Oral History Program Robert Smoot Interviewed by Carmen Anderson 20 July 1972 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Robert Smoot Interviewed by Carmen Anderson 20 July 1972 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Robert Smoot, an oral history by Carmen Anderson, 20 July 2012, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Robert Smoot Abstract: This is an oral history interview with Robert Smoot, conducted by Carmen Anderson on July 20, 1972. In this interview Mr. Smoot discusses the damage his crops have sustained from birds, insects and rodents around the Bear River Bird Refuge. Mr. Smoot opens his farm land to private hunters but makes note of the difficulties with regulating hunters in the surrounding areas and how this affects his farm. CA: Mr. Smoot, would you please tell us a little bit about your background and where you were born? RS: I was born in Farmington, Utah. We moved here to Corinne when I was about two years old and I've lived here ever since. CA: I understand that you have crop damage from birds out this way. RS: Yes, we do. Some years it’s more extensive than others. In the spring, it's usually from the pheasants. They dig the corn up just as it comes through the ground—when it’s just about two inches high—then they follow the green shoot down and pick the seed off and eat it. The corn will double right over and die. If we don't treat it with some kind of repellent—we usually use a crow repellent—they will take acres of it. They'll start on the outside of the field and work right in. This is worse when the ground conditions are dry. If it's wetter and the ground is firmer, it's a little harder to dig and they don't bother it as much. If you don't use crow repellent in a dry year, they take acres of it. They'll take five acres out of one field. Sometimes they'll start on the end and work like a wedge right in to the middle of it. 1 In the fall, we have more trouble with ducks and geese. It's usually from them coming into the young hay that is planted with the grain crop. When the grain is harvested, there is quite a bit of grain left on the ground and when you irrigate it the ducks and geese will come in, pick up the grain and tromp the young hay right into the mud. Geese love young green growth. They prefer corn or something like it if it's there, but when it's gone they'll just mow a hay field. They'll do this in the spring, too. In the spring it's the pheasants and in the fall it's ducks and geese. There are a lot of snipes and black ibis that come into the field and tromp it quite a bit, but they do a lot of good because they eat bugs and weevil and so on. We've always felt that this balances out with the birds. I'm sure we don't even realize how much good they do. Seagulls also eat weevil and the different bugs out of the hay. It seems like the geese and ducks do the most damage, and it's mostly from tromping the young hay into the mud. CA: Where is this land situated in comparison to the bird refuge? RS: Close to the marshes. We touch corners with the Bear River Duck Club and that's just next to the bird refuge. We're about two miles, maybe three miles, north of the river. We're quite close to the refuge. CA: Do you know of fields farther away that have similar problems or is it just near the refuge? RS: Well, the closer to the bay, then the more of a problem there is. I'm sure they don't have this problem six or ten miles away. CA: Are you reimbursed in any way for the damage caused to your crops? 2 RS: No. If you complain enough, the warden will maybe bring firecracker-type things or shells that you shoot like a mortar that go out and explode—they don’t hurt the birds, just make a noise. There has never been any reimbursement. CA: Do you feel that the birds help with the rodents in your fields? RS: The seagulls do. They definitely eat a lot of rodents and a lot of bugs and pestilence. Probably more than we know. They're constantly eating and this is what they eat. They're not like the geese and ducks that come in for the green feed and the grain. They come in to eat bugs and they'll eat mice. They also eat baby pheasants and eggs. I guess the seagulls do more damage to the pheasant crop than the mowing machines and the swathes. If there are any nests that escape that, then the seagulls clean them up. In fact, in the spring when the mice are bad, when they're coming out from the winter, you can tell right where the water is going down through the hay fields by the seagulls. As the water drives the mice out of the holes, the seagulls are there to pick them off. The seagulls eat a lot of mice. I’m sure that the black ibis and the curlew eat a lot of bugs that might cause us damage. They do tromp some, but we've always felt that they balance out—these types of birds that eat the bugs and insects. CA: Do you have any hunting problems? RS: Yes, hunters are quite a problem. We have had to control this with private clubs. Most of the area near the marshes has been made into private clubs. There's a lot of hunting given to the people of the surrounding communities, but they're usually by permit so that the hunting can be controlled. CA: Could you tell us anything about the permit and what it means? 3 RS: They just call the club and pay a membership and these members have a certain obligation to keep up roads and also to help patrol keep out hunters that aren't authorized. It works out pretty good this way. CA: Do you open your land for hunting permits? RS: They’re mostly private permits. CA: What is a private permit? It's different than a club, isn't it? RS: Yes, we don't have any memberships on our property. Mostly it’s business contacts and this type of thing. It's just about impossible to open it up to the public because there are so many that want to come and hunt. You have to stop it somewhere. It's real hard to stop it if you don't have a rule of some kind. CA: Do you charge a fee for those that come on your land? RS: No, we don't. There's a lot of clubs on private ground around us who have actual membership fees that they pay. 4