The Vanishing Oasis

One of my long term projects that I have been working on most days while living out here in Malko Turnovo has been bird monitoring. Its actually pretty sweet, and it gets me outside for at least a little while during my day. I haven't been going lately because during the winter there are no birds migrating, but now that its starting to get a bit warmer, migration time has finally come. I have been doing this now for almost a year an a half, and all it really entails is going out to this marsh just outside of town with a pair of binoculars and seeing what (if any) migratory birds are hanging out. I then compile the data of number of birds, species of birds, and if possible, other attributes such as sex, relative age, ect. This data will be given to a regional NGO that works with bird migration, and it can also be used to show the affect that the local marsh has on the bird migration patterns.

The big issue right now with the marsh is that it leaks. Badly. I know it sounds funny, but the terrain that it sits on (and most of the terrain in Strandja actually) is very permeable to water and as a result, there are countless caves, tunnels and other subterranean water passages that make it next to impossible for lakes and ponds to form. This marsh right outside Malko Turnovo is the one exception, but even it is having problems retaining its water. Even though its steadily fed by a stream and has no outlets, it loses water every day it doesn't rain, and during the summer almost dries up completely. It stays dry until the winter rains and snows fill it up in time for the migration.

Strandja Nature Park has looked in to cementing parts of the marsh so that it better retains water and can therefore host more migratory birds longer into the summer. Sounds like a great idea, and I was all for it, until just recently. The reason I'm a bit unsure now is because I have noticed that a lot of locals come out here to the marsh to shoot the birds that come in, and since the marsh is never particularly large, it makes hunting them super easy. Some birds such as storks are not hunted, but all the ducks that come in are pretty much fair game, despite laws that restrict hunting. None of these laws are enforced, so pretty much anyone can head out to the marsh whenever they feel like it and shoot away.

So the question is, is the marsh better off being fixed so it can host more birds, some of which will be illegally hunted, or should it be left alone to slowly drain away, depriving the migratory birds of a feeding ground but also keeping them out of reach from local poachers? Its a rather tricky scenario, and there is no perfect solution, but its frustrating to put all this work into something and hoping that more birds come, only to realize that everyone else is killing them all off. Chances are that I wont really be in a position to influence the outcome of all this, but I still think about it everyday that I head out bird monitoring.