The Legacy of Iowa DNR Biologist Ron Howing in Wetland Preservation

[DREW HOWING] All right.

You want to start letting your chair down?

I'll start getting you dressed.

[DREW HOWING] He just loved hunting anything.

Deer hunting is something that in his older age, he can still do.

He can't chase a setter anymore.

We've got him in a duck boat, but it's a job.

We can't -- he can't get out on the marshes like he loved to do.

But he can get in a blind with a wheelchair.

[DREW HOWING] I'll do all that once I get these.

[RON HOWING] I love to hunt.

It meant a lot with hunting with my grandson.

[DREW HOWING] We're going to sit right there and they're coming out right up on top there.

I had some deer jerky packed, but I think I forgot to grab it off the counter.

You walk in, he's got a big smile on his face.

He goes, well, each day I'll wake up and I'll just take what the good Lord gives me.

And that's what it'll be.

And he's just he's so content in that.

And I think that's really powerful at that age.

Of all the things that he loves to do -- and I think that's the hardest thing -- watching that deep like desire to go is still there.

And it's one thing that I feel like as a family, we can still give him an opportunity to go do that.

He can't see very good.

It takes a lot of attention.

I mean, you're doing everything.

But he can still successfully hunt deer.

To be able to be like, hey, you did this for me my whole life, and now I get to take you and do that.

It's been, like, imprinted on us.

From the time we were little we were trapping, we were hunting, we were fishing.

That's what we did in our free time.

♪♪ [BETH HINDBJORGEN] All of us kids were so fortunate to grow up in nature.

We lived on a unit game reservation area where the Canada Geese flock was just down the hill.

We had the woods nearby.

He would take us out sometimes on some of the pheasant counts.

♪♪ [BETH HINDBJORGEN] He taught us every plant we would walk past.

He would stop and take the time to tell us what it was and to tell a story about it so we could remember.

And that was really special.

I remember going canoeing a lot.

I remember getting caught in rainstorms and tipping the canoe as well many times, but those were some really fun memories.

[BRYAN HELLYER] Ron was the wildlife management biologist at the Ingham-High Wildlife Unit.

He worked for the Iowa DNR for 50 years.

Ron was the pioneer for wetland restoration in Iowa.

Iowa and the prairie pothole region had several hundreds and thousands of acres of wetlands, and a lot of those wetlands were drained.

♪♪ [BRENT HOWING] Up here in northwest Iowa, the farmers back in the 70s and 80s, they pretty much farmed every possible inch of ground they could.

And that didn't leave a lot for wildlife.

♪♪ [BRYAN HELLYER] Ron started restoring wetlands on private and public lands, going clear back to 1980.

Some people might not think is that long ago, but restoring wetlands in Iowa is still a relatively new thing.

Ron pioneered and championed that cause for the Wildlife Bureau and has restored hundreds of acres of wetlands across this state.

♪♪ [RON HOWING] Conservation Reserve Program - land a farmer had difficulty farming.

It was an opportunity for him to enroll in that program.

It was highly erodible land.

They were losing soil.

It set aside acres to preserve them for future use.

♪♪ [BRENT HOWING] He would purchase a lot of public hunting ground with the state's money.

Other farmers, they would have to bid against him.

And if they didn't think it was worth farming, then the state would get it and plant it to Big Bluestem or grasses and and restore wetlands.

[BRYAN HELLYER] He's been a mentor and a coach for a lot of Wildlife Bureau personnel.

There's the part that you come and go do in the field for the citizens of Iowa.

You don't learn all of those things in school.

So it takes special people like Ron to take the time to teach all of us how to properly restore wetlands, how to properly restore grasslands.

[DREW HOWING] For as long as God's earth is here, those wetlands will be there.

They will never be drained.

They're protected federally.

That's pretty cool that he's had that impact.

[BRYAN HELLYER] It's not only important for water quality, but quality of life.

And then the wildlife that is dependent on that.

[DREW HOWING] In Iowa, we're ranked almost 50 for public land ownership.

The little bits and pieces that we've restored and put back on the landscape to provide for the migratory birds that that pass through this area, I don't know if I'd say it's enough, but it's it's a heck of a lot better than, than where we would be otherwise.

And grandpa was very instrumental in that.

[BRYAN HELLYER] Giant Canada geese are an important part of Iowa.

They've been here for a long time.

They were gone for a period of time.

And Ron was a part of the first captive flock, which we started in 1964.

Ron had his fingers in that right from the beginning.

And now to have them back.

The great thing for the department, a great success story.

And that couldn't have happened without Ron's influence.

♪♪ [BRENT HOWING] Next comes the hunters can come in and harvest a renewable resource.

[RON HOWING] I have a code of ethics that we want to preserve all things so that they can be used in the future.

[DREW HOWING] It's a part of so many people, and it's a legacy that's going to go on through our kids and through all of the other people that he's had an impact on in all of their kids.

♪♪ [DREW HOWING] It's a legacy of faith and family and then of conservation.

♪♪ [DREW HOWING] It is very rewarding.

♪♪ [DREW HOWING] How's that?

Do I need to move you at all?

I'm not doing it for me.

But, boy, it's -- it's so cool to be able to share that with him.

♪♪ [RON HOWING] If I could walk right now, I would go back to work for him and work until I died.

[laughter] ♪♪ [RON HOWING] Come on deer.

♪♪