Historically, over a hundred species found
nowhere else in the world, including turtles, snails, crustaceans,
and acquatic insects, lived within the drainage basin. The
Delta, as the common point of passage for rivers flowing
across the basin, was home range for many of these species.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century
the vast wilderness along the Mobile, Tensaw, and lower
Tombigbee and Alabama rivers was the last stand for our
three big mammals: whitetail deer, black bear, and panther.
North America’s largest woodpecker, the ivorybill,
also nested here. As the great southern forests were cleared
for lumber and agriculture, the Delta became a refuge and
a last hope for survival for these and other species.
“The only part of the State where
deer are still abundant is in the big wooded swamps of the
lower Tensaw and Mobile Rivers. In that region a number
are killed during the open season every fall. They are hunted
with dogs, each hunter selecting a “stand,”
where he remains in expectation that the deer will pass
within range of his gun—usually a shotgun loaded with
buckshot. The deer take readily to the water and swim easily
from one island to another in this great swamp.”
“Bears doubtless ranged all over
Alabama in early times, but at present are exterminated
everywhere except in the swamps of the southern counties.
In the big swamps bordering the Tensaw and Mobile Rivers
they are still common and a number are killed there every
fall. A.J. McIntyre, of Carlton, is reported to have killed
in recent years over 100 bears and to have caught 10 cubs.”
--A. H. Howell, 1921. Mammals of Alabama.
Where are they now? Those Delta whitetails
later became the breeding stock upon which much of Alabama’s
wildly successful deer recovery was founded. Fortunately,
some bears still remain, and the newly formed Alabama Black
Bear Alliance is an organization working to keep them from
going the way of the panther. The big cats lingered in the
Delta perhaps into the 1960s, but panthers are almost certainly
gone now. Ivorybill woodpeckers disappeared along with the
last large tracts of old-growth timber. If any Alabama sturgeon
still survive in the Delta, they are nearly gone. We should
remember that despite its beauty and diversity, the Delta
is neither pristine nor untouched, and it even has a few
missing pieces.
Today the Delta puzzle also has pieces
that don’t seem to fit anywhere. Not only have some
native species been lost; the Delta now hosts unwanted aliens—ecologically
destructive exotic species—such as nutria, feral hogs,
and fire ants. A large South American rodent, nutria were
introduced in the Delta in the late 1940s. Since then, they
have wreaked havoc on native aquatic vegetation. Feral hogs
are descendants of livestock, and the Delta is overrun with
them in places. These wild pigs take a heavy toll on native
amphibians, reptiles and ground-nesting birds, including
turkey, and they compete for food with deer, turkey and
squirrels. Fire ants first invaded this continent through
the port of Mobile in the 1930s, but fortunately, their
preferred habitat, open areas on relatively high ground,
is fairly limited in the Delta. As for the nutria and hogs,
the Delta’s native alligators are doing their best
to keep their numbers in check.
If you want recent conservation success
stories, you need look no further than alligators and bald
eagles. Both were on the verge of extinction only a few
decades ago. After years of protection and management, there
are probably more alligators in the Delta now than in all
the rest of Alabama. Bald eagles are again nesting in the
area, thanks in part to an aggressive eagle restoration
program.
The Delta is a birder’s paradise.
Sightings of formerly rare species such as eagles, ospreys,
and brown pelicans have become commonplace, and the Delta
may be the only place in Alabama where so many different
birds can be found in one area. Over 300 species have been
recorded from the Delta, including more than 100 that nest
here. The bottomland forest of the upper Delta is prime
habitat for warblers, vireos, turkeys, and owls. The lower
portion is important to shorebirds and wintering waterfowl,
although the number of canvasbacks, widgeon, and mallards
has declined through the years. Along the watercourses of
the interior are graceful swallowtail and Mississippi kites,
anhingas or “snakebirds,” and a variety of wading
birds. If the endangered wood stork nests anyplace in Alabama,
it is probably here.
At least 40 mammal species occur in or
around the Delta, and there are few other places in the
Southeast where you can find three rabbit species. The Delta
has the large swamp rabbit or “canecutter,”
the cottontail, and the diminutive marsh rabbit. Otters
and bobcats are common, and with the decline of both the
fur trade and larger predators, raccoons may be more abundant
than ever. Muskrats are still present, but they were much
more common before the nutria moved in. Every few years
a manatee wanders up the coast from Florida and enters the
Delta.
Reptiles and amphibians have a haven in
and around the Delta, with about 70 percent of Alabama’s
species represented. At least 18 turtles, 40 snakes, 10
lizards, 1 alligator, 20 salamanders, and 20 frogs are here.
Alligators may symbolize the place, but the astounding diversity
of turtles is the big story. Box turtles and gopher tortoises
can be found on the high ground of the Delta’s margins,
but get down into the rivers, oxbows, creeks, and sloughs
and you can find an incredible sixteen aquatic turtle species.
Two, the Alabama red-bellied turtle (our state reptile)
and the southern black-knobbed sawback, are found virtually
nowhere else. Few places in the world can boast the turtle
diversity of the Delta.
Because the Delta is a melting pot of
freshwater and marine ecosystems, it supports a phenomenal
diversity of at least 126 fish species. Nearly a third of
the state’s freshwater fish are represented by the
97 species found here. Largemouth bass, bluegill, and crappie
are popular with fishermen, but also present are obscure
species with names like taillight shiner, Dixie chub, tadpole
madtom, and cypress darter. Twenty-nine saltwater species,
including mullet, flounder, bull shark, and striped bass
are found here as well.
A full account of the area’s wildlife
would take volumes, but to get a feel for the place, imagine
a morning float trip through a remote corner of the upper
Delta. If you are alert, your ears will tell you more than
your eyes. The commotion of cries, croaks, buzzes, whistles,
and splashes may resemble a Tarzan soundtrack, but with
a little concentration you can isolate each sound. Katydids,
cicadas, and tree crickets provide a contrasting backdrop
to the bellows of alligators and grunts of pig frogs. Distant
choruses of green treefrogs echo faintly as prothonotary,
parula, and Swainson’s warblers sing from the moss-draped
tupelos. As you glide beneath a noisy rookery of squabbling
egrets and herons, a soaring swallowtail kite gives its
klee klee klee cry. Barred owls begin their morning hoot-fest,
triggering a gobbler to sound off on the high levee. Even
the fish are boisterous here; huge alligator gar wallow
on the surface and jumping mullet splash up and down the
river. Despite the clamor, your passing does not go unnoticed.
Alarmed deer snort from the banks. Turtles plop from their
basking logs. A beaver slaps the water. Wood ducks explode
from the shallows and whistle off upstream. A crashing in
the trees is probably only a hog, but you smile to think
it just might be one of the Delta’s bears putting
a safe distance between him and you.
