Ichauway

There are places that remain frozen in time. Places untouched by modernity from all outward appearance. More often than not, these are places where the land is healthy and there are right relationships between people and the land they occupy. One such place is found, however unlikely it may seem, deep within the hinterlands of Baker County, in the southwest Georgia Coastal Plain. This is the sort of place that I never expected to experience. Somehow, my work as an agricultural scientist of pecan trees opened this door for me on a bright, cool winter day in early February.

The Jones Center at Ichauway is situated on 29,000 acres of longleaf pine forest nestled along Ichawaynochaway Creek and the Flint River. Ichauway was established in the 1920’s as the quail hunting reserve of Robert W. Woodruff, who led Coca Cola throughout most of the 20^th Century.  Woodruff was widely recognized as an avid sportsman and outdoorsman. Quail hunting was his passion and he was smart enough to understand that the birds he loved hunting depended on a unique blend of natural resources and the relationships between the land and its people.

At the time, farms of all sizes in the rural south were composed of many small fields, fencelines, and brushy field edges amid patches of timberland. It was the result of a specific type of small-scale agriculture, which persisted, though in a declining state, on a fairly wide scale throughout the region into the early to mid 1980’s. This type of agriculture emphasized the second half of that word, “culture” in that entire communities and their resulting economies were based upon its members’ relationships with the land and each other. The leisure pursuits of these people centered around the land as well, mostly in the form of hunting and fishing. Those relationships held the community together.

 Such places were readily found into the 1990’s in South Georgia. But, by then modernity was catching up to the region’s agriculture, bringing with it changes like larger equipment requiring the removal of fencerows, the consolidation of the many small fields into large fields to clear the way for center pivot irrigation. The small wooded blocks of land were removed, and with them, the strands that held these farms together, including quite a bit of wildlife habitat, most notably that preferred by the bobwhite quail. All in the name of efficiency. Farming and timber are still important to many of these communities, as is hunting and fishing. The ties remain but, just as with farming, that relationship between the people and the land in terms of hunting and fishing has been commercialized to varying extents. For this, and many other reasons, the fabric of most of these communities is held together loosely, if at all.

               One place where you can still see the landscape of that lost world and, in many ways, a community connected to the land, is the Jones Center at Ichauway. But, this place doesn’t exist today by chance. It is intentional. Upon Woodruff’s death in 1985, having no heirs, the board of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation sought out the advice of prominent conservationists, ecologists and natural resource experts such as Dr. Eugene Odum of the University of Georgia, about what to do with Woodruff’s beloved Ichauway. What they settled on became the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center, named for Woodruff’s longtime associate and senior Vice President of Coca Cola, Joseph W. Jones.

               The Jones Center is a unique non-profit organization devoted to studying the landscape of this part of the world and how it can be protected, utilized, and conserved in the midst of the agriculture that dominates the landscape and economies of the region. The Center employs 8 full-time scientists studying the region’s hydrology, streams, landscape ecology, wildlife, and plants. The facility and its people host and conduct educational and outreach programs, serving as an incomparable resource for the entire south Georgia community.

               I was invited, along with a few pecan farmers, by one of these scientists, Dr. Jeff Cannon, a landscape ecologist, to come along on a quail hunt and a discussion of a project he and I are working on together examining the effects of hurricanes and tropical storms on pecan trees. One of the most special things about Ichauway is that parts of the place are preserved much as they were in Woodruff’s day, including an old single lane iron bridge over the Ichawaynochaway creek, an old country store, and Woodruff’s own house. Upon arrival, I was surprised to learn that we would be spending the night in the Woodruff house.

               The house is a somewhat modest but very nice, cottage style house with white clapboard boards and green shingled roof, the front porch enclosed by a screen porch, and another off the back. Inside, the furnishings were left as they were in Woodruff’s day, all finely and tastefully decorated without a lot of clutter. There is a large, colorful, artistically drawn map of Ichauway on the wall of the living room, decorated with the images of the local wildlife—deer, quail, turkeys, doves, otters, owls, opossums, racoons, mockingbirds, beavers, and cardinals. But, it also displayed images of the people, crops, and animals of the farm—lumbermen, horses, bird dogs, peacocks, guinea hens, hounds, plowmen, a sheaf of wheat, a stalk of corn, melons, hogs, bass, and catfish. It is a map, not only of the land itself, but of the life of the place, and to me, it represents that vision of community I mentioned earlier. We ate two fine meals at the antique dining table. There was a recreation room with walls lined in heart pine and black and white photos of friends, family, farm workers, dog handlers, and distinguished guests like President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

