Category: Conservation

 

© Marlene A. Condon
January, 2015

 

Last Thanksgiving, I came face to face with the environmental prospects facing our world. Speaking with a young man who I’d guess was about 30, I was deeply distressed by his indifference to the effect of ever-increasing energy demands placed upon the Earth.

With all of the talk about sustainability, I would have hoped that young people, especially, would demonstrate more environmental awareness. But for this young waiter, energy consumption was as natural and necessary as food consumption.

He spoke of how his generation believed work should be mixed with play, and he pointed to the TV screens lining the walls of the hotel restaurant where he was an employee and I was a guest.

His point was that people could be connected constantly to the world via many electronic gadgets, and he added that even the apartment building where he lived was similarly set up, with screens in the lobby to greet people the moment they walked into the building.

While the restaurant employee felt right at home at work (which I now know was the intention), I had felt thankful that the TVs were silent, their information being disseminated by closed captioning instead of blaring very much unwanted sounds. For me, the TVs represented a terrible waste of energy as they consumed it most hours of the day, even though few people were paying any attention to them.

Additionally, the screens were so large that just the one on the front wall of the restaurant could have served the purpose instead of covering the length of an additional wall with them.

Yes, electronic screens may be far more energy-efficient than the old-style TVs, but when you multiply them by the uncountable screens running most of each day in other hotels, doctors’ offices, car repair shops, and homes, whether anyone is watching them or not, you can begin to understand how much we squander our energy resources.

The coal, natural gas, and oil that run our modern-day world consist of nothing more than the remains of prehistoric organisms that were chemically altered via great pressure and temperature. It required millions of years of processing to become the fuel we are burning through at such a rapid pace that the depletion of it is in sight after just more than 150 years!

The proof that these fossil fuels are truly a limited resource is made clear by the desperate attempts to obtain oil and gas by hydraulic fracturing of shale deposits. Why else would anyone bother to go after oil and gas deep within the ground?

What about leaving fuel for future generations? The fact that we are going after every last hydrocarbon molecule we can possibly get does not show much concern for people’s descendants.

Obviously, we should not view this precious commodity with such a cavalier attitude, but many folks do. Indeed, on the very day I started writing this column, I heard a person on a conservative radio talk show saying he should have a right to build his home without insulation, if he so desired (and I believe he could, as I could find no reference to government regulations requiring homes to have insulation).

To him, the increased amount of energy he would end up using to warm his home was nobody’s business but his. If he wanted to waste energy, that should be his prerogative as a freedom-loving American.

But declaring a right to waste resources affects all of us: Following through on your right causes the resource to run out all the sooner for everyone. It’s remarkable that the caller—and his host who thoroughly agreed with him—were oblivious to the irony of calling themselves “conservatives” when they didn’t care about conserving a limited resource.

However, when you look around, it’s easy to see how society as a whole gives short shrift to energy usage:

Grocery stores use upright, open, refrigerated display cases that make those aisles, and sometimes the entire store, uncomfortably and unnecessarily chilly.

The automatic doors at the entranceways to many businesses and apartment complexes are constantly opening and closing, even if no one is entering or leaving.

The large houses that have become the norm over the past couple of decades or so require a great deal of energy to cool and heat, whether every room is actually used or not.

And perhaps the most obvious example of our wasteful ways is the running of such things as lights, computers, and TVs at home and at work even though no one is making use of them. It should be noted that we wouldn’t have been forced into buying more-expensive CFL light bulbs that contain mercury if people would have just switched off the lights when exiting the room.

In Virginia, people are fighting three pipelines¹ proposed to go through the state to carry natural gas obtained by hydrofracking. Many folks don’t want these huge conduits going through their “back yards” and you can’t blame them.

Personally, I’ve never understood why some people should be forced to give up their properties for the sake of everyone else, especially in this case when so much energy is, and has been, expended so carelessly and needlessly.

