The guinea pig is French Creek Wildlife Management Area in Clayton, where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has begun work with an amphibious excavator.
The excavator has pontoons inside the tracks, so it can float and its snowmobile-like rotary cutter chews up the cattails and reopens small channels that have historically existed. The channels allow fish and amphibians to move through the wetland.
"We're looking at different tools," said Irene M. Mazzocchi, wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation Region 6. "We'll evaluate it and other tools and see what works best."
DEC is a partner in the program, which also includes SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, and Ducks Unlimited.
Other possible management tools include building earthen dams and creating bigger open areas, or potholes, in the stream. As those techniques are tried, the agencies will be watching for more species and increased numbers of fish and other animals, including the black tern, an endangered species.
The money for the excavator came from the Fisheries Enhancement, Mitigation, and Research Fund, which was created by the New York Power Authority as a condition of their Federal Energy Regulation Commission license for the St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power Project in Massena.
Money from the fund goes to projects to improve fisheries resources in the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River basin.
"We look strategically for projects up and down the river and into Lake Ontario that will create spawning habitat and improve fisheries," said David A. Stilwell, a field supervisor with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said the Thousand Islands Land Trust and Canadian agencies also are partners in habitat improvement projects.
"We're getting back to what nature would be normally."
The use of hydropower dams on the St. Lawrence has significantly changed the water levels from its natural rhythm. Water is kept artificially high during the summer and continually drawn down during the winter.
"It's the complete reverse of the normal cycle," said Carl W. Schwartz, state coordinator of the Partners of Fish and Wildlife Program at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The regulation of water stimulates the solid stands of cattails."
Cattails are the one species that tolerates the unnatural water levels. As a result, 80 percent of the vegetation found in French Creek Wildlife Management Area is cattail. French Creek WMA covers 2,265 acres and includes about 51/2 miles of French Creek, which empties into French Creek Bay on the St. Lawrence River. The dense growth limits fish spawning area and other wildlife populations.
Normally, muskrat eat cattail, controlling its population. A portion of a muskrat lodge is above water, but they dive under to swim and feed. When water levels drop abruptly, muskrats are frozen out of their homes. This happens with the use of hydropower dams.
"The lack of diversity in plants leads to a lack of diversity in animals," Mr. Schwartz said.
The service is excavating now because there are fewer people around and it won't interfere with fish spawning, bird nesting or muskrats. The excavator was built by Wetland Equipment Company in Thibodaux, La., and is the first in Northern New York. Similar excavators are used elsewhere in the state and country.
The agencies developed a plan of about a mile of channels to excavate, based on the historic pictures they have and survey data collected. Ducks Unlimited staked out the channels and a few shallow pools.
SUNY-ESF Thousand Islands Biological Station will continue to monitor northern pike and muskellunge with its St. Lawrence River watershed spring and summer surveys.
Charles W. Curry, research support specialist at the station, said the station surveys look for numbers, size and health of the fish. That data will help the agencies determine what technique to use up and down the watershed.
"We've got a good amount of historic data," he said. The station has done fish surveys for about 20 years.
The service will loan out the excavator for use in other areas.
Ms. Mazzocchi said, "If it works here, we want to use it in other places, too."