               For me, the greatest treasures found in the entire house were the books lining the shelves of the living room. These are Woodruff’s own books on topics ranging from business to history, literature, biography, art, agriculture, plants, birds, trees, fishing, and hunting. It reminded me of my own library. I recognized a number of titles I owned and others I would like to own. There was a first edition copy of Hemingway’s “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, a collection of Georgia Outdoor writer, Charlie Elliott’s work, one of which was signed by the author and inscribed to Woodruff from former President Jimmy Carter and dated from 1974 when he was still a state Senator. There was Tom Lea’s classic two volume masterpiece on the King Ranch, Ferrol Sams’s “Run With the Horsemen”, Gene Hill’s “Mostly Tailfeathers”, Isaac Walton’s The Compleat (sic) Angler, the artwork of Frederic Remington and George Catlin, signed editions of pioneering quail biologist and fire ecologist Herbert Stoddard’s classic doorstop work on the Bobwhite Quail, Stoddard’s biography, and much, much more.

               I awoke early the next morning and before most of the others were out of their rooms I browsed the shelves yet again and found a first edition copy of Aldo Leopold’s “Game Management”, a book I have been seeking for a long time. I sat down before the fireplace and spent the next 30-45 minutes enthralled with the first book of it’s kind. As it came time for breakfast I had to give up my reading but felt rewarded for my early rising.

After breakfast we made our way out among the longleaf pines and wiregrass. I slipped my left foot into a stirrup and slung my right leg over a dapple grey horse, named Buckshot. Our party set out into the cool morning and warming rays of February sunshine. I rode next to one of the natural resource managers of Ichauway, David Sisson, and tried as best I could to steer the conversation toward their quail management practices. I was curious about the lengths they go to in order to keep quail on the land. It is a dream of mine, foolish as it may be, to see bobwhite quail return to the small farms of south Georgia, or at the very least to my own farm. I asked David about their burning practices, size of their food plots and what they planted. I asked about hunting pressure, predators and supplemental feeding. I asked these questions of them because one of the main reasons Ichauway exists today is because of bobwhite quail and if anyone knows what the birds need and how to make the land suitable for them, it is this group of people.

               It wasn’t long into the ride before my faith in their knowledge was validated by bird dogs pointing one covey after another. I dismounted, we flushed the birds, I picked one out, pulled the trigger of my Beretta over and under twice and the birds kept flying. This scene repeated itself over and over. Within the first hour we saw 6 coveys. Yes, six coveys. Unless you have tried hunting wild quail anytime since perhaps the 1970’s, you may not understand how astonishing this is. As I grew up bird hunting on our farm in the 80’s and 90’s, six coveys was considered a phenomenol day, and we had seen that many in the first hour.

               Through my conversation with David, I learned that patch burning is important at Ichauway. This creates a shifting mosaic of burned and un-burned areas in the landscape for diversity of habitat. Many of these are burned on a two year rotation, with about 60-70% of the land burned annually. Quail aren’t very good at scratching through leaf litter or maneuvering in thick brush. Burning removes the thick undergrowth. Following a burn, the resulting plant growth teems with insects on which the birds feed. The abundant new growth flowers profusely, producing seeds for later consumption. The native grasses and forbs flourish under the canopy of longleaf pines.

As our day continued, I marveled at the sheer volume of bobwhite quail. There was no mistaking these were wild birds. The dog handlers did not know exactly where the birds would be as they do on shooting preserves where quail are released an hour before the hunt. With released birds, you often have to literally kick the birds into the air with your foot. They are reluctant to fly and generally do so for only short distances. These birds were not always patient for us to reach them before flushing. They flew for long distances. And they did so very quickly, bobbing and weaving, showcasing their mastery of survival.

               I won’t tell you my success rate that day. I shot at least a box of shells. For it, I was rewarded with the fine aroma of gun powder lingering in the air, but left few feathers floating. Thankfully, the pleasure of that day was not dependent upon the number of birds taken. Rather, it was found in the number of birds seen and in being out on the land itself. By end of day, we had seen a total of 35 coveys of bobwhite quail. I didn’t know that was even possible.

