Annual Day on the River provides opportunities to see wildlife, boat rides

Amber and Freddy Johnson and 15-year-old Casey Crowden of Southeast Missouri were part of a free 15-passenger half-hour boat ride — and hopped off with all smiles in matching orange life jackets — ahead of the midmorning rush during Saturday’s Day on the River at Riverfront Park in Cape Girardeau.

The boat ride and the Riverfront Farmers Market were the group’s main objective for the morning, Amber said.

“We’ve checked out the turtles, and the otters and the snake.”

Up next was the on-site face-painting tent, she said.

She said the entire event is hands-on — and that’s why they love it. Freddy said he’s accustomed to spending time fishing on a boat, but “not so much riding.”

“It’s one of them things that brings the community together,” he said.

Jim Studdard, president of Southeast Missouri State University Student Subunit of the American Fisheries Society, said attendees were already lining up at the docks for the free round-trip boat rides — and at his stand for catfish fillet sandwiches — before 8 a.m.

Armed with 51 pounds of catfish fillets set for the fryer, he said proceeds from the menu of catfish fillets, catfish nuggets, hot dogs, chips and beverages will benefit fisheries students’ research. It also will fund future conferences and recruitment events.

“What we try to do is provide professional experience in the field of fisheries,” Studdard said. “So people that might not have the opportunity to go out on boats and work with the MDC (Missouri Department of Conservation) crew, we try to provide that for them.”

Among a table of various fish replicas — paddlefish, buffalo and three types of catfish — likely to be found within the depths of the mighty Mississippi was the American eel. MDC volunteer Austin Glastetter said it’s one species people might not be aware of.

“There’s quite a few of them,” he said.

And among the eel’s ecosystem live several types of gar, which Glastetter said many people consider being a nuisance — “A lot of people bow fish them.”

By noon, Conservation Nature Center manager Sara Turner said the 15-passenger boat had made four round-trip excursions up river. At day’s end, Turner said roughly 2,400 people attended Saturday’s event.

Day on the River began as Missouri Department of Conservation’s River Ecology Day in 2010 and was renamed in 2011.