Additionally, we should not overlook how our appetite for energy horrendously affects wildlife. Even supposedly “green” power sources (i.e., they emit fewer or no carbon emissions), when employed on a large scale, result in a variety of wildlife losses too numerous to completely list. The following are but a few examples:

Huge solar panel arrays destroy habitat for desert tortoises and are killing birds by incineration.

Wind turbines on mountain tops impact eagle nesting sites while killing migratory birds and bats that hit the turbine blades.

Wind turbine construction and operation in the ocean create noise, which can impact sea life, especially cetaceans (whales and dolphins) that need to communicate with one another.

River dams to create hydropower stop migratory fish from being able to reproduce adequately.

Please understand that I’m not saying we shouldn’t use energy. I, for one, am certainly grateful that I don’t have to fully suffer the freezing temperatures of winter the way my ancestors did.

My point is that we should use energy as wisely as possible to minimize its seriously deleterious impacts upon the Earth as well as to prolong the availability of the resource.

It’s January, a time of New Year’s resolutions. It would be wonderful if everyone resolved to make “waste not, want not” their motto when consuming energy.

¹[Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline; the EQT Corp and NextEra Energy companies’ Mountain Valley Pipeline; and the Oklahoma-based Williams company’s Western Marcellus Pipeline]

© Marlene A. Condon
April, 2015

Last month, on a day that was —according to the calendar—about two weeks before the beginning of spring, I listened to the sounds of its impending arrival. Wood Frogs had been calling vociferously all day from my artificial ponds and a lone Spring Peeper had occasionally joined in.

But what really made an impression on me was the number of woodcocks I had heard calling in the morning darkness before the Sun rose. I was taking my usual walk along a nearby road and was thrilled to hear at least seven of these birds in my area.

A woodcock is a rather strange-looking bird with a long beak and plump body. It nests from Virginia northwards, but then needs to move southwards with the seasons—generally speaking. One relatively snowless winter, I did hear a woodcock calling every month from November to May in a nearby field, but that is unusual.

Birders visit fields to listen for returning woodcocks at this time of the year, particularly fields that contain damp soil conditions that allow the birds to feed. A woodcock’s long beak is used to probe the soil for earthworms and other invertebrates.

The population of woodcocks has been in decline since the 1960s. Their diminishing numbers are said to be due to loss of habitat because of development and also forest maturation. The reason we now have more forests composed of older trees is because we are still suffering the fallout from years ago when the huge outcry against clear-cutting left people thinking that cutting forests is a bad thing to do.

The result has been a loss of habitat for the many kinds of wildlife that absolutely depend upon the shrubby and wild grass-and-flower-filled landscape that comprises a regenerating forest landscape. The American Woodcock and other birds, such as the Ruffed Grouse, simply cannot reproduce without the appropriate habitat provided by a young forest.

But when people view the world with a very narrow perspective, and they insist that their perspective guide the management of most public (and often private) land, the end result is typically disastrous for the environment as a whole.

Additionally, based upon my own local observations, another very serious problem for the woodcock and other birds of field and edge habitat is the default modification of the landscape that occurs in conjunction with people building houses in fields.

Instead of maintaining mostly field habitat around their new home, the owners more commonly turn the acreage into lawn, which very few species of wildlife can utilize. Or, if they keep it looking like a field, it is cut far too often to be of much use to wildlife.

As evidenced by my pre-dawn walk that early-March day, fields are vital to our American Woodcock. Although most of the woodcocks I heard that morning were performing their aerial mating display to impress females in farm fields, one woodcock was making use of a wonderfully overgrown “yard.” And since I’ve also heard a woodcock here in previous years, the acreage is obviously being managed well for this type of bird.

The yard consists of about five acres (I would guess), which has neither been turned into a lawn nor kept cut throughout the growing, and mating, season. The folks who moved into the house on that property several years ago made the decision to manage the land in a nature-friendly manner and have done so continuously.

The woodcock singing from, and displaying above, their field is testament to their management-style success. In my opinion, these folks are so admirable that they deserve an award. Instead, Albemarle County and Commonwealth of Virginia officials bestow upon them the very highest land valuation (and tax bill) possible for private property—residential—for helping wildlife and the environment as a whole.

