Protecting Plants from Winter Injury

By Bruce Wenning

 

Trees and shrubs, whether native or naturalized to our region (zone 6; -10 to 0F), can succumb to cold temperature injury if the natural dormancy or hardening-off process is incomplete. Mild fall and winter temperatures, where day and night temperatures do not go below 35 F for extended periods of time, contribute to incomplete plant dormancy.

When woody plants in this condition are subjected to a sudden large drop in temperature, injury or even death of plants or plant parts can occur. This phenomenon is usually called winter kill. You can limit the damage or even prevent this from happening if you take protective action now.

This is how plants protect themselves from freezing. Generally, from late August to mid- December light levels and air temperatures gradually decrease, inducing hormonal changes in plant cells to enable them to adapt to the oncoming freezing winter temperatures. Plant growth slows down considerably and the cells of different plant parts reduce their water content by osmotic pressure; water inside the cell travels to the outside of the cell and between all cells. The cellular contents left inside cells become more concentrated allowing the reduction of ice crystal formation (supercooling).

This supercooling process protects plants from being killed at freezing temperatures. Water outside of cells freeze, but contents inside the cell, including traces of remaining water, do not freeze. This remarkable environmental adaptation ensures that plant cells won’t burst from ice crystal formation.

Sometimes certain plant species, both woody and herbaceous, contain specific plant pathogenic bacteria in their cells that act as ice nuclei for ice crystal formation. For example, the bacterial plant pathogen, Pseudomonas syringae, is a gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that kills infected plant tissues. The black-brown colored twig tips of Japanese red maple that you see in spring may be a direct result of this bacterial-induced cold injury.

Winter winds also cause winter injury to plants. The action of drying, cold wind on evergreen foliage draws water out of the leaf stomates faster than the plant can replace water from the roots. Newly transplanted trees and shrubs, young seedlings, broad-leaved evergreens (such as rhododendrons, boxwoods, mountain laurels, and hollies) are especially vulnerable. Even the needle-leaved evergreens such as pines, hemlocks, spruce and firs can be affected. The cold wind dries out leaf tissues and partially or completely kills them. Rhododendron and boxwood leaves in spring may show leaf margin browning or completely brown leaves.

Here’s how to protect your trees and shrubs from cold and drying.

1.    Water the roots of all woody plants until the first hard freeze, one inch per week.

2.    After the soil freezes, mulch the roots of small trees, shrubs, and newly planted and transplanted trees and shrubs with salt marsh hay or leaves. Apply at least three to four inches of mulch around the roots. This will moderate the freezing and thawing action (frost heaving) in the root zone and help to conserve soil moisture.

3.    Wrap evergreens with burlap. This will help reduce the wind speed on the foliage. Better yet, put four wooden stakes around each small tree and shrub that you want to protect and tie burlap to the stakes forming a “room”. Fill this room or enclosure to the top with leaves. The protected plant should be a minimum of six inches from the burlap.

4.    If you don’t want to wrap your plants you can apply anti-desiccant or anti-transpirant products to the evergreen foliage, particularly for plants in exposed sites and new plantings. According to Brian Hanson, Plant Health Care Manager, Cedar Lawn Tree Service, these compounds are primarily used on the foliage of evergreens, especially the broadleaf evergreens, to reduce transpiration water loss that naturally occurs through the stomata in plant tissues. A possible side benefit for some plants is better foliage color retention. Hanson suggests several applications in late fall and winter depending on weather conditions. Unfortunately, these products provide only limited protection from cold temperature injury.

Bruce Wenning is on the Board of Directors of the Ecological Landscaping Association.  www.ecolandscaping.org.

 

Energy Use Here and In Germany

By Gilbert Woolley / Special To The Tab

 

On a recent visit to Germany and Austria I tried to compare typical comments on and response to environmental issues in these countries. Each day I skimmed through a German language newspaper to look for environmental news. One notable difference was that I saw no mention of “solutions” for dependence on imported fuels and no complaints about gasoline prices, which are roughly twice as high as in the US. The explanation for cost tolerance is that gasoline has never been cheap in Germany (and other industrial countries of Western Europe).

