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One man’s passion for trees more than 50 years ago led to the creation of a nonprofit organization based in Strafford. The Lovett Pinetum works to develop and manage a collection of several hundred species of conifers.
The pinetum encompasses a 108 acre site just east of Springfield and a 43-acre site in Texas. In all, there are more than 500 species, varieties and cultivars of conifers on those acres.
It all began in 1970 when Springfield pathologist, Dr. Bob Lovett, purchased 14 acres of land with a beautiful, lush spring on it. At the time, though, the spring had been used as a dumping ground for trash by people who lived nearby. Lovett spent a lot of time cleaning it up. That spring, another on the more newly-acquired property and two others nearby are the headwaters for Pearson Creek, which has been listed by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources as a polluted waterway, most recently in 2020.
Missouri s Arbor Day April 2
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North Liberty Lions providing free trees
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The general game and habitat license is required for all hunting licenses except furbearer, nongame, spring light goose and early Canada goose.
Nonresident waterfowl hunters also were up. Game and Fish sold 24,063 nonresident waterfowl licenses in 2020, up from 20,733 in 2019, department statistics show. The increase “is really not surprising, considering the Canadian border closure,” Steinwand said. “We actually anticipated a little bit more.”
The five-year average for resident waterfowl hunters is 20,612.
In terms of fishing, the department in 2020 saw an encouraging trend with 19- to 29-year-old anglers, Steinwand said, a demographic that had been declining in recent years.
“That increased this year and particularly among females,” Steinwand said. “They just needed to get outside, they needed to do something. And it wasn’t, ‘Hey, let’s go party on the sandbars by the river.’ They actually went out and did some fishing. We’ve seen that on a l