One day last week, a very concerned citizen called me and said, 'Someone is pulling logs out of the river at Zirkle!' My first thought was, 'No way.' This is Little Satilla Wildlife Management Area land and these logs have been on the bottom of the Little Satilla for 100+ years. How can they be doing it without destroying fishbeds and wildlife habitat? I’ll also mention Zirkle should be a historic landmark, if it is not already.
I have taken pictures of fish beds and otter right where the logs were being taken out of the river, so I still wondered how this could be legal.
Famous actor Ossie Davis once lived here, and it was the second largest town in Pierce County with four or five hundred people living here. Not much is there now, but the old steel dam that was installed over one hundred years ago. For as long as I can remember, I have always thought this was illegal and I was not the only one.
I rode over and took pictures and sent them to several people, including Gordon Rogers, our first Satilla riverkeeper, Shannon Gregory our present Satilla riverkeeper and a few loggers that have logged most of their lives and several other people.
Each said they thought this was not legal, especially with them having to cut down smaller trees to even have an opening wide enough to get to the logs.
I even received a few calls from the higher ups with Georgia Department of Natural Resources who informed me that this was perfectly LEGAL and no permit is required. Wow!
I understand the fishermen wanting to get the logs out of the way so they can maneuver the river better, but like I say, it has always been considered illegal - at least I thought so. What I was told is that it can be done so as long as no tractor or truck is actually in the river itself, but a winch or chain can be used. I told the DNR that I really thought he was opening up a huge can of worms if every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he can make a dollar off of these ancient logs and start pulling them out of the river, destroying the natural habitat and possibly putting these tractors or trucks into the river while doing it, accidently or not.
He agreed, but said that it has always been legal to do. That is still very hard for me to believe.
They are very near the old steel dam and I really hope that no accident happens and destroys it in the process.
I know there are logs on the bottom of much of the nearly 250 miles of the Big and Little Satilla Rivers, but I hope this does not get our beautiful rivers with their natural habitats destroyed by all of this.