Until the discovery of North Sea Oil in the 1960s, these countries were almost totally dependent on far away places (including the US) across thousands of miles of ocean, In the twenties and thirties it was recognized that in case of war, these oceans would be patrolled by enemy ships, including submarines. High taxes were imposed, not only to raise revenue, but also to decrease usage, and dependence on imports. As a result, the public never came to regard cheap gasoline as a “right” and most people drove less, and in smaller cars or on motorcycles, than in the US. Raising taxes is the sure way to reduce dependence on foreign oil but is politically difficult in the US.

Germany has well over 11,000 wind turbines, generating more electricity by wind than any other country and, as we traveled between Berlin and Munich, we saw many wind turbines. This area is not ideal for wind and some turbines were not turning, presumably because of insufficient velocity. Germany’s only significant domestic source of fossil fuel is coal and the country is trying to meet its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2. Wind generation increased by 44 percent last year.

Hotels in Berlin and Munich, which used key cards as room keys, also used them to conserve electricity. To turn on the lights and air conditioner in the room, the card must be placed in a reader by the door. When leaving the room, retrieving the key turns off the lights and air conditioner. The tank on the toilet had two levers, a small flush and a full flush. Using the small flush saves not only water but also the electricity used to drive the water and wastewater pumps.

Dependence on the automobile is also reduced by efficient and frequent public transit – subways, streetcars and buses. The most noticeable difference between Berlin, Munich and Vienna and American cities, however, was that bicycle paths were provided on all major, and some secondary streets. Imagine cycling down the “Unter den Linden”, Berlin’s Fifth Avenue. These cycle paths are clearly marked by the contrasting color of paving and are part of the sidewalks. This means that cyclists are not threatened by powered vehicles as is the case when cycle paths are simply painted lines dedicating a couple of feet of the carriageway to bicycles. And these paths are used by young and old, even by middle-aged ladies out shopping. Most businesses, including department stores, have bicycle racks near the entrances. In busy city streets it has been demonstrated over and over again that the bicycle is the fastest method of travel but most people are afraid to cycle in traffic. The German cyclists confidently asserted their right to use these paths and often didn’t warn pedestrians who had strayed on to them. This was a hazard to some of our (American) party who often ignored the cycle path markings.

None of these things is going to “solve” the energy problem or eliminate Global Warming. Neither is drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge nor in the coastal zone. The excessive use of energy did not happen suddenly, but built up over most of the twentieth century, and reducing energy use will also take time and require hundreds of millions of people to take simple actions to reduce energy use, like driving less and driving smaller cars, turning the thermostat up in summer and down in winter and adding insulation to their homes. It is not politically popular to say so, but the German, and European, example suggests that the “market” – that is higher prices – may be the most effective tool to reduce demand. One thing that will not reduce gasoline consumption is that additional lanes are being added to the Autobahn we were driving along. Experience in the US is that increasing the capacity of highways results in diversion of travelers from public transportation to private automobiles.

The German word for the Environment is “die Umwelt,” literally the world around us. This seems to me to be less abstract and more “user friendly”.

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer and longtime member of the Sierra Club.

 This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Acid rain and Newton’s ponds

By Justin Song/ Special To The Tab

 

 

Acid rain affects the US the most in the Northeast and the Midwest. This is mainly because of the heavy industries that exist in those areas, many of which produce gases that create acid rain when exposed to the atmosphere. The gases mostly responsible are sulfur and nitrogen oxides. At its worst, acid rain has reduced the pH of lakes and ponds to 4.6 in places, making those bodies of fresh water 10 times more acidic than they should be (the normal pH for bodies of water in the US is 5.6). At this pH, water can support little to no life. The Charles River is an example of a body of water that has been heavily affected by acid rain, due to years of industrial pollution.

For an Environmental Services Project at NNHS this past year, I tested three bodies of water in Newton to see how much acid rain continues to affect our city: Crystal Lake, Hammond Pond, and Bullough’s Pond, which are all in the Charles River watershed. I tested each body of water in two locations, separated by at least 150 feet at each location, I recorded air temperature, weather, water temperature and the time. I then took a water sample measuring 50ml, and obtained a reading using a pH meter. I did four rounds of testing.

