Ken Brunswick Bringing Devastated Marshland Back to Life | Voice of America - English
Ken Brunswick is dedicated to repairing one small link in a broken environmental chain that has left the United States with only about half of the number of songbirds it had just 50 years ago. Part of the reason for the decline is the loss of habitat. Deforestation in Central and South America has affected migratory species that spend half the year south of the equator. But here in the United States, changing agricultural practices and increasing levels of forest fragmentation are also to blame.
When Ken Brunswick was a kid, he wanted to study birds. Brunswick grew up nearthe western Ohio town of St. Henry in the 1950s. He says it didn't take long toread all the books about birds in the local library. "Iknew exactly where all the bird books were, because at that time, that's what Ihad my heart set on, being an ornithologist," Brunswick says. Oneof the books that inspired Brunswick was written by Gene Stratton-Porter.She was a popular novelist in the early1900s. Stratton-Porter was best known for her fictional accounts set in andaround an Indiana swamp called the Limberlost. She was also an amateurnaturalist and wrote several books about birds. "I was in the eighth grade in that little two-room schoolhouse reading'What I Have Done With Birds' by Gene Stratton-Porter, and the teacher walkedup to see what book I was reading, and looked at it and the teacher said, 'Youknow that place isn't very far from here.' And I didn't know what she was talkingabout." The Limberlost actuallywas only a few miles west across the state line. Stratton-Porter moved to thearea in 1888. But to the locals, the trees were valuable lumber and the swampwas a waste of land. Stratton-Porter wrote that commerce attacked theLimberlost and began, she said, its usual process of devastation. By 1910, twodecades of destruction were complete. "ThisLoblolly Marsh was what I consider the heart of the Limberlost area and thismarsh was actually the last thing that was drained in this area so the farmerscould start farming it," says Brunswick. Brunswickbecame a farmer himself. He started a dairy only a mile from LoblollyMarsh. Through the years he learned more about the swamp and the birds thatlived there. Laterhe formed the Limberlost Remembered project. The group's mission: to bringLoblolly Marsh back to life. And they've made a lot of headway. Brunswick,who's 63, is retired from farming. He's now an ecologist for the IndianaDepartment of Natural Resources. Its Division of Nature Preserves oversees the Limberlost restoration. Apath near the edge of the marsh is thick with prairie cord grass, switch grassand blue stem. Some of the grasses have been planted here; the seeds of otherplants have lain dormant for decades and are now reclaiming the ground on theirown. Outin the marsh the water is a gentle sea of green, and wildflowers abound aroundthe edges. And the birds are coming back. Brunswick is thrilled to see themreturning to their marsh home. "This is the area where we see American Bittern once in a while," hesays, pointing across the water. "There's been Virginia rail; we hear Sorarail in here also. Sora is just a real little bird that has just the dandiestsound when it makes its call." Thesebirds and others like them are in trouble. Most of the wetlands and prairieswhere birds once thrived have disappeared. Brunswick'sdream of becoming an ornithologist never happened. But his work to save theLimberlost has been his way of doing something for the birds he loves. "Actuallywhen I think about this work I'm doing it takes me back to that dream I hadwhen I was a kid in that two room schoolhouse. That dream of being anornithologist was taken away and here, about 30 years later, seeing this landflooding, I'm seeing birds that, some of them, I never saw before." Andthe work of an old farmer has restored the wetlands and natural areas thatfarmers before him destroyed.