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A County to Be Thankful For

The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy’s Chautauqua Creek Oxbow Preserve is pictured. Photo by Jeanne Wiebenga

Each year, Thanksgiving provides us with an opportunity to reflect and recognize all that we are thankful for. As part of a course I’m taking, I’m currently learning about a technique called appreciative inquiry. We’re learning to focus our questions and discussions on the positive. This may sound “pie in the sky” at first, but it really isn’t. Rather than ignoring what’s wrong and pretending everything is great, appreciative inquiry uses focusing on the positive to help solve challenging problems.

This Thanksgiving, I hope we can all practice a little bit of appreciative inquiry by choosing to focus on all the incredible things we have throughout Chautauqua County. Chautauqua Lake is a wonderful and important asset. With all the press, controversy, and contention surrounding the lake, it’s easy to lose site of the fact that it’s just one of the many assets we have. Perhaps by zooming out and looking county-wide at the many assets our beautiful home has to offer, we can find a more positive way to think about and address the issues with our beloved lake.

I love birds, so I’m going to start there. Our county’s combination of lakes, forested areas, protected wetlands, and open fields have made it an ideal place for migratory and resident bird populations. There’s a reason Roger Tory Peterson himself found inspiration in this region. I wish I were a good enough writer to convey to you the incredible joy I felt the first time I heard the call of a sand hill crane – right here in Chautauqua County. I’m thankful that we have protected places where these birds can thrive and where I can go to (quietly) enjoy them.

If birds aren’t your thing, how about hiking, biking, or skiing? We are blessed with many options for trails at nature preserves, state parks, the rails-to-trails system, and the overland trail system. The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy itself owns and manages 32 nature preserves around the county, 10 of which our volunteers currently maintain trails on, so I know how much time and effort goes into this work. I am so thankful for the people and organizations who have put money and time into keeping these and other trails open for our community.

Or, how about our fishing? I can’t pretend that this is an area of expertise for me… not even close. But I can still see and appreciate the joy it brings to so many people throughout our community in addition to many who travel here for the chance to fish our waterways. According to the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau, Lake Erie provides some of the best bass fishing in the Northeastern US, while its tributary streams have earned the nickname “Steelhead Alley.” We are also fortunate to have smaller lakes throughout our county including Chautauqua, Findley, Cassadaga, and Bear Lakes. All of which (I’ve read) provide different opportunities for different types of fishing for everything from bass and walleye to pike and muskellunge! I’m thankful for these waterways, the relaxation and community they bring to our fisher people, and those they bring in from far and wide that help stimulate our economy.

Finally – because I’m running out of room, not because I’m running out of aspects of our county that I’m grateful for – it wouldn’t be a Thanksgiving article if I didn’t mention turkey! Another area where I’m lacking in experience is hunting, and Chautauqua County just happens to be one of the top counties in NYS for the spring turkey harvest. This is thanks to our forested areas where eastern wild turkey thrive. Even though I’m not a hunter myself, I am thankful for those who hunt responsibly throughout our region and for our forests that provide these hunters with game.

In addition to recognizing what an incredible place we live in, I hope that you’ve noticed a theme across all of these assets. Each and every one is tied to our region’s landscapes. Those that I’m sure first drew people to this area, and those that we have chosen to protect. I’m thankful for all of the people who are working in our county to continue to develop and grow in a way that sees the importance of our natural places and strives at every turn to protect them. Without our forests, wetlands, and waterways we wouldn’t be the Chautauqua County that I know and love – the place where my husband and I worked hard to come home to so that we could raise our children here.

Thank you for being a part of this community and for doing your part to protect it! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission to preserve and enhance the water quality, scenic beauty and ecological health of the lakes, streams, wetlands and watersheds of the Chautauqua region. For more information, visit chautauquawatershed.org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

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