Crystal Lake and Hammond Pond had pH values of 5.5 and 5.4 respectively. Bullough’s Pond was slightly more acidic than the other two, with a pH of 5.25. These pH values for all three bodies of water were normal, deviating very little from the norm of 5.6. The most likely cause of the acidity of Bullough’s Pond is eutrophication. When people use lots of fertilizer, or any chemicals rich in nitrogen or phosphorous, around a body of water, these chemicals often end up in the water due to runoff from irrigation or rain. These chemicals enhance the growth of algae in the lake or pond to amounts that are unhealthy for the life within it. Too much algae, as it dies, causes excess carbon dioxide to be dissolved in the water, which changes the pH, making the water more acidic. Eutrophication also reduces dissolved oxygen levels in the water, limiting the ability of the lake or pond to support larger organisms like fish, and it blocks sunlight to plants in the water, which further reduces oxygen levels in the water. Fortunately, although Bullough’s Pond is slightly acid, Newton is not significantly impacted by acid rain at this time.

We need to remain vigilant, however, because acid rain can have silent, but devastating effects on fresh water lakes and ponds. It can free harmful chemical ions from the soil, like aluminum ions, which then run off into nearby bodies of water. These ions are absorbed by the organisms in the water and may cause disease or death. When fish absorb too many of these ions, their gills produce a mucus which interferes with respiration. Since almost all aquatic life absorbs ions in the water indiscriminately, acid rain can poison the water to a point where only the hardiest organisms can survive.

The unwanted effects of acid rain are not limited to ponds or lakes. Acid rain with a pH of less than 5 can damage terrestrial environments, including making soil uninhabitable for plants. Plants cannot absorb vital nutrients properly in soil that is highly acidic; their growth is hindered or they may die. Acid rain can literally destroy plants by eating through them. This has far-reaching ecosystem effects when plants, the staple of the food web, cannot replace themselves as quickly as animals eat them. The consequences for animals may include rashes, birth defects, elevated rates of infant mortality and even famine, which can decimate local animal populations.

Because acid rain has many serious negative environmental consequences, steps have been taken by our federal government to reduce it. The Clean Air Act of 1990 has reduced the amount of acidifying gases by million of tons. In the past 30 years, developing cleaner methods to smelt ores and mandating taller smoke stacks in factories have reduced sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions significantly. Cleaner ways of burning coal and requiring automobiles to be more fuel-efficient and equipped with emissions control devices have also helped to protect the public and the environment from the detrimental effects of acid rain. Also, environmental groups have promoted the planting of natural chemical buffers in soils affected by acid rain, which has protected certain habitats. By working for fewer and cleaner emissions from factories and developing clean energy sources, we can all help to ensure that acid rain will not leave a permanent scar on the landscape of Newton.

Justin Song, a resident of West Newton, is an AP Biology student completing his junior year at NNHS.

 This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Cute little baby animals – more than meets the eye!

By John Linehan/Special To The Tab

 

A visit to either the Franklin Park Zoo or Stone Zoo this summer will reveal lots of cute new faces. It has been an unusually productive year at Zoo New England’s institutions. The “oohs” and “ahs” are audible while mothers shepherd their offspring and teach them the requisite skills for their lives ahead. It’s easy to see that these mothers revel in their maternal roles and responsibilities.

There was a time, not long ago, when even good zoos produced offspring merely for the sake of attracting visitors. As good zoos evolved, under more enlightened leadership, the realities came into focus. Unchecked reproduction of some animals and non-reproduction by others was rapidly depleting genetic diversity and in other cases leading to over-production. Surplus animals sometimes ended-up in bad situations.

This has changed dramatically. With the aid of computer modeling programs, improved animal husbandry techniques and a wildlife conservation focus, accredited zoos across the country now manage much of their animal collections as if there were no ownership. Individual animals are paired for breeding based upon their genetic background. Animal transfers between zoos are planned and carried out with well-organized master plans designed to ensure the conservation of species. As we have established husbandry techniques for successful reproduction, we have also developed a wide variety of contraceptive techniques. Each species is different physically and behaviorally. Zoo veterinarians and keepers are continuously challenged by the diversity of species’ biologies. The goal of the programs is to maintain the maximum genetic variability in each of these species and then to maintain stable populations that are in balance with the space and other resources of the zoos. Today, zoos are net wildlife producers, not consumers. While some of these efforts result in reintroduction programs, most are aimed at maintaining self-sustaining captive populations and safeguarding wild population.

