Update on the Spanish Lake Basin:
Alligators Searching for Water Being Killed

06.11.09 - Frank Bonifay and Jim Ragland, owners of Alligator Bayou Tours and founders of Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge, today announced that property owners in the area have called out nuisance hunters to remove alligators migrating out of the drained Spanish Lake Basin. The nuisance hunters have already been forced to kill 30 displaced alligators.

Bonifay and Ragland have repeatedly warned in media interviews that emptying Alligator Bayou, ordered by Iberville Parish President Mitch Ourso in late March, would inevitably kill fish and spur a large-scale wildlife migration as the devastated ecosystem went into shock.

According to Bonifay, a conservationist who has worked for the past 15 years to restore the basin's ecosystem and replenish its wildlife, "We saw and felt the shudder of death as the water disappeared, the earth crusted over, and the animals died or vanished."

In April, water levels were at a healthy four feet, well below the elevations of basin homes and hardwoods, when Iberville's Ourso demanded the draining of the bayou. As the water emptied out, fish swam through the floodgate or died. Without fish to eat, the birds living in the generations-old rookery on Cypress Flats flew away. Migratory birds circled over Cypress Flats, but did not land here to rest and feed.

Today, Alligator Bayou is nothing more than a ditch, and vultures are feeding on the remains of dead animals. As Bonifay and Ragland predicted, the heat of summer and an extended drought are forcing the alligators to search for deeper, cooler waters in ponds on neighboring properties.

Concerned about the fate of the alligators, Ragland has been checking with the local nuisance hunters. "They took away the habitat of these gators and now they are being killed when they look for another place to live," Ragland said angrily. "We put back the namesake of Alligator Bayou and now they are being destroyed.”

Living and working in Bluff Swamp for the past 22 years, Bonifay and Ragland operated an ecotour that taught visitors and school children about the swamp and its wildlife until Ourso drained the swamp, put them out of business, and precipitated this ecological disaster.

"We tried to find common ground with the mitigation banks that threatened to sue Iberville Parish. We have been advocating a water level that keeps the waterways filled but doesn't damage anyone’s property," said Bonifay. "They are intent on draining the bayou to create a different ecosystem to make a lot of money.” The Ascension Parish Drainage Board, voting unanimously on June 1 for a resolution to close the floodgate and let rain refill the basin to four-foot water levels, did understand. But Ourso ignored their resolution.

"The death of these animals is on Ourso's conscience," added Bonifay. "The bayou never needed to be drained. They have killed an ecosystem and devastated its animals for no reason at all."

Bonifay and Ragland see this as a catastrophe and a scar on Louisiana. “We call on people to telephone Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Wildlife & Fisheries to stop this nightmare," added Bonifay. "The bayou never needed to be drained. We have pleaded for the past 15 years for the dredging of the bayou and the installation of new locks at Alligator Bayou. This would provide for a historically documented ecosystem that precedes 50 years. The swamp will dry, the bayou will remain healthy, and the new locks would more quickly evacuate flood waters – a solution for everyone.”

The Alligator Bayou Tours website has just added a link to request donations to the Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge & Botanical Gardens, Inc., a 501 C 3 non-profit, to help with the legal and expert fees anticipated in trying to protect the ecosystem.