VIEW ORIGINAL
VIEW ORIGINAL
VIEW ORIGINAL
Fort Leavenworth Natural Resources Specialist Neil Bass presented “Fort Leavenworth Ecology” for the Friends of the Frontier Army Museum History Talk Oct. 18 at the Frontier Army Museum at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Bass gave a brief history, which included military use of the area and changes to the Missouri River, and some anomalies that have happened in the area regarding species documentation.
Bass said most U.S. military installations have natural resources specialists to handle compliance with natural resources law, such as the Endangered Species and Clean Water acts.
Early military camps
Bass said Fort Leavenworth is best described as the first American military settlement in Kansas, but it was predated by a few other encampments, including the French Fort de Cavagnial from 1744-1764; explorations of Corps of Discovery Expedition Capt. Meriwether Lewis and 2nd Lt. William Clark in 1804, who noted finding remnants of Fort de Cavagnial in their journals; and
Camp Martin from 1818-1826 on what was known as Cow Island, which is now on the Missouri side of river about four miles from the current Fort Leavenworth.
Bass described the purpose of Cow Island was to project American power and to have a military presence in the area.
“Cow Island was still being manned about the time Henry Leavenworth was told to come out west and find a site for Fort Leavenworth,” Bass said. “He surveyed several areas along the Missouri River, I think also along the Kansas River, but decided that this area was the preeminent spot for the fort. Based on the longevity, I think he must’ve been right about that,” Bass said, noting that Fort Leavenworth is the longest continuously active military installation west of the Mississippi River.
Missouri River changes
Bass said the Missouri River, once comprised of many braided channels and sandbars and was shallow enough to wade through and drag a boat, has changed greatly since the days of those early encampments.
“The river at that time (of Lewis and Clark) was not the river we see today,” Bass said. “Since the 1890s, the government has paid for and ordered the Corps of Engineers to maintain navigation on the Missouri River.”
He said due to Corps of Engineers’ work to maintain the river for navigation, the Missouri River is now one main channel, about 100-150 yards across, and is more than nine feet deep and up to more than 100 feet deep in some places.
Bass said before the Corps’ work, flooding would cause great changes in the river.
“This flooding would move the channels around, move side channels around, it would sometimes it would be bluff to bluff, which would be like two miles wide at times, a big sheet of water moving across.”
Bass said the Corps used navigation pile dikes using trees that were being cleared from swamps for agriculture to build up areas using the river’s abundant sediment, which is why the Missouri River is called the “Big Muddy.” He shared an image from 1934 with sandbars and a wide river, and then an image from about 12 years later after the pile dikes had been put into place.
“Those pile dikes slowed down the water, and that water when it was slowed, the sediment drops out, and you can see the sand and sediment piling up behind those dikes. As the sediment drops out, over time, then vegetation starts to grow; that vegetation then further slows down the water. That slowed-down water then drops out more sediment, and thus raising the height of the land and changing the composition. Eventually you get willow trees, other water-loving trees, and eventually trees that don’t even love the water, they are high and dry.”
By the mid-1970s, Bass said those areas had been cleared and were being used for agriculture.
“(The Corps) project and this plan that constricted and constrained the Missouri River … made it really good for agriculture. It also made it good for any land owners, because then you could count on your land being there, because prior to this … the Missouri River could move around,” Bass said, which caused big issues when property owners’ land could end up on the opposite side of the river in another state.
Unique habitat
Bass said Fort Leavenworth has benefitted from the river changes and is larger than it was initially and is comprised of several habitats, including approximately 1,500 acres of flood plain and 2,500 acres of upland forest.
He said the upland forest contains what is probably the finest oak/hickory forest in Kansas and has oak trees more than 100 years old.
“The flood plain is even more unique,” Bass said. “It’s the largest continuous forest left on the Missouri River. Nowhere else can you find one forest track that large, and that is directly due to the fact that the Army has been here since 1827. If not for the Army, that area certainly would have been cleared off and farmed, and if not farmed, turned into city.”
He said the fort’s seven miles of river frontage is the largest unlevied section of Missouri River.
He said having 150 acres of old-growth forest on post is also amazing.
“When you hear ‘Kansas,’ old-growth forest never comes up, that’s something more Pacific Northwest,” he said. He said the old-growth area includes the largest stand of native pecan trees, estimated to be at least 150 years old, growing this far north.
Fauna then and now
Bison and wolves are no longer found on Fort Leavenworth, but Bass said several animal species that are considered rare or needing conservation have been documented on post (such as southern bog lemmings and flying squirrels, both documented on post in 2003) or in adjoining counties. He said the habitat on post is ideal for timber rattlesnakes, for example, but none have been documented here.
Bass said Fort Leavenworth holds the title for having the highest single-day species count of birds in the state of Kansas, with about 140 different species of birds identified in one day.
“The fort is an amazing spot for migratory birds, especially spring migration when you get neo-tropical migrants, those are the birds that migrate from South America to North America, from the Caribbean, South America, up to the Arctic and back.”
He said longtime amateur ornithologist John Schukman has been birding on post so long, he can alert Bass of the location and approximate day a certain species of bird, such as redstarts, will appear on post each year.
Bass said other interesting sightings and projects occur on and near post.
The first wild elk to be recorded in about 150 years was captured on a game camera and tracks seen in 2021. That elk was suspected to have come from a herd at Fort Riley, Kan., or one in southern Leavenworth County. He said the pallid sturgeon, a five-foot-long endangered fish that lives in the Missouri River, is being restocked as fry each year by the Corps, and its numbers are coming back. He thinks the pallid sturgeon will eventually recover and be removed from the endangered list.
Animal anomalies
The western black rat snake was first recorded in Kansas at Cow Island, an Army encampment that predates Fort Leavenworth located about four miles north of post. That section of land was considered Kansas and then Missouri as the river changed and land ownership was sorted out. So, Bass said, the first herptile recorded in Kansas was actually found in an area that is now Missouri.
Bass said there are other anomalies pertaining to where a species was first recorded and why it has not been found there again, such as the spring peeper, a frog documented as being on post in the early days of Fort Leavenworth but hasn’t been found here since. Speculation for the anomaly include that the collection was actually made south of post or the frog rode into post on a wagon or such.
Value of surveys
When asked how much time he gets to spend outdoors, Bass said about 40 percent of his work is onsite, with 60 percent “pushing paper,” a percentage determined during the pandemic when teleworking was necessary.
“That 40 percent is still not me just being able to go out and wander around the woods,” Bass said, noting that he embraces being able to do survey work and pinpointing what species are where on post.
“Surveys — how does that benefit the Army? If we know what is here, we know what we are impacting. And if we know something is not here, then we know we are not impacting it.”
Bass cited the example of the northern long-eared bat, a species found on post several years ago that is classified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as endangered.
“The surveys that we do show the Fish and Wildlife Service and the state regulatory agencies that we are looking for them and they aren’t here, so, say we need to knock down some trees for a new development … we don’t have (that species), and so it is a lot less regulatory encumbrance on us because I can say ‘I have six years of studies that say there are no northern long-eared bats in that location.’”
Bass’s full FFAM History Talk can be found on the Friends of the Frontier Army Museum Facebook page.
The time/date for the November FFAM History Talk is yet to be determined. Check the Frontier Army Museum Facebook page for updated information.
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