Our growing Mexican wolf pups at Stone Zoo are part of a successful program to re-establish this species in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. We have red crowned cranes at Franklin Park Zoo, which now have offspring reintroduced and migrating in Asia. There are many others, such as gorillas, giraffe, jaguar, zebra. The existence of these animals supports wild populations through education and partnerships with other zoos and conservation organizations. The organization and cooperation required to plan and enact these complex programs is carried out mainly by zoo staff volunteering their time to make the programs work. Their tireless efforts are coordinated through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and facilitated by a small group of population biologists.

 John Linehan is President and CEO of Zoo New England, the non-profit organization which manages our two state-owned zoos, Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester and Stone Zoo in Stoneham. He serves on several committees of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp

Planting trees in Senegal: more than meets the eye

By John Leary/ Special To The Tab

 

Confronting the Sahara desert, a mere 150 miles to the north and moving steadily southward, the farmers of Kaffrine in central Senegal are facing an environmental disaster.

The Wolof people have unknowingly punished their soils with over a century of uninterrupted peanut farming. The annual harvest, which entails ripping peanuts out of the ground, leaves farmlands exposed to the intense sun and harsh winds that last the long dry season. The need for fuelwood and construction materials has depleted local forests. The Wolof are desperate for new ideas to deal with irregular rainfall, locust attacks, and the encroaching desert. For many, food security is only a dream. The baobab, tamarind, and bush mangoes that dot the horizon are all that remain of a once thriving forest, and even native Acacia trees are struggling to regenerate.

Trees for the Future’s International Program Manager John Leary explains multipurpose windbreaks to Senagalese farmers.

 

These local environmental catastrophes on the tip of West Africa reflect global trends that affect all of us. Clearing forests releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, leading to alterations of planetary weather patterns and reducing the planet’

s capacity to sequester the greenhouse gases emitted from industries. As a result, every country is facing climate extremes, such as droughts, floods, melting glaciers, and hurricanes.

Fortunately, local people are coming to understand that some of the solutions to these profound problems often lie within the collective wisdom of their own communities – in agricultural practices that have been ignored for decades.

The initial response of desperate farmers has often been to ask international development organizations to construct water pumps. In fact, access to fresh water often quickly creates a boom in vegetable and animal production. However, pumps have been only a short-term solution. What at first appeared to be a springboard to sustainable development has proven to be the Trojan Horse of the African Sahel.

It is a tragic, but common, scenario. Herds of animals concentrate at the water sources, trampling stressed soils and eating all that remains of local vegetation. New gardening industries further deplete the remaining forest resources as communities cut trees to build wooden fences in order to protect precious gardens.

At the request of village leaders and local forestry officials I began working with these Senegalese farmers in 2001 while serving as an agroforestry extension agent in the Peace Corps. They were ready to listen to anybody with a workable plan. To develop a plan that would accommodate their needs, expectations and capabilities, I knew I needed to listen carefully to what these traditional people had to say.

Agroforestry is a complex systems approach, and it takes a lot of listening to understand the needs of local agricultural systems and to ensure that a tree-planting program will meet those needs. Planting trees is the first line of defense, but it is not an end in itself- it is a preventive strategy to address many environmental, social, and economic problems simultaneously.

For that first year, I mostly listened. I learned that the Wolof people are tired of working – literally and figuratively – for peanuts. More and more, it is taking far too long to produce far too little. Production keeps falling. Soils have lost strength, and the scant remaining topsoil is badly eroded by fierce winds in the dry season. Fertilizers are expensive, and farmers get only one payday per year, in November, after peanuts have been processed. The rest of the year is a painful waiting game. Animals have nothing to eat in the dry season after all grasses have been cut or burned, and women become exhausted from walking miles to collect wood for fuel. As I listened to their stories, it became clear that these farmers actually knew the solution to their problems, and they just needed an outside catalyst.

The farmers told me that first they needed to protect their fields from animals and wind erosion. They told me they needed sources of animal forage, organic matter, and wood for fuel. They said they needed to diversify the types of crops and the timing of production. My role was to bring in outside knowledge and experiences to help communities utilize untapped resources. My solution was windbreaks – double rows of trees that protect fields and produce great quantities of useful products.

