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[at-l] silent spring
Same thing has happened up the hill from us and the problem we have is that
there are 10 head of whitetail deer that used to have the hill behind my
house and the creek and park below us as their habitat - now it's just the
creek and park (the park and creek are about 1/4 mile wide and rap around the
bottom of the neighborhood. I did my nightly 5 miles with pack on the Mason
Dixon trail tonight through the park and saw 4 of the does bouncing through
the woods across the creek from me as I entered the park. Saw one bound
across the creek in front of me on the return to the house. I used to see
them infrequently which was OK (made the sitings that much more special).
Now they bounce around in a small piece of ground all the time and run down
the street from time to time. The neighborhood kids (my 9 YO daughter
included) think it's neat because they get to see the deer more often and
from an education perspective about how precious and worth preserving they
are, I guess that's good. On the other hand, I think it's sad commentary on
sprawl. I've been working with the County government for the past four years
to repair the patchwork open space mentality we've developed on the East
Coast that counts acres of trees, not habitat preservation, but it's a
constant struggle. Wish me luck.
BTW - we have feeders and birdhouses in the yard and a thriving dove,
bluejay, finch and cardinal population - makes it tough to get output from my
garden, but what the heck, they are fun to watch.
Black&blue
In a message dated 02/19/02 10:51:13 PM Eastern Standard Time,
hopefl@juno.com writes:
> Recently most of the woods along the top of the ridge we
> live on was torn down for yet another subdivision. This happened about
> Christmas. Some time after the woods were carried off on log trucks, I
> began to notice fewer and fewer feathery friends at my feeders. It has
> been well established that the loss of habitat is the main reason for the
> decline in American song birds. As the green areas near cities are
> destroyed, the birds will be forced to move farther afield. Many will be
> force out of nesting all together. Pressure will be put on all the song
> birds in the areas were the former city dweller go in search of new
> range.
>
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