Category Archives: Outdoor/Nature

Some of the Allred Lake Natural Area’s bald cypress trees (shown here) are estimated to be over 500 years old. Photo: MDC.

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) invites Missourians and visitors to explore Allred Lake Natural Area (NA) — home to one of the best remaining examples of lowland swamp and bottomland forest habitat in the state.

Located in the Bootheel region of Missouri, the area spans a diverse and ecologically rich landscape, including a 76-acre portion designated as a Missouri Natural Area. This designation recognizes the area’s exceptional educational and scientific value, and MDC actively manages the site to preserve its unique plant and animal communities.

“Allred Lake is a rare and beautiful reminder of the swampy wilderness that once covered much of southeastern Missouri,” said MDC Conservation Agent Clarissa Stroder. “It’s an outstanding place for nature study, birding, and quiet appreciation of some of the state’s oldest natural features.”

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Photo courtesy the Missouri Department of Conservation.

As Missouri families head outdoors to enjoy the beauty of summer, the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) is reminding everyone to appreciate wildlife from a distance and keep wild animals wild.

With warmer weather, you may encounter young wildlife such as racoons, baby birds, rabbits, and other animals that may appear to be orphaned or abandoned.

“Human interference, even with good intentions, can often do more harm than good,” said Russell Duckworth, MDC protection regional supervisor. “It’s natural to want to help when you see a baby animal alone. But what many people don’t realize is that in most cases, the young are not abandoned, and their mothers are usually nearby, watching and waiting for humans to leave so they can safely return.”

MDC reminds the public that picking up, feeding, or attempting to care for wild animals not only disrupts their natural behaviors but may also violate state wildlife laws.

“Missouri law prohibits the possession of many species of wild animals without a valid permit,” said Duckworth. “Removing a wild animal from its environment can lead to serious consequences for both the animal and the person. It’s also important to remember that wild animals can carry diseases and parasites that pose risks to people and pets.”

MDC recommends observing wildlife from afar, since wild animals can become dangerous as they mature. Although it is tempting to take them into homes, the best help people can offer wild animals is to leave them alone. It’s also best to secure trash and avoid feeding wildlife.

“When people feed wild animals, either directly or by leaving out pet food or unsecured garbage, they’re encouraging unnatural behaviors that can lead to animals becoming aggressive or dependent,” said Bridget Jackson, MDC regional recreational use specialist. “It’s essential that wild animals remain wary of humans for their own safety.”

To help Missourians better understand how to responsibly interact with nature, MDC offers educational materials, public workshops, and online resources at mdc.mo.gov.

If you encounter wildlife that may be injured or truly orphaned, contact your local MDC office before taking any action.

“The best way to help wildlife is to let wild animals stay wild,” added Jackson. “Observing nature is a wonderful part of summertime in Missouri. By keeping our distance and respecting wildlife, we can all play a part in conserving the state’s natural heritage.”

For more information about Missouri wildlife or to report concerns about wild animals, visit MDC online at mdc.mo.gov or contact your local MDC office.

Saint Louis County is excited to announce the birth of two bison calves at Lone Elk Park. The two calves were born overnight on May 6, 2025.

The arrival of the calves marks the beginning of a new chapter for the park’s bison herd and a special opportunity for visitors to witness native wildlife in action.

The reddish-orange calves can be seen trailing closely behind their mothers in the bison pasture. While the new arrivals are a heartwarming sight, park officials urge visitors to remain in their vehicles and observe all wildlife from a safe distance.

“These calves are a sign of a healthy herd and a successful habitat,” said Pat Curry, Park Supervisor at Lone Elk Park. “They’ll spend the next few months bonding with their mothers and gradually gaining independence. It’s a special time for the herd, and we’re thrilled to share it with the public.”

Lone Elk Park is a unique, free drive-through wildlife experience operated by St. Louis County Parks and Recreation. It is home to bison, elk, deer, and other native species. The park is open daily from 8 a.m. to sunset.

Visitors are welcome to enjoy the park’s scenic views but are reminded to follow all posted guidelines and avoid approaching or feeding wildlife.

All photos provided by Charlie Hoessle.

by Don Corrigan

Travelers over the Mississippi River from Missouri to Illinois are greeted with a billboard urging them to drive 140 miles to see the white squirrels. Charlie Hoessle can visit with the albino critters right in his south St. Louis County backyard.

Hoessle is best known to St. Louisans for his past work as director of the St. Louis Zoo. In that position, he became familiar with deadly snakes of Asia, lumbering giraffes from Africa, and poisonous frogs of South America – as well as other exotic animals.

Now retired, Hoessle is content these days with simply tracking the feisty squirrels in his Sunset Hills neighborhood. However, these are not just your average, ordinary, run-of-the-mill squirrels. These are the relatively rare white squirrels of North America.

Hoessle has no need to travel miles to see his favorite white squirrels. He can just amble out the back door of his home.

“We have had white squirrels in our back yard for about five or 6 years now,  but not always the same ones,” said Hoessle. “The first one I named ‘Spirit.’ He was a daily visitor to my patio bird feeder.”

Hoessle has a fond place in his heart for ‘Spirit.’ However, he welcomes the new white squirrels to his location, and he often has his camera or cell phone ready to snap pictures of the bushy tails.

