It wasn’t long ago that Leck Mayes Pond was a great ecosystem for waterfowl and shorebirds. Bird watchers and hunters flocked to the pristine environment in the shadows of the Bighorn Mountains. Then cattails took over, too thick to be of use to most wildlife; water control structures that fed fresh water to the 55-acre pond fell into disrepair. 

There’s a wildlife viewing enclosure overlooking the pond at the end of Big Horn County Road 18, north of U.S. Highway 14-A. If you slowly pull into what looks like a driveway, you’re almost there. Look slightly to your left and you’ll see the familiar brown sign. Follow it down and you’ll be surprised to see the pristine brick and mortar viewing structure on the hill. Clean and sturdy, it’s well cared for but has seen little use in the past decade.

From the enclosure you have a great view. Area residents remember when the scenic body of water and panoramic views of several nearby mountain ranges attracted a wide variety of wildlife. But that was years ago. Recently, mostly marsh wrens and yellow-headed black birds are seen in season enjoying the perches and the insect feast cattails provide. Other than that, the aggressive plants curtailed life in the valuable wetlands area.

Today you’ll see progress in the form of scorched earth from a Saturday prescribed fire. Go in a couple months and you’ll see cattle grazing on new shoots growing out of the ashes. The cattle, from area agricultural producers who can lease land in the Yellowtail Wildlife Habitat Management Area, are being used instead of expensive herbicides. The farmers are required to grow crops that benefit wildlife, leaving 10% of the harvest to help nourish waterfowl, pheasant and deer through the winter.

Go to Leck Mayes Pond in the fall and you’re likely to see it filled with water, glorious wildlife in abundance and maybe even a few cattails on the fringes. It’s all part of the long-term plans of Wyoming Game and Fish Department Habitat and Access Biologist Eric Shorma. 

He’s spent nearly seven years planning the restoration project of the pond. It’s been an exercise in patience for the manager of the Wildlife Habitat Management Area.

The 19,214-acre tract of river bottom land was established in the early 1960s and includes Mayes Pond. Through a cooperative agreement between the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, National Park Service, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the area was set aside for the primary purpose of enhancing waterfowl habitat. It’s also one of the top public hunting grounds in the Big Horn Basin. 

“When you do good things for waterfowl, you do good things for a lot of different species,” Shorma said.

He was giddy that Saturday’s strong winds didn’t force them to delay the project longer. The forecast was for light breezes. Unfortunately, as about two dozen fire specialists from the BLM, Park Service and Game and Fish gathered, the wind whipped to gusts of more than 20 mph and swirled in the cattails. In the morning meeting, the crew was warned to keep their “heads on a swivel” by the day’s burn boss, BLM specialist Sage Decker.

“Of all the grass species, cattails definitely burn the hottest,” Decker said prior to the burn. “You get a lot of radiant heat off cattails, so it’s always a concern having firefighters exposed to that heat when you get some shifty fire behavior. It could turn on somebody pretty quick if you’re not careful.”

Determined to press on, the wind was more of a problem for the team’s drone pilot, crew member Dusty Kavitz. He’s actually a noxious invasive weed management specialist for the agency, but as drones become more prevalent in fires, Kavitz spends more time operating the agency’s unmanned aircraft system.

His mission was to photograph the scene and to use thermal imaging to search for hot spots outside the burn area. But wind made the job nearly impossible.

“It gets a little dicey in this wind,” he warned.

Drones are now being equipped with plastic sphere dispensers (PSD) to drop self-igniting balls, also called dragon eggs, to start fires in both wildfire and prescribed burns.

“Their use has really started to ramp up in the last year due to the utility of PSD machines,” Kavitz said. “It’s similar to what you would see on a helicopter (in fighting fires), we just now attach it to a large drone.”

The advantage to using drones comes in keeping firefighters out of harm’s way, the cost of operating a drone versus a helicopter, and the ability to fly unmanned aircraft after dark, he said.

Having so many agencies involved meant a ton of paperwork and planning for Shorma to get the prescribed fire project underway on Saturday. But it will all be worth it when waterfowl start swarming to the pond in the fall.