               The longleaf pine ecosystem of Ichauway is remarkable in that it supports not only bobwhite quail but a host of other unique plants, animals, and geophysical services. There are the gopher tortoises, indigo snakes, fox squirrels, flatwoods salamanders, pocket gophers, Bachman’s sparrows, and endangered plants like American chaffseed. Scientists at the Jones Center have recently demonstrated that the frequently burned, open longleaf pine landscapes of places like Ichauway have a lower evapotranspiration rate compared to other types of woodlands and actually increase stream flows in the area. One of the results of such a healthy watershed is that the stretch of Ichawaynochaway creek and the Flint River running through the property is full of native mussel species.

During the day’s ride, we saw towering longleaf pine trunks coated with sap dripping from the resin wells constructed around cavities created by red-cockaded woodpeckers, the only woodpecker that excavates cavities exclusively in living pine trees. They choose old, mature trees infected with the red-heart fungus to make their work easier. Still, it may take them up to three years to excavate a new hole, so they live in clans of a breeding pair and one to four male offspring who act as helpers until they can find their own territory and excavate their own cavities. The sap dripping from around the cavities accumulates in a sticky covering that is said to deter snakes and other predators from invading the nest. This gives the trees the appearance of a massive dripping wax candle. All of these valuable components are held together by management of the landscape, a specific and healthy ecosystem, instead of management for individual species.

In light of the overall benefit to the landscape that managing this land in the way Ichauway does provides, I was left pondering what I learned from the game manager in our discussions. I was rolling over in my head the intensity of the management required now to bring these numbers of bobwhite quail to the land. Populations that seemed to just happen as an accidental by-product 100 years ago on every small farm in the southern United States still exist here, with much effort. In many ways the habitat on a lot of farms , while perhaps not as good as that of Ichauway, appears, on the surface, to be sufficient to hold more birds than most currently do. Many people manage their land with the birds in mind, but still, its rare to see such populations of bobwhite quail. I don’t know exactly what the missing link is, but I think, in more ways than one, it is related to the entire shift in how we use and view the land. Undoubtably, it is something of which we have upset the balance.

               Part of Ichauway’s success is the expensive supplemental feeding program they provide for the birds in lean times in addition to the plethora of food plots and wild food they encourage on the land. This keeps the birds from having to take chances out in the open to feed and reduces the energy they must expend to gather it. One thing my mind returns to is the population of bird predators out there today—those that feed on nests, young, and adult birds are perhaps even higher now than they’ve ever been.

               We have shifted the landscape of the southern countryside from one of small patchy fields, woodlands, and brushy edges to one of dense woodlands, much of it monoculture slash and loblolly pine, large, open agricultural lands with clean field edges, and the ever-creeping suburban mix of subdivisions and shopping malls. That’s part of it. But, that’s not the whole story. These habitats we’ve created are not only inhospitable to quail and most of the other unique inhabitants of the longleaf pine system, but they encourage populations of raccoons, opossums, armadillos, feral hogs, bobcats, domestic cats, and other predators. One hundred years ago people lived closer to the land. Almost everyone living in the countryside worked the land growing crops, and/or timber, spent their leisure time fishing, hunting, and trapping. As a result, many predators were removed and their populations never reached the levels we see now. I am not advocating a war on predators by any means. Predators have a key role in a healthy ecosystem. I’m simply looking for what has changed. Even before our meddling, the land provided a give and take in the populations of predators and prey that had a way of keeping both in check. To me, the fate of the bobwhite quail remains a symptom of our broken relationship with the land itself.

               While riding Buckshot over that wiregrass paradise and bearing witness to its richness of bobwhite quail, it was not the life nor lifestyle of Robert Woodruff, nor his wealthy and influential friends and guests that filled my thoughts. I found myself considering that old worn book by Aldo Leopold I had browsed from Woodruff’s library that morning. I found myself considering my own work that had brought me this magnificent opportunity. Both are encapsulated by the same thing my mind wanders to in National Parks, along mountain streams with a fly rod in hand, in a kayak or on a dock fishing for bream or crappie in Limestone Creek, and in the woods and fields of my own farm. A thought stemming from the words Aldo Leopold wrote nearly 100 years ago in the preface to game management, “We of the industrial age boast control over nature. Plant or animal, star or atom, wind or river—there is no force in earth or sky which we will not shortly harness to build ‘the good life’ for ourselves. But what is the good life? Is all this glut of power to be used for only bread and butter ends? Man cannot live by bread or Fords, alone. Are we too poor in purse or spirit to apply some of it to keep the land pleasant to see and good to live in?”