The Lake Wapello Radio Play
By Vance Polton Yeah, You read that right. Back in 2018 I came across the following newspaper article in the March 23, 1939 edition of the Pella Chronicle, page 6: And so the hunt was...
Rebecca Krogman
The Fairport Biological Station
By Vance Polton Well, it’s Wednesday and it’s time to hit the road again. We’ll head back in time to around 1916 and head east over to the town of Fairport in Muscatine county to visit the Fairport...
Iowa Conservationist
By Vance Polton Eighty- two years ago back on February 15,1942 the Iowa Conservation Commission published the first edition of the “Iowa Conservationist”. The Conservation Commission’s purpose for creating this monthly publication or as they called...
John Boepple
By Vance Polton Today, I thought we would take note of the anniversary of the passing of John Boepple. On January 30, 1912 John Boepple, founder of the pearl button industry in Muscatine and...
1916 and Spirit Lake’s new Fish Hatchery
By Vance Polton I thought, today, we would head on up to Dickinson County and back to 1916 and take a look at the new fish hatchery under construction there. It’s just about finished...
Manchester National Fish Hatchery
By Vance Polton Today we are headed back to January of 1897 and the opening of the Manchester National Fish Hatchery. While for the most part the construction of the hatchery was completed in 1896, it...
The Anamosa Hatching House
By Vance Polton I thought today we would travel back to October 1874 and take a little trip across the Wapsi River to visit the new Hatching House just upriver of Anamosa. Attached is a poster...
A Follow-up on the North American Model
You may have seen the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation come up several times in the past few weeks, especially regarding how it relates to aquatic conservation. Austen and Neal (2023) just produced...
New Book on Angler R3
There’s a new book out on the future of fisheries and aquatic conservation. Although the title is “Angler R3”, the truth introduced in Chapter 1 is that our traditional conservation model must change, as...