As often as local politicians purport to be conservation-minded, it’s difficult to understand why they don’t push for Richmond legislators to change tax laws so people who are truly conservation-minded aren’t penalized for doing what, in actuality, everyone should be doing with their properties.

No one requires a huge lawn. This aesthetic concept should be considered archaic and a relic of a time when mankind wasn’t taking up every bit of available space on the planet. It may have been acceptable years ago to waste land, but it shouldn’t be tolerated nowadays.

Any lawn that is larger than what will be utilized for everyday entertaining represents a wasted resource. Land is supposed to be productive. It should be growing food (whether for people or other organisms) or providing shelter and nesting sites for animals.

This is the reason that every bit of usable land sprouts seedlings that people call “weeds.” Mother Nature is trying to provide for her critters.

Anyone who gardens and anyone who owns land should think about their actions upon the environment as a whole. And if you are fortunate enough to own a fair bit of land, you should consider emulating my neighbors who’ve managed to attract a woodcock to their property for a few years now.

Make no mistake about it: The future of our wildlife is going to be determined by how people choose to manage their yards.

 

© Marlene A. Condon
March, 2015

I’m often asked how I became so captivated by the natural world. Most people usually answer this question by saying they saw a particularly beautiful animal or plant, which made them want to learn more about it. From there they moved on to other aspects of nature. But I was simply born with a love of all things wild.

I was very young when my grandparents were still alive and owned a farm. Almost every memory I possess of spending time at the farm involves wildflowers and wild animals, even though my family had no interest in nature. (I’m happy to report that changed when I started writing about it.)

No one personally introduced me to the lovely plants and secretive wild animals that weren’t as difficult to spot back then as they are now. My attention was just innately drawn to the natural environment that surrounded my family as we walked along roadways to gather blueberries that were growing wild.

Folks at that time didn’t insist upon roadsides and field borders being cut and manicured as most people demand today—as if unkempt plant growth is somehow undignified and indicative of bad moral character. The Monarch Butterfly is just one of the most obvious casualties of this current attitude towards the natural world.

The Monarch population is estimated to have dropped by a whopping 90 percent over the past 20 years. Farmers in the Midwest contributed to this situation by increasing herbicide usage to make sure no “weeds” competed with crops throughout the growing season. One of those so-called weeds was milkweed—the only kind of plant a Monarch caterpillar can feed upon.

Needless to say, a dearth of milkweed equates to a dearth of Monarchs. Indeed, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is considering adding this butterfly to the Endangered Species list—a shocking turn of events when the Monarch has always seemed so abundantly common as to be safe from the threat of extinction.

Another important factor is the unwillingness of folks to do what’s best for wildlife instead of themselves around their homes. Most gardeners, even those growing “butterfly gardens,” prefer to grow Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) rather than Common Milkweed (Asclepias syrica).

People have a fondness for Butterfly Weed because of its lovely orange color and its compact growth habit. Unlike its ungainly cousin—the Common Milkweed with its coarse growth that can reach 5-6 feet in height—Butterfly Weed fits better, aesthetically and size-wise, into a cultured landscape.

But this species presents two serious problems for Monarchs: a less desirable sap for the caterpillars to feed upon, and an ultimate size that is not sufficient for these insects to reach maturity.

The sap of Butterfly Weed is clear, not milky. In other words, it does not contain much of the alkaloids and other complex compounds that make Monarchs distasteful to predators, sickening them to such an extent that they do not try eating a Monarch again.

Surprisingly to me, scientists aren’t concerned about gardeners choosing to grow Butterfly Weed instead of Common Milkweed. They seem to think that as long as a few Monarchs are eating more-chemically toxic milkweeds somewhere else, the rest (i.e., the ones feeding in your yard) will be adequately protected.

It’s very common for scientists to take the attitude that getting people to do anything at-all-positive for wildlife is acceptable because otherwise people might instead do nothing. While I certainly want to encourage folks to do whatever they can to make their yards more nature-friendly, even if the choices they make are not the best ones, this particular instance is different. I can’t support the allowance of Butterfly Weed as a suitable plant to assist diminishing Monarch numbers.