“I loved Spirit because he was not afraid of me,” said Hoessle. “He loved to bask on our crab apple tree and just relax. Sometimes I spread cracked corn on my patio for him.”

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by Don Corrigan

Rowan Herr, a junior at Kirkwood High School, reeled in a third place finish in a C-SPAN documentary competition for students. Herr also netted a $750 cash award for his environmental video efforts.

“I got interested in the topic of invasive carp because I am big on fishing,” said Herr. “I don’t want them messing with my fishing in the Lake of the Ozarks. I don’t want them in the lakes.”

The C-SPAN competition asked students to explore and analyze matters of personal, local or national importance by addressing this year’s theme — “Your Message to the President: What issue is most important to you or your community?”

Herr said he realizes invasive carp may not be an important concern for many people, but the issue might raise more concern if people knew how fast the fish are multiplying and damaging the ecology.

“I talked to experts at the Missouri Department of Conservation and I talked to the Missouri Coastal Fisheries,” explained Herr. “They are alarmed and they gave me good information.”

Herr used that information to make the case that invasive carp, with their voluminous appetites, are taking over lakes and streams and destroying the ecosystem for other underwater creatures.

Greg Trial, who heads Missouri Coastal Fisheries, reviewed Herr’s six-minute documentary after it won recognition. He calls it “spot-on” and praises it for raising the alarm about invasives.

“Mr. Herr makes a valuable point at the end of the film: In the six-minutes that the documentary ran, 2,613,895 young and hungry carp have entered the waterways,” said Trial. “I think that shows how overwhelming the problem is that we face.”

Photo by MDC Staff, courtesy Missouri Department of Conservation.

Trial said that what makes those numbers all the more staggering is the fact that carp eat two-thirds of their body weight every day, putting tremendous stress on other fish species.

Carp are a problem not only for native aquatic life, but for boaters. Asian carp tend to feed at the water’s surface and are very easily disturbed. When agitated by a boat propeller or even a sculler’s oar, they can jump up to 10 feet in the air.

Certain times of year when they are spawning, the Asian carp will jump out of the rivers. They’ve jumped in boats before, and they’ve given boaters bloody noses and more serious injuries.

“They’re a nuisance species,” said Trial. “But they are much more than that. 2025 is going to be a horrible year in the Midwest for carp causing issues and difficulties in river environments.

“We had so much spring flooding this year, and that has spread carp all over the place,” explained Trial. “The conditions for their spawning this spring are prime.”

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By Don Corrigan

Photo: MDC

Coyote sighting photos have been finding their way onto Facebook sites in the St. Louis area. If you want to know why the wily coyotes are now appearing in abundance, blame it on … cicadas. Cicadas?

“This is an exceptional year for seeing coyotes on the landscape,” said Erin Shank. “This is due to the cicada emergence last spring, which produced plentiful food resources. This has led to high survival rates for coyotes and many other species.

Photo: MDC

In other words, many critters enjoyed some ready-made dinners – feasting on literally billions of cicadas last year. Among the many diners were coyotes and their pups who benefited from a banner year of bountiful bugs in 2024.

“The most important item to stress now is to not feed the coyotes, whether on purpose or inadvertently,” said Shank, a once-familiar face at Powder Valley Nature Center in Kirkwood.

These days Shenk spends a lot of her time at Busch Wildlife Center. She works there as the St. Louis Region Community and Private Land Conservation Unit Supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Shenk has a soft spot for coyotes, but she concedes their presence in St. Louis suburbs can become problematic, especially if they become aggressive. They should not be fed.

“The cicadas are gone, but coyotes are here and they’re very opportunistic eaters. They’ll feast on anything from pet food to trash,” said Shank. “Fed coyotes have a much higher tendency to become a nuisance.”

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by Don Corrigan

In a March 1 talk that focused on oak trees in Missouri and Illinois, arborist Guy Sternberg introduced an audience at the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center to the term “global destabilization.”

The term “global destabilization” is closely related to the crisis of global warming and destructive climate change. While human awareness of the destructive impacts of global warming is growing, the will to address warming and climate change is woefully inadequate.

Hence, we get “global destabilization,” which means over-heated land masses and urban cores, destruction of plant and animal life, the creation of super-cell storms, mass migrations – and the strife that results from mass relocations of people.

Trees figure into all of this. Trees suffer immensely from the destruction of plant and animal life, from the loss of habitat, from the loss of the many pollinators that make their existence possible.

Wildfires are nothing new, but increasing climate destabilization has made their ferocity and frequency unprecedented. Whole forests of trees have been lost to these fires leaving terrible scars upon the land.

Trees also suffer from global warming because it brings the migration of insect pests into areas where they have never thrived before. Some pests wreak havoc on particular species of trees, which can have catastrophic consequences.

Although trees are victims, they also can be the heroes in the growing crisis of global warming and climate change. This is because trees can mitigate the harmful effects of climate change.

Restoring lost trees is important to slowing the climate change crisis. CO2 emissions are a major culprit in climate change. Trees capture CO2 from the atmosphere and store the carbon in their leaves, stems and roots – eventually increasing the carbon stored in soil.

Six million trillion trees once grew on Earth. Humans have cut down half of them. Restoring trees and forests can achieve much in the growing climate crisis. New tree plantings and forests can help us avoid the loss of plant and animal species that call forests home.

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