The reason these communities had not established multipurpose windbreaks decades ago was simply that no one had ever seen or heard of windbreaks. When the French colonized Senegal, they taught farmers how to use every square inch of their land to produce peanuts- techniques that became the so-called “traditional”

farming methods. But long before the French arrived, Senegalese were experts at integrating millet production in pockets of brush and forests, leaving environments intact to regenerate and serve as natural windbreaks, while keeping available a supply of native fruit and nut trees. The deeper traditional knowledge inherent in this system had been lost when lands were cleared to expand peanut production.

The first year, I worked with a few farmers to surround their field with thick hedges of seedlings. We planted thorny trees on the outside to keep animals out, and we planted fast-growing trees on the inside to establish a tall windbreak. Everyone was surprised by the rapid rate of growth of these species- many grew more than 20 feet in 16 months, starting from seed! I had selected trees that quickly grow back after branches are cut, trees whose leaves drop lots of nitrogen into the starved soils and trees and shrubs that produce beans, fruits and high-protein animal forage (leaves and seed pods).

Farmers in Kaffrine have seen that the solution works. What started with three pilot farmers has expanded into 25 communities and is growing at a rate of 15 villages every year. Families have changed the way they farm, collect firewood, improve soil, feed animals and protect crops. These proud local people, with some encouragement and agroforestry knowledge from an outsider, were able to generate a local solution to a profound environmental problem.

There is much more work to do, and funding is often inadequate, although these programs are not expensive. The global community has a stake in ensuring food security for communities experiencing more droughts due to climate change, but the programs have ripple effects far beyond those communities.

Halting the erosion of the Sahara has direct benefits for people in the Western hemisphere who suffer health problems from the increasing amounts of airborne dust being carried across the Atlantic by trade winds. We live in a profoundly interconnected world, and in the long run, there is no place to hide from the serious consequences of environmental degradation anywhere on the planet.

John Leary is the International Program Manager for Trees for the Future, www.plant-trees.org, Since 1988 TFTF has aided thousands of communities to plant over 43,000,000 trees, returning sustainable productivity to 70,000 acres of land and removing over one million tons of CO2 from the global atmosphere.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Zoos and wildlife conservation

By John Linehan/ Special To The Tab

 

 

It never ceases to amaze me when people appear surprised to learn how much zoos in general, and Zoo New England in particular, are doing in the conservation arena. Perhaps some people hold to the outdated perspective of zoos as purely recreational facilities. The role and function of zoos has evolved dramatically in recent years. In the past, we were animal exhibitors and wildlife consumers. Today we are net wildlife producers as well as interpreters for, and advocates of, a natural world under siege.

Zoos are uniquely positioned between the increasingly urbanized human world and the world of wildlife. We are the most effective bridge linking these two disparate worlds. The irony is, of course, that these are not two worlds at all; humans and wildlife are inhabitants of one planet and the survival of all of us is inextricably linked. The bridge we zoos create is built with informational logs and intellectual mortar provided through our exhibits, our signage and our programming. The underpinnings of the bridge lie in the creation of emotional bonds between people and animals. In establishing these bonds, the animals in our Zoos serve as ambassadors par excellence for their wild living brethren. Once established, this is a “bridge” that grows and takes on a life of its own. The challenge for zoos today lies in knowing that there is much bridge construction to be done if we are to secure a healthy future for the children and grandchildren of the Earth’s current inhabitants.

The conservation projects and programs we engage in and support are either in-situ (in an animal’s natural range) or ex-situ (outside an animal’

s natural range), or sometimes both. An example: Zoo NE staff has perfected artificial insemination techniques to produce fertile eggs from our red-crowned cranes which have then been shipped to a Russian nature reserve for hatching, rearing and release. We have supported projects around the world: we are helping to protect African Wild Dogs in Zimbabwe, training herders in Pakistan to manage their flocks to avoid snow leopard predation, and identifying prime jaguar habitat for priority protection in Guatemala. The sad truth is that these programs and projects are mere bandages to slow the bleeding.

In order to save the patient, we must connect the urban population with the natural world and ultimately find ways to change human behavior. To succeed in our mission, our ex-situ programs must replace ignorance with understanding, fear with compassion, and irreverence with respect.

If we can achieve these lofty visions, we will have a profound impact on the generations that follow us. This is a daunting task, and it will not be easy, but we must keep trying, In Margaret Mead’s immortal words, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

John Linehan is president and CEO of Zoo New England, the non-profit organization which manages our two state-owned zoos, Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester and Stone Zoo in Stoneham. He serves on several committees of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Wildlife in the city

By M.G. Criscitiello/ Special To The Tab

 

During the past decade new types of wild creatures have appeared in parks, woodlands and backyards of the city. In addition to the usual skunks, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, and Canada geese, there are now coyotes, foxes, bobcats, fisher, weasels, river otter, wild turkeys, and an increasingly large white-tailed deer population. Moose have not yet appeared in Newton, but they have had front-page notice in towns nearby, and black bears have reentered the forests of western Massachusetts. Will they be our next big visitors?

Reasons for this change were presented by Colleen Olfenbuttel, staff member of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife www.masswildlife.org, in her Nov. 15 lecture at the Newton Free Library sponsored by the Newton Conservators. She noted that all of these animals were living in the forests of New England when European settlers arrived in the 17th century. They disappeared after the trees were cut for timber and the land cleared for farming. By 1840, much of the soil was exhausted, farming became more difficult, and people moved to richer lands of the Midwest or sought their fortunes in large cities with the coming of the industrial revolution.

Since that time, our forests have returned, and now an estimated 70% of Massachusetts is covered with second growth. This has led to restoration of wild animal populations, with the exception of wolves and mountain lions, entirely extirpated from the Northeast through bounty hunting. As housing has exploded into rural areas, with developments rising in forested landscapes, human encounters with wildlife have increased. Suburban gardens, shrubs, fruit trees, and bird feeders provide tempting food for many wild creatures, and garbage added to mulch piles or left outside in trash bags spells “dinner” for raccoons, skunks and coyotes. Crawl spaces under porches and garages attract these same animals, also foxes, as dens for rearing young. With hunting prohibited, large predators absent, food supplies handy, and living space provided, why should they forego such comforts?

Living with wildlife in our surroundings is a source of pleasure for most Newton residents, but we find some challenges in our attempt to maintain a healthy and happy coexistence with these new species as they return to their rightful domain. In order that they may be protected and continue normal patterns of behavior in the wild, it is important that they not become dependent on humans for food and living space. To underscore this point, Olfenbuttel introduced a discussion of the coyote, displaying a beautiful mounted specimen of the animal. Many who had never seen one in the wild expressed surprise at its relatively small size – its average weight is only 40 pounds.

She described the territorial behavior of the coyote. Its howling and yipping at night are a means of keeping in touch with other members of its group – and a warning to outsiders to stay away! Coyotes are shy and wary by nature, avoiding contact with people. Their diet is varied, and they can be tempted into neighborhoods where food is available. True omnivores, they prey on small mammals such as squirrels and chipmunks, but they also like fruits, berries, and birdseed. They will eat road kill or any pet food or garbage left outdoors. They have been known to run down unprotected small house pets. Owners of cats and little dogs are advised to keep them indoors. (Because house cats, across the nation, kill millions of birds each year, there is further reason to keep them inside!)

To maintain coyotes in their normal wild state, Mass Wildlife suggests the following:

1.     Don’t feed or try to pet them!

2.    Put garbage outdoors in strong containers, not plastic bags

3.    Feed pets indoors so unfinished food is not left outside.

4.    Don’t let cats or small dogs roam freely outside

5.    Keep areas under bird feeders clean

6.    Close off crawl spaces under porches.

If coyotes become persistent in hanging around, help them to remain wary of humans by scaring them off with loud noises, a bright light, or even water sprayed from a hose if necessary.

Wild turkeys and the Canada Goose are also year-round Newton residents, but these animals will be discussed in another article.

The goal of conservation is to preserve appropriate habitat for those species rejuvenated by the return of our forests, allowing them to live in nature as they were originally born to it. The effort of Mass Wildlife is to reacquaint the public with the particular needs and behaviors of these animals, so they can remain as wild creatures while sharing much of their territory with the human population.

 Modestino Criscitiello is Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a Board member of the Newton Conservator and host of the Conservators’

Environmental Show on NewTV.

These teens relish Envi-Sci

By Patricia G. Goldman/ Special To The Tab

 

In our busy suburban world kids don’t get to experience nature much unless it’s planned into their schedules. That’s why Newton’s Environmental Science Program for teens is special. You can