Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin #903

Original Airdate: 21 October 2010

Patty Loew:

Welcome to “In Wisconsin” at our new time. I’m Patty Loew. This week, a rare sight indeed as a species that experts didn’t think existed in Wisconsin makes an unexpected arrival.

Woman:

You know, they never were in Wisconsin before that we knew of.

Patty Loew:

Plus an investigation into the heroin epidemic now plaguing Wisconsin.

Woman:

I wish I had my son back.

Patty Loew:

We’ll look into why heroin is Wisconsin’s gateway drug. Also, why is it taking a researcher from halfway around the world to save one of Wisconsin’s native languages?

Patty Loew:

Those reports and an eye-catching photo essay you won’t want to miss next on “In Wisconsin.”

Announcer:

Major funding for “In Wisconsin” is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy. We’re on for you. And the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee and Oshkosh, a veterinarian team working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. With additional funding provided by Bike Wisconsin.

Patty Loew:

We begin this week with something that wasn’t expected in Wisconsin. One of North America’s rarest species has decided to call our state home. It’s so rare you’ll find it on the endangered species list. And now the goal is to give it the habitat needed to survive. “In Wisconsin” reporter Liz Koerner gives you an exclusive look at the efforts underway to protect this newcomer in Adams county.

Man:

There he is. Right here. Right there.

Liz Koerner:

This group is on a quest to find an elusive animal somewhere in the wilds of Adams County.

Man:

You can probably all hear him, right? That very loud ringing call over there.

Woman:

That right there?

Man:

Yep. If he comes in the open, I’ll try to get him in the scope.

Woman:

You know, they never were in Wisconsin before that we knew of. This is a rare treat.

Liz Koerner:

They’re looking for a tiny songbird that only recently began nesting in Wisconsin.

Man:

It’s very exciting to look through that spotting scope and, wow, there it is.

Liz Koerner:

The Kirtland’s warbler is one of America’s rarest songbirds, so rare its on the federal endangered species list. Because so few people know where to find them, the Natural Resources Foundation offered a guided tour. Their only request is that these avid birders give the birds a break during nesting season.

Man:

It’s one of the few warblers on my North American list that I don’t have, so it’s a lovely day.

Liz Koerner:

The first documented nesting of Kirtland’s warbler in Wisconsin was in Adams County only a few years ago. Before that, these birds were found in only one state, our neighbor to the east, Michigan.

Joel Trick:

The population hovered very low, around 200 birds in the ’60s and ’70s, at which time there was a concerted effort to implement management measures to benefit the species.

Liz Koerner:

Due to these management measures, the Kirtland’s warbler population has multiplied in Michigan. Recent counts there have found about 1800 males.

Kim Grveles:

And the habitats there are pretty saturated and so they’re expanding outwards and starting to nest in new areas or what may have been traditional areas for them prior to European settlement.

Liz Koerner:

Wildlife managers in Wisconsin are now using a strategy that worked well in Michigan. They remove a number of larger birds called brown-headed cowbirds near the warbler’s nesting site.

Joel Trick:

The cowbird is a nest parasite. They always lay their eggs in the nest of other birds. They tend to hatch sooner and they are larger and grow faster and they tend to crowd out the other young, in some cases pushing the other young out of the nest and quite often the other nestlings die.

Liz Koerner:

To attract the cowbirds, they use a decoy trap.

Barry Benson:

You have to start with the species that you want to trap, so you put in a few cowbirds and food and water and it attracts other cowbirds and they can fly in but they can’t fly out.

Liz Koerner:

The trapped cowbirds are euthanized, a practice that wildlife managers say is essential to the Kirtlands survival.

Joel Trick:

The brown-headed cowbird is an abundant species that’s very widespread. The Kirtland’s warbler is very rare and very localized and we’re trying to recover the Kirtland’s warbler to a population level where it can persist on its own.