People need to know that if most Monarch caterpillars feed upon Butterfly Weed, most Monarch caterpillars will be more palatable than they would be if they fed upon Common Milkweed, and that puts the entire population at risk of predation. Indeed, when I look to Mother Nature—as I always do—she backs me up. (The natural world can always be counted on for verity.)

The most-common and most-used milkweed from the Great Plains eastward in the United States and north to southern Canada—the range of the Monarch—is Common Milkweed, with its milky sap. If the scientific supposition that Butterfly Weed is just as good a plant for Monarchs as Common Milkweed were valid, you would expect Butterfly Weed to be more common than it is throughout much of its, and this butterfly’s, range.

To me, this provides the definitive proof that the Common Milkweed is the one that has been used the most throughout the centuries by Monarchs, and that should be reason enough to pick this species for your garden. But if you are skeptical of my assertion, I can give you the undeniable evidence for not choosing Butterfly Weed: The plant is so small that it simply can’t support one caterpillar, let alone many, all the way to maturity.

Unless you can grow a huge number of these plants in your garden, you will doom Monarch caterpillars to starvation. I know because my husband was kind enough to rescue many caterpillars one year from a person’s garden that held only Butterfly Weed. Every one of those Monarchs would have died if I hadn’t been growing Common Milkweed in my gardens.

Indeed, Monarch butterflies themselves have provided the indisputable substantiation of my contention: They’ve never laid even one egg on the Butterfly Weed growing in the same garden bed as my Common Milkweed.

Monarchs know what they need. If they lay eggs upon Butterfly Weed, you can rest assured that there’s too limited a supply of Common Milkweed in the area. Please use your garden space wisely by planting Common Milkweed instead of Butterfly Weed. Monarchs desperately need you to do what’s best for them, not you.

Note: VDOT has begun a new “Pollinator Habitat Program” to assist pollinators by creating and maintaining appropriate habitat. The agency is looking for partners to work with to create plots on VDOT lands in and near Safety Rest Areas & Park & Rides. The Interstate 64 VDOT Workers Memorial on Afton Mountain is a location they are considering for this program. Garden clubs, wildlife conservancies and area businesses are encouraged to participate by providing volunteer labor and funding. If you’re interested, please contact Diane Beyer, State Roadside Management Planner, at diane.beyer@vdot.virginia.gov for more information.

© Marlene A. Condon
April, 2014

I know warm weather is on the way when I hear a Wood Frog beginning to call in my yard where I have two small artificial ponds. These cold-tolerant, hardy little amphibians give me my first clue from the animal world that spring is coming, long before the American Robins that most people associate with this particular season. (In point of fact, some robins may be in the area all winter.)

Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus, formerly Rana sylvatica) inhabit woods, but in late winter they come out of hibernation with mating on their minds. This is the best, and almost only, time you are likely to spot Wood Frogs as they come to shallow pools to breed. They will also use deeper ponds if they can attach their globular egg masses to underwater plant stems near the surface to prevent the eggs from sinking into the depths of the pond.

Many amphibian species are losing ground nowadays as wetlands are destroyed by public construction projects and by citizens on private property. Although scientists recognize the value of wetlands, most people do not. Folks tend to want to drain and fill in such areas, but this wipes out the breeding grounds for many species of wildlife.

You can make a difference by putting in a pond for wildlife and it doesn’t even need to be particularly large. The little pond in my front yard is only about 2½ feet wide and about 4 feet long. The one in my side yard is about 3 feet by 6 feet.

A pond brings in frogs, dragonflies, salamanders, and other water-loving creatures to your yard where they will help control the numbers of insects for you. I’ve watched frogs catch flies at the pond and wander around on wet days to eat insects off the plants in my nearby flowerbed. Dragonflies chase after gnats, sometimes right around your head!

Whenever I mention yard ponds in a talk, the first question I get from most people is, “Won’t a pond bring in mosquitoes?” Yes, of course it will.

