Wasteful destruction of fishery habitat in Wichita

This is where I like to fish in a beautiful, treelined stream in Wichita.  The vegetation makes it very challenging to catch these, but it is worth it, to see the astounding biodiversity. 

The fish in this rare pool of stream water include sunfish: pumpkinseed, green sunfish, bluegill, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass; carp; and catfish.  Many people fish here. Most people return many of the fish to the water.

The fishers report that this rare city stream has only two locations where the conditions allow the proliferation of fish. The infrastructure that allows this special place to exist includes rocky outcroppings, and shady trees.  

This week there was a distressing change.  Someone decided to remove the trees, and push dirt and litter down into the edge of the stream where the fish formerly took shelter.

A lot of fishers will be shocked to find that now the fish are very easy to target.  That is temporary... soon there will be nowhere to hide and nowhere to lay and protect eggs... and nowhere to feed or shelter or rest.

Big machines are taking our special place and grinding the trees into huge piles of mulch.

As I was leaving I talked to a family with young children learning to cast into the still waters.  The man said he had good success fly fishing there in the past...

Standing on the green banks and casting around  the trees was in the past...  the good old days.

We don't know their motivation, we just see the result... a rare and special habitat gone forever, and one less place to stream fish in Wichita...