Liz Koerner:

In 2007, the first year Kirtlands nested here, they only built a total of three nests. Two of the three were lost to cowbirds. Each year since then, wildlife managers have trapped and euthanized between 200 and 300 cowbirds. This year, the Kirtlands built a total of 16 nests. Six were lost to cowbirds. Another six were lost to ground predators.

Kim Grveles:

It’s going to go extinct if we don’t do that kind of management.

Liz Koerner:

The bird faces another significant survival challenge. They only nest under one type of tree, the jack pine.

Joel Trick:

This is a jack pine. This species is typically native of these kind of large, flat, sandy ecosystems.

Liz Koerner:

The birds nest on the ground under the protection of the lowest branches of the jack pine, but as these trees mature, they shed these bottom branches. In less than a decade, the Kirtlands warbler will have to move on from this site in Adams County. The land is owned by an investment company called Plum Creek Timber. They currently plan to replant only red pines because they’re more profitable, but the company hasn’t ruled out interplanting jack pines.

Bill OBrien:

We are the largest private landowner in Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan and we do have wildlife biologists on staff that are working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and I’m sure down the road that some specific habitat projects are not out of the question.

Liz Koerner:

Many counties in northern Wisconsin have stands of jack pine. Some of it is on publicly-owned land. Joel Trick and Kim Grveles are hoping to convince property managers there to plant jack pine periodically so there would always be younger trees needed by the Kirtland’s warbler.

Kim Grveles:

And we have a lot of interest on the part of some county foresters and some state property managers, but we’re a ways yet from having a formal management plan in place.

Liz Koerner:

So the race is on to secure future habitat for this endangered species. And for those who are fortunate enough to see them while they’re still in Adams County, it’s been a day to remember.

Woman:

To see one that’s so rare and endangered in Wisconsin is just really a thrill.

Patty Loew:

The most recent census of Kirtland’s warblers in Adams County turned up 20 males and 11 females and resulted in between 12 and 18 fledglings. They’ve also turned up in Marinette, Bayfield, Washburn and Douglas counties, but no nesting activity has been confirmed. We want to thank Bill Krouse, one of our viewers, for suggesting this report. He volunteers as a citizen scientist with the DNR, adding more eyes and ears to annual bird surveys. If you’d survey Wisconsin’s native cultures, you’d find many are losing their languages. The Ho-Chunk are no exception. Learning any new language is tough, but doing it without a grammar textbook makes it next to impossible. “In Wisconsin” reporter Art Hackett shows you how a researcher from halfway around the world could help save this native language in the Wisconsin Dells.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

Several days a week, Kenneth Littlegeorge instructs students at Wisconsin Dells High School. About half a dozen students from Black River Falls attend by way of a two-way TV hookup. The subject? The Ho-Chunk language.

Kenneth Littlegeorge:

I am a language apprentice. I worked with a fluent speaker.

Art Hackett:

Littlegeorge is still in the process of fully learning the language from native speakers who supervise the class.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

One of them is Carolyn White Eagle, Littlegeorge’s mother.

Kenneth Littlegeorge:

What they were saying is that they greeted you or greeted everyone and then they told a little bit about themselves, their age, where they’re from, what clan that they are.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

The learning materials include a vocabulary book and posters showing the months of the year.

Kenneth Littlegeorge:

He is the artist for the language program. He and the other speakers came up with the first word book.

Art Hackett:

But there is not a book you would find in a Spanish or French class, a grammar text.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

Soon, there will be.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

These students at the University of Wisconsin in Madison are using a draft version of the text.

Woman:

So if I leave off the definite article, if I’m saying just (speaking Ho-Chunk), this is grammatically correct.

Art Hackett:

This is part of the evaluation process to certify the material for use in public schools.

Woman:

So how would I say, did you put something on your foot?

Art Hackett:

Irene Hartmann wrote the textbook. She warns this is one of the easy conjugations.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

Native speaker Cecil Garvin and his son Henning demonstrate. He explains.

Irene Hartman:

Did you catch that? The word to put on any other garment other than something you put on your head.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Irene Hartman:

Did you catch the second and first person, by any chance? First person. And you can see that the plural is fairly similar to what you’ve seen before.