But if mosquitoes lay eggs in your pond that is full of mosquito predators instead of on those rain-dampened tarps or water-filled children’s toys in your yard, the eggs will get eaten instead of producing an abundance of these biting insects.

Select a site that is easily accessible to a spigot (for refills) and is in a location where you can look at it often. Otherwise you’ll miss all of the activity!

Try to place the pond in a level area so that runoff will not normally collect in it. This is especially important if runoff might contain contaminants that can poison the plants and animals in your pond.

The pond should receive at least six or more hours of sunshine a day during the summer. Most aquatic plants need this much sun in order to produce blooms and to grow well.

Your pond should have plants that live under the water (called “submergent vegetation”) as well as plants whose stems or leaves rise above the water.

Submergent plants increase the amount of oxygen in the water, which helps underwater-dwelling animals survive. Above-water plants shade the pond, which keeps the water temperature from rising too much. Very warm water becomes oxygen-deficient.

You can make a pond of your own design by trimming a liner made of a combination of polyethylene and rubber, or you can buy a pre-formed pond made of plastic or fiberglass. Whichever you choose, you will have to excavate an area deep enough and wide enough to accommodate the pond.

To be sure that the pond water does not completely freeze during the winter months, you should make the pond as deep as possible, and certainly no less than 18 inches in the deepest section if you live in Central Virginia. You can find out from an extension agent or the local soil conservation office how deeply the ground freezes in your area and use that as your guideline.

Before putting in your lining or pre-formed pond, make sure that the sides of the hole you have dug are free of sharp objects, such as rocks and tree roots. Place a layer of sand at the bottom to create a level surface.

The hardest part about putting in a pond is the labor involved in digging out the soil from the site. If you can’t do this yourself, you might want to pay someone else to do only the digging while you take care of the actual installation. If you don’t mind spending the money, you could hire a professional pond installer.

Before doing anything, however, you should do some research about installing and maintaining ponds. Many books are available on this subject.

How quickly you attract wildlife will depend upon where you live, but you may be surprised by how soon animals show up. Insects, such as water striders, will probably be the first to appear because of their mobility (they can fly), and with luck, frogs and salamanders will arrive soon thereafter.

Birds will flock to the pond to drink and perhaps to bathe, if the underwater plant growth forms a mat thick enough to support their weight. And mammals will, of course, come for a drink of water.

Your pond will be a little world unto itself and you can learn how it functions by being a keen and nonjudgmental observer of its inhabitants. If you haven’t already discovered how absolutely fascinating nature can be, you certainly will after you have put in a pond!

 

© Marlene A. Condon
October, 2014

October is the month in which we might be treated to a colorful show of leaves, courtesy of our deciduous trees. As chlorophyll breaks down and reveals a variety of hues (the result of sugars that were in the leaves all along, but masked by the green chlorophyll), these trees give us a spectacular display of natural art (as long as soil moisture and temperatures have been conducive to this outcome).

Yet, to most people, the minute those lovely leaves fall to the ground, they become litter to be bagged and hauled off the property, or worse yet, burned. These actions are disastrous for our wildlife and not at all helpful to the trees either.

Leaves are supposed to remain around the tree from which they came because they are, literally, nutrients that have been taken from the soil and transformed into leaves. After the leaves fall to the ground, they are supposed to be recycled back into the soil to nourish the tree’s future growth.

Nutrient recycling is accomplished by numerous kinds of critters that feed upon the leaves and break them down. The nutrients from the leaves are returned to the soil in the droppings of these animals. In other words, the leaves, along with the help of wildlife, constitute your natural—and absolutely free—fertilizer program.

Additionally, those leaves are your natural mulch that maintains soil moisture and moderates soil temperatures for the benefit of the tree’s roots. It’s wasteful of time, money, and effort to get rid of leaves only to replace them with some other kind of mulch from the store.

But most importantly of all, those fallen leaves become an incredibly important blanket for the benefit of numerous invertebrates out there (and even some vertebrates, such as our treefrogs) that require this covering to get through the winter.

For example, female fritillary butterflies (we have several species in our area) lay their eggs in late summer near violets (Viola spp.), the gorgeous host plants for their caterpillars that will hatch out shortly. But those tiny caterpillars will not feed this fall. They will take shelter in leaves and other plant debris to hibernate. When the violets resume growth in the spring, the caterpillars will start feeding and resume their own growth as well.

Thus if you want to create habitat for these attractive butterflies, it’s essential to provide leaf mulch as well as violets. And these aren’t the only butterfly species that absolutely depend upon leaves to perpetuate their kind.

The Red-banded Hairstreak, a small but attractive butterfly, does not lay its eggs upon its host plant, Winged Sumac (Rhus copallina). Instead the female attaches each tiny egg to the bottom side of a fallen leaf below the plant from which the leaf dropped. When the eggs hatch, the caterpillars feed upon the decaying leaves instead of fresh ones as most other caterpillars do! And if the caterpillar is from a late-summer brood, it will overwinter among that same leaf mulch.

The caterpillars of Tawny Emperors and Hackberry Emperors curl dried brown hackberry leaves (Celtis spp.). around themselves to overwinter. Some lepidopterists (scientists who study moths and butterflies) say they remain attached to the tree, but others report that they fall to the ground when the leaves fall off their host trees. If you run a lawn mower over the fallen leaves, or bag or burn them, you kill your caterpillars and thus your future butterflies.

And, of course, our moths—being closely related to butterflies—also require leaf mulch for some species. The familiar Woolly Bear caterpillar, the larva of the Isabella Tiger Moth, is spotted along roadways in September because it is searching for an area of sufficient leaf cover to hibernate under. When spring arrives, it will pupate (form a cocoon) and finally emerge in its adult stage.

Have you ever seen the gorgeous, pale-green Luna Moth? With a wingspan up to four and a half inches, it’s one of our largest moths and is the animated insect in TV commercials for the sleep aid named Lunesta. This beloved species even appeared on a first-class postage stamp (22 cents) back in 1987.

The caterpillar can feed upon the leaves of a variety of trees and shrubs, such as Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), hickories (Carya spp.), Sweet Gum (Liquidambar straciflua), and sumacs (Rhus spp.). It has also been found less frequently upon Red Maple (Acer rubrum) and White Oak (Quercus alba).

When it’s fully grown at about two and a half inches, the caterpillar wraps itself in a leaf, entering the pupa stage. If this occurs as winter is approaching, the cocoon falls to the ground as the tree loses its leaves, where it’s sheltered in the leaf mulch.

Of course, butterflies and moths represent just a fraction of the many invertebrates that make use of leaf mulch. But as you can see from just the few species of butterflies and moths that I’ve written about here, keeping leaves under the trees from which they came is literally a matter of life and death for many species of wildlife.

The Luna Moth used to be considered common, but it is now feared that they are endangered in some areas due to habitat loss and other factors, such as lights left burning all night. Usually when we hear the term, “habitat loss,” we think only about plants disappearing. But in the case of the Luna Moth, the problem is not a loss of trees and shrubs, but rather the loss of leaves as people insist upon removing them from their yards.

Here are some tips on how you can be more nature friendly while simultaneously lessening your load of work in the fall:

• Don’t plant grass underneath trees. It doesn’t belong there; leaf mulch does.

• It’s best not to plant anything underneath trees because you shouldn’t be walking there a lot to tend to plants. Your weight compacts the soil, which is harmful to the tree’s roots. But if you feel driven to decorate the area, plant only shrubs that are meant to grow among fallen leaves and place them near the drip line.

• If the autumn weather is drier than usual and the leaves are being blown out from under the tree, retrieve some pruned tree and shrub branches from your brush pile (every yard should have at least one) and place them gently over the leaf area beneath the tree. They will help to keep the leaves in place.

When I see bags and bags of leaves lining city roadways to be picked up, I see mankind’s ignorance about the everyday impact humans have upon the natural world, which is accompanied by an appalling lack of concern about living in agreement with nature. I also see a world that has become—and every day is increasingly becoming—not only far less enchanting, but also far less capable of supporting us.