May 1994
the monthly newsletter for people who live, work or play on the Upper Mississippi River
Fish for the Future By Lee Kernen
Vol. 2, No. 5
$2
Earthen Pyramids Mark Ancient Outpost
American pioneers were overwhelmed
By Reggie McLeod
with the abundance of timber, fish and wildlife they found in North America, and many thought these resources were inexhaustible. They never dreamed that all the big pine could be cut or that all the elk could disappear. Great Lakes commercial fisherman continued intensive harvests, even as they saw the number of fish declining. No one thought of harvesting natural resources at a rate that would allow an annual harvest, as we do today. We call this sustainability. It is the long-term management of a resource that allows an annual harvest without weakening or losing the resource base for future generations. Instead of shooting a million deer in one year and then closing the season, wildlife managers issue tags that allow hunters to shoot the number of deer each year that keeps the statewide herd at a sustainable level. The Department of Natural Resources uses similar management techniques for timber and fish. The key to this type of management is to know how much harvest a resource can take. Foresters, for example,
a great city near the Mississippi River. It covered nearly five square miles. A wooden palisade protected 200 acres of the heart of the city. Estimates of its population range from 10,000 to more than 30,000. At the time, it was one of the largest cities in the world, probably bigger than London, Paris or Rome. Today, from the top of a 100-foot high mound, shaped like a pyramid with a flat top, one can look west across the bottoms and the river to see the St. Louis Arch. We don't know who built the mound, but we've dubbed their culture Middle Mississippian. We don't know what they called their city, but we call it Cahokia. We don't know where they came from or why they abandoned Cahokia at about 1300 A.O., but we know they travelled over much of what is now the central United States. They built flat-topped, pyramid-shaped
It still takes about as long to
produce an eight-ounce bluegill as it does a four- to five-year-old trophy buck! know that it takes a clear-cut aspen stand about 40 years to regenerate and be of harvestable size again - they call this a 40-year cutting cycle. Wildlife managers deal with much shorter cycles. A deer can grow from a tiny spotted fawn to a 120-pound (Future Fish continued on page 3)
A thousand years ago people built
(Mississippians continued on page 2)