TAMA — In honor of Earth Day, the Meskwaki Natural Resources (MNR) department welcomed the public to an open house at the “South Farm” property located just southwest of Tama and offered UTV guided tours to observe the buffalo herd — now approximately 85 strong — for tribal members and staff on Wednesday.

MNR Forester Joseph McCartan and environmental specialists Jamie Panosh and Jacob Tipton sat down with the newspaper to discuss what they do on a daily basis, what Earth Day means to them and how they are working to ensure a better environmental future across the tribe’s lands, which cover more than 8,500 acres mostly in Tama County.

Panosh, who has been with MNR for about a year, explained that she oversees water quality monitoring at eight different sites on the Settlement, and the sampling now dates back two decades.

“That data is compiled to get a good picture of the health of the waters within the Settlement, and they have used those to recently write up their own water quality standards that are in (Environmental Protection Agency) review right now,” Panosh said. “We do a little bit of air quality monitoring. We do a lot of education and outreach — events like this — to celebrate the Earth, the natural resources, to educate the community, specifically usually the children, on the beautiful natural resources that surround them and the Settlement that they’re very lucky to live on.”

MNR frequently partners with the Meskwaki Settlement School (MSS) to host educational events, and they have another one scheduled for Friday during which students will visit the MNR headquarters and partake in activities such as archery, a nature walk and exploring a nearby pond.

McCartan, who falls under the department’s land and wildlife branch along with the equipment operators, focuses primarily on the forestry work as well as maintaining the buffalo herd.

“We have 85 head now in the herd. That’s up pretty substantially from even a few years ago. Last year, there were over 20 new calves, and this year, I’d assume we’ll probably have a pretty similar number,” he said. “We’re planning to harvest some more, so we’ll round up and then harvest them for meat in May. I don’t work as closely with the bison herd as some of our equipment operators do. They’re primarily responsible for day to day (observation), but we all help out when it comes time for roundup and harvest.”

The South Farm area, which the tribe has owned for well over a century, has served as an excellent pasture ground with approximately 275 grazing acres, and McCartan, who has been in his current role for just over a year, noted that they’re essentially “at capacity” with hopes of clearing even more land in the future to expand it.

“It’s really exciting to see how things have grown even in the short time that I’ve been here and how much we’ve been able to get done as far as that goes,” he said. “We recently added on a walk-in freezer to store more bison meat. Before, we were just doing a deep freeze, chest style freezers.”

The herd restoration efforts have been ongoing for about 20 years, and they started with 20 bison, a number that has more than quadrupled since. Last year, the final count before harvest peaked at 94. The meat is regularly distributed to tribal members after harvest.

As she reflected on the meaning of Earth Day, Panosh stressed the importance of continuing to collect water quality data and said sharing it with the community has been “instrumental” in encouraging people to care about their work and the planet as a whole. By a little afternoon on Wednesday, McCartan guessed that at least a dozen people had stopped by and taken tours.

“I think it’s been pretty overwhelmingly positive. People always love to come out, especially on a beautiful day like this. Everybody likes to come out and see the herd up close,” he said.

One of those visitors was Sherry Hall, who works in the Meskwaki Behavioral Health Department.

“I thought it was just an emotional experience because this is part of their, you know, Meskwaki Settlement and the traditions and just learning about it, and it’s a really phenomenal facility here. It’s impressive,” she said.

To learn more about MNR, visit https://www.meskwaki.org/mnr/.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com