Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge Cane Ridge Wildlife Management Area, Gibson County, Indiana.  3,000 acre Gibson Lake is at top of picture. - Photo courtesy Cinergy, Inc.

Cane Ridge Wildlife Management Area (WMA) was acquired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1999 as a unit of the Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge. Located in Gibson County, Indiana, the 464-acre property is two miles east of the Wabash River. It is situated on the south side of the 3,000-acre Gibson Lake built to provide cooling water for Cinergy Corporation's Gibson Generating Station.

Restoration of habitat began in 2002 with the construction of  four moist soil management units covering 193-acres. In the fall of 2004, Cinergy, Inc. paid for the construction of a 59-acre pool with one 3-acre island covered with sand and gravel in the center of the pool. The island was built to resemble a river sandbar to provide a safe nesting area for the federally endangered interior least tern.

Water flow is initiated by syphon pump into buried pipes from the adjacent Gibson Lake. This water fills the Tern Nesting Pool and then gravity flows into a water distribution canal to enter the 4 moist soil management units.

The spring of 2005 was the first year the Tern Nesting Pool was operational.

An estimated 50-55 tern chicks survived to the fledgling stage at Cane Ridge WMA in 2005. Compared to the total production of 13 least terns from this colony in 2004, this was a notable improvement. The average egg to nest ratio was 2.4. The highest number of adult terns counted at one time was 78. This was lower than recent past year counts on Cinergy, Inc. property probably due to the fact that the Wabash and Ohio Rivers did not flood during the nesting season. Two small tern colonies were located in Indiana on these rivers in 2005 so these adult terns did not have to find substitute nesting areas. 

As a bonus, the first verified successful nesting of a black-necked stilt in Indiana in recent times occurred within the Tern Nesting Pool. A second island was initiated in the fall of 2004 but could not be completed due to wet weather. A narrow, long strip of topsoil was exposed when the Tern Pool was filled with water. This narrow strip of land became heavily vegetated and proved to be very attractive to many other birds including great blue herons, yellow-crowned night-herons, great egrets, snowy egrets, mallards, Canada geese, black terns, killdeer and a pair of black-necked stilts. Three stilt eggs were found, followed by three stilt chicks which later dropped to two chicks. One of the fledglings stayed well into September even after the Tern Pool was drained to allow completion of the second tern nesting island.

On November 15, 2005, the first week all four moist soil management units were filled with water, a waterfowl survey showed over 5,000 ducks scattered across the shallow waters. Mostly mallards, other species represented included black ducks, blue-winged teal, gadwall, widgeon and pintails.

This wildlife habitat restoration success story led to the inclusion of Cane Ridge WMA  in 2005 as one of the National Audubon Society's Important Bird Areas in Indiana. This program identifies sites that provide critical habitat for birds during some part of their life cycle. The IBA program is a global effort to identify areas that are most important for maintaining bird populations, and focus conservation efforts at protecting these sites.

 In light of the fact that Cane Ridge WMA was a soybean/corn farm field when purchased in 1999 with a grant from the North American Waterfowl Management Program, this IBA designation should give added hope that we can consciously take steps to minimize the effects of habitat loss and degradation on bird populations.

To learn more about Cane Ridge WMA, click on http://iba.audubon.org/iba/viewSiteProfile.do?siteId=2147