FWA offices last spring just as surely as she did the nearby homes in Point Township. It wasn’t the first time. “Our office building opened in 1976,” Pochon states. “We’ve had water in the building at least five times since then, each time deeper than the time before. Last year, the flooding left too much structural damage for repair.” The damage, combined with increasingly restrictive building codes, forced the offices to relocate. Visitors will find Pochon and McCormick now in a trailer used formerly by the Federal Emergency Management Association, or FEMA. The managers are proud their two-member staff has built railed ramps into the trailer, rendering it handicapped accessible. They are expecting signs any day to mark their new location at 15800 Raben Road, just north of J.T. Myers Locks & Dam. In spite of Mother Nature’s treatment, Pochon and McCormick continue to look after her interests. Including a recent land acquisition, Hovey Lake Fish and Wildlife Area now spreads out over nearly 8,000 acres, including the 1,400-acre Hovey Lake, in the Ohio River and Wabash River floodplains here in extreme southwest Indiana. As McCormick points outs, Hovey Lake FWA is the oldest, if not the largest, fish and wildlife preserve in the state. The Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, website (www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild) provides an overview of its long history: “It was ceded to the state in treaties of 1803 and 1809 and designated as swampland. The land was then granted to the Wabash and Erie Canal Company. During the 1880’s it became the property of Charles J. Hovey. The Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife began acquiring this property in 1940. Additional lands were acquired at other times through purchase or lease from the Army Corps of Engineers.” In fact, Pochon relates that Hovey Lake FWA has just completed a wetlands project with the Army Corps of Engineers, who provided 75 percent of the funding. An additional wetlands project is scheduled later this year. Hovey Lake FWA receives most of its funding, however, from the sale of hunting, fishing and trapping licenses as well as from the federal Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson programs. Pochon explains that the federal programs levy taxes on sport hunting and fishing equipment. Income is generated also through the lease to local tenant farmers of some 2,000 acres, both in the bottoms and in the uplands, of Hovey Lake FWA. (The DNR farms 200 to 300 acres at Hovey Lake FWA, but leaves all the crops in the field for wildlife to eat.) In addition, staff members at Hovey Lake FWA stay busy yearround with any number of projects to sustain wildlife. They build structures, for example, to house mallard ducks and birds, rabbits and even fish. They conduct wildlife surveys and counts to keep track of such wildlife as the bald eagles now present in three nesting sites at Hovey Lake FWA. They work to protect endangered species. They educate area university students. They welcome annual archaeological expeditions from Indiana University. All Hovey Lake FWA staff members are locally born and raised and bring many years of experience to their positions. Pochon alone has served the state for over 30 years, most of them at Hovey, where he started as Assistant Property Manager in 1983. McCormick built his career in fish and wildlife preservation also, before coming to Hovey Lake FWA as Assistant Property Manager in 2006. Retiring at the end of July, Fred Bebout will count 36 years solely at Hovey Lake FWA while Donnie Hast will stay to add to his 30 years of experience at the Hovey location. Pochon hopes the future will bring a new building complex for Hovey Lake FWA – somewhere out of the flood plain – in a location with easy public access and parking. Fickle Mother Nature may fulfill Pochon’s hopes sooner than he expects if drought conditions continue this year. STORY BY PAM ROBINSON LAYOUT AND DESIGN BY ZACH STRAW
DOVE BANDING
BRYCE KRIZAN, MITCHELL VEEK, & JD COLLINS
FISHING AT HOVEY LAKE
BALD CYPRESS
PJ ARANT
PADDLEFISH
BUCKS IN VELVET