Dugout Creek. The Last of its Kind.
- Green Iowa AmeriCorps
- May 6
- 4 min read
Nick Blocha
We hike in on the pasture land, green and brown with bare, trodden Earth. A stark difference to the still yellow, brown, and tan of the native grasses just across the wire fence. On our side, the walking is easy. The hills and valleys like tennis balls with white, bladed pillars, wind turbines, rising on the distant horizon. Cow patties spatter the path scored by single file lines of hooves. Flies buzz around the boots of our waders and up to our heads.
Blackbirds perch in the short trees across the fence line, spying us and the bugs as we march along to the intersection of Dugout Creek where we will find our two first Blanding’s turtles on the day’s telemetry trek. We stop at the hill just before the water, where our pastured side erodes into dirt and muck while the prairie holds the soil strong against the waterway. I turn on the box with the flick of a switch and tune the dials into our frequency 024.
CHIRP! cries the box hanging at my hip. The wired antenna I hold over my head has found the radio previously placed on our turtle. We knew she was in the area, but for the sake of the project, as well as the sake of the survival of these endangered species, we should see where she is, or get as close as we can. Jordan and I crossed the fence where the soil was carved down enough to duck under the wires and moved closer to the bend where I believed the turtle to be.
Dugout Creek is uniquely amazing. It’s one of the only streams and creeks in the state of Iowa which has not been rerouted, straightened, nor tilled over, and has been allowed to continue to follow the natural rhythm it is urged to follow by whatever force urges water to flow. To me, it’s no coincidence that the Blanding’s turtles have survived here, and are endangered throughout the rest of Iowa. Dugout is no large stretch of creek either. Comparatively to other, similar water flows maybe it can be seen as large, as it’s still a unique formation, but relative to the rest of the state, the land, the waterways, Dugout is but a few small, square plots of map drawn out of the Iowan grid, which has stayed dedicated to being wild. As wild as it can get out here.
We work with Drew Howing, a professor at the Lakes Community College. He heads the project, and ultimately is the force keeping track of the last of these endangered species, which we know about, here in the state. For now, in my role as a data collection assistant and AmeriCorps member, I still only find their approximate location. In winter the Blanding’s turtles hibernate under the water. Along the banks the creek creates pockets under the brush where turtles can bed down and rest. It’s in the coming weeks now of spring where they’ll start to creep onto land looking for food, a warm wetland to bask in the sun, as well as a mate and a safe place to lay their eggs.
In the summer, more of our Green Iowa members and Lakeside Interns will head the effort, trekking out daily on the expeditions to follow these little creatures into corn fields, across the hills and through what expanse of marshlands Dugout and the surrounding DNR managed areas can provide. It is places like these, and projects such as this that may seem irrelevant to some, but I see the importance of this. With Iowa being the state whose landscape has changed the most by human development, Dugout is significant, in its shape and the fact that this is where the Blanding’s turtles continue. This corner of the state has some of the most and largest stretches of conservation in the sense of land, dedicated to being as similar to what it might have been before Europeans came in and tilled the soil. It is not lost on me as I stand on the fence line between two worlds, a stark split of green and yellowed tan, with the sky painted above in whisps and plods of white and blue.
About The Author
Nick Blocha is serving as a Land and Water Steward via Green Iowa AmeriCorps at the Iowa Lakeside Labs (ILL) in Milford, Iowa. Sister lab to the state hygienists in Iowa City, ILL analyzes water samples from around the state, hosts researchers and students, artists and writers, and aids in a number of environmental and community efforts with a multitude of partnering organizations and government agencies.
With a background in the arts and storytelling, and as a long-time environmental enthusiast, Nick grew up as a barefoot hippie in the woods of North Carolina and Atlanta, and values the service they can provide and assist with via the GIA program. Nick seeks to focus on the spaces where human society and nature intersect and coexist in harmony.