Art Hackett:

Ho-Chunk is not Hartmann’s native language. Nor is English, for that matter.

Irene Hartmann:

I was a linguistics student in Germany. The professor had an fellowship in Chicago, working on Ho-Chunk on and off, trying to get smaller grants. He finally applied for a larger grant with the UW Foundation out of Germany.

Art Hackett:

So it is that a Native American language is among many being preserved by a foundation created by the people who brought America small cars. Here is the website maintained by the Max Planck Institute in the Netherlands. Here’s the page of documentation for Ho-Chunk.

Irene Hartmann:

I got interested in the language and I did a lot of the field work. We are working on a dictionary database and text collection. I got to work with a lot of different speakers and I got to know the language fairly well. I would never claim that I’m fluent, but I do know a lot of words and I can break down the structure pretty well.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

Art Hackett:

At UW-Madison Hartmann has been working with the father and son team of Cecil and Henning Garvin.

Cecil Garvin:

Ho-Chunk was spoken in our home, nothing but Ho-Chunk. So we learned it as a first language until we were in the 1st grade. Then we had to begin to learn English. Even through high school, though, at home we spoke Ho-Chunk. Of course they expected us as home to learn English.

Art Hackett:

Henning Garvin is a linguistics major at the UW.

Henning Garvin:

Yeah. I learned it taking classes. I didn’t learn it as a child. No one in my generation has. That’s the real problem, is it’s not being transmitted to the younger generations.

Art Hackett:

Cecil and Henning Garvin are among only 200 to 300 fluent speakers left within a tribe of 7,000 members.

Irene Hartmann:

At this point weve got the elder generation that’s still speaking. We got some very young guys. But then weve got the parent generation in between who are not speakers. So to them if you want to teach them the language, they don’t acquire it naturally anymore. They need tools to learn the language. So we’re trying to give them a tool.

Cecil Garvin:

50 years from now, in the event we have no speakers left, that is the only source that our young people would have to learn things. I don’t feel we’ll lose the language. But we’re nearly there.

Art Hackett:

Some of the UW students are Ho-Chunk. Some are not. One of the exercises involves an adaptation of the game pictionary.

Irene Hartmann:

We have a lot of prefixes. You have infixes that are inserted into the verb. You have a whole range of suffixes. You can express a whole sentence in one verb if you need to.

Art Hackett:

Sometimes you need more than a verb.

(speaking Ho-Chunk)

John Lee:

This is television. This is picture. This is moving, so moving pictures and this is a box, so box of moving pictures.

Art Hackett:

In the Dells high school classroom where the box with moving pictures offers learning by hearing, those who speak the language and want to teach it to others say the grammar textbook can’t arrive soon enough.

Kenneth Littlegeorge:

You know, time is not on our side right now, and that’s why they started this apprentice program. It’s only a handful of people trying to save our language.

Patty Loew:

According to one Ho-Chunk teacher, out of the 7,000 member tribe, only about 300 people can still speak their native language. Since we first aired this report, Henning Garvin, one of the native speakers we interviewed, has taken on a job with the tribes cultural affairs unit. As a result he has not been able to teach the UW Ho-Chunk language class for the past two years. Talk on the street is focusing on a resurgent drug addiction problem in Wisconsin. The state justice department describes it as an epidemic. Heroin is no longer limited to the back alley urban junkie. It’s now spread to small towns and to counties all across our state. “In Wisconsin”‘s Frederica Freyberg joins us now.

Frederica Freyberg:

The number of heroin cases seen by the state crime lab have jumped nearly 400% in the past five years. So where is it all coming from? It’s known as Wisconsin’s gateway drug. Here’s a look at how the battle is on against heroin in Janesville.

Woman:

If it can save one person’s life, I guess that’s my goal. Heroin is overlooked. People say it can’t happen to them. And I believe I’m a person who always thought that.

Frederica Freyberg:

This Janesville mother does not want to be seen on camera. She does not want her son’s name used. He was 18 when he fatally overdosed on heroin two years ago. He had been college-bound.

Frederica Freyberg:

How did you find out that’s what he was doing?

Woman:

The day he died. I didn’t know he was using heroin. I had no clue. I knew he had smoked pot. I had no clue.

Frederica Freyberg:

Authorities call this an alarming trend, young people jumping from marijuana directly to heroin, and the strength and purity of the drug today make overdoses more likely.

Dave Spacowicz:

Our overdose death statistics would be unfortunately through the roof if it wasn’t for the quality EMS that we have in Wisconsin.

Adam:

The next thing I know my dad’s breaking down the door, I’m laying on the floor, blood and stuff coming out of my nose, fighting for breath.

Frederica Freyberg:

Adam says he nearly overdosed fatally twice. He had been a good student and a high school athlete.

Adam:

If you’re going to spend $20 on a bag of pot or $20 on a bag of heroin, because the school is flooded with both, if you’re looking for that bang for your buck, heroin is going to get that for you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Adam is clean and has been for nearly three years. He said pot smoking progressed to pill-taking, oxycodone pain prescriptions he found in medicine cabinets. Soon he said he was snorting heroin.

Dave Spacowicz:

The drug no longer has that stigma of being an inner city, back alley intravenous drug user. Now for a $10 or $20 bag of heroin, you can get a significantly longer high, unfortunately, and you don’t have to inject the heroin anymore. You can just snort it.

Adam:

It went from snorting heroin every other day to every day and then a year later to starting to shoot it.

Frederica Freyberg:

Heroin use is up nearly 400% in the last five years in Wisconsin. Coming in by car, where at any given moment along the interstate drug runners could be bringing heroin in from south of the border, like from Rockford, Illinois, which along with Chicago has become a heroin hub in the Midwest. Police there say the drug comes directly from Mexico.

Dominic Iasparrao:

I believe it was 2009 in Winnebago County there were 48 heroin deaths. That’s a lot.

Frederica Freyberg:

That deadly trend is not isolated. Its spread runs directly north into Wisconsin and fans out from there.

Dave Spacowicz:

It’s really amazing that there’s areas in the state that I wouldn’t suspect would have a heroin concern that are popping up all over the state.

Frederica Freyberg:

A state crime lab map of cases by county shows heroin on the move. But one county made up of small cities and large tracts of farmland is taking a direct hit by virtue of place.

Robert Spoden:

When you look at the geographical location of Rock County, it borders Illinois, within 30 minutes of Rockford.

Frederica Freyberg:

Rock County has recently been included in the federally designated high-intensity drug trafficking area along with Dane and Milwaukee counties. The program provides resources and coordinates drug control efforts among local, state and federal law enforcement officers. That is especially meaningful in these economic times.

Robert Spoden:

I think that considering the limited resources that we have, right now we’re all being asked to do more with less.

Frederica Freyberg:

But Rock County officials recognize that they cannot arrest their way out of this problem.

Marv Wopat:

We try to find ways to help people get better without incarcerating them because that doesn’t seem to work. Just locking people up without treatment.

Frederica Freyberg:

Marv Wopat is a county supervisor and on the human services board in Rock County. He’s also a drug counselor, himself 30 years sober. He knows Adam from local support group meetings.

Marv Wopat:

We need to put money where it’s going to do the best, and locking them up isn’t where it’s at.

Frederica Freyberg:

Especially not with the squeeze on government budgets. In 2006 in Rock County there were calls to build a new jail to house inmates, many of them drug abusers whose numbers pushed the jail to 30% over capacity. Today, the jail is under capacity and required only a remodel.

Judge:

Good morning. This is a session of Rock County drug court.

Frederica Freyberg:

Because instead the county started a drug treatment court.

Judge:

Any urges or anything at this point?

Frederica Freyberg:

This day, six of the participants, including this woman, were there because of heroin.

Richard Werner:

The idea was, let’s try drug court that will keep people out of jail, save money on that end, save the county the need to build a jail to house these folks and if it’s successful also provide for opportunities to give treatment to become drug and alcohol-free and do other things to take responsibility in their lives.

Richard Werner:

You’ve worked hard to be where you’re at and I’m very proud of what you’ve done.

Frederica Freyberg:

Judge Richard Werner describes the court as a success. Counting 92 graduates, only seven of those subsequently charged with crimes.

Man:

I truly believe that this program saved my life. Going on nine months, completely sober. The first time since I was probably 12 years old. It’s been that long.

Frederica Freyberg:

And still, even with the success story, law enforcement on the front lines…

Man:

They went there and shot up at the trailer.

Frederica Freyberg:

…Are scared by the continuing flow of heroin into their community.

Chuck Behm:

I’m scared because the drug ravages the youth and it started off with kids in high school experimenting with different drugs and once they get hooked on this stuff, it’s a lifetime addiction.

Frederica Freyberg:

Or worse.

Woman:

I wish I had my son back. I think some days if I could do it all over, what I could have done differently, I don’t know. I don’t know. But I wish he was here, every day.

Frederica Freyberg:

In four Fox Valley counties drug agents tell us that so far in 2010 that area has seized at least ten times more heroin than in all of last year. Statewide the Division of Criminal Investigation reports that 275 heroin cases last year and this year cases are on pace to see a projected 10% increase.

Patty Loew:

And I understand that there are some misconceptions about who’s using heroin?

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, it’s being reported that, whereas it was usually mostly men, now more and more women are using heroin. And of course that’s in addition to the young population of heroin users. Now, next week our investigation continues as we find out how legal drugs used illegally are fueling this heroin demand.

Patty Loew:

Recently interesting report. Thanks, Fred. New information this week about the PCB clean-up in the Fox River. The DNR has filed a lawsuit seeking a final price tag for the removal of cancer-causing PCBs. The original estimate of $500 million could reach $1 billion. The DNR wants those responsible to agree to pay the entire tab. PCBs were an ingredient some mills used to coat paper. The clean-up process has at least six more years. With less than two weeks before Wisconsin elects a new governor, both candidates agree on one thing. If elected, Scott Walker and Tom Barrett support changing the state’s film incentive law to attract more projects. The credits were in place when the Hollywood film “Public Enemies” starring Johnny Depp came to Wisconsin. As we first reported, Governor Doyle drastically scaled back the film credits a year ago. Now, here’s a look at some of the other reports we’re working on for the next edition of “In Wisconsin.”

Liz Koerner:

I’m “In Wisconsin” reporter Liz Koerner. The bright and brassy sound of trumpeter Ansel Norris easily carry in a crowded hall. His trumpet may also carry him to the top in a national young arts competition.

Art Hackett:

We have what we think may be a hodag sighting.

Man:

Oh, my goodness. That’s wonderful.

Art Hackett:

This is an actual photograph.

Art Hackett:

I’m Art Hackett in Rhinelander and I’ve got the real story behind the hodag.

Art Hackett:

Hodag or not a hodag?

Man:

That’s a hodag. Definitely.

Patty Loew:

And Michael Perry returns with his unusual insights into raising chickens.

Michael Perry:

That’s what I called a twitter message.

Patty Loew:

He’ll show you how his chickens earn the right to live the high life on his farm in Eau Claire County.

Michael Perry:

Welcome to the rolling poultry palace.

Patty Loew:

Join us for those “In Wisconsin” reports next Thursday at our new time, 7:30, right here on Wisconsin Public Television. Finally this week, a viewer-inspired close to our show. Alan Craig is a Madison photographer who captured the solitude of Parfrey’s Glen. We leave you with a look at some of his amazing pictures. Have a great week in Wisconsin.

Announcer:

Major funding for “In Wisconsin” is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy. We’re on for you. And the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee and Oshkosh, a veterinarian team working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. With additional funding provided by Bike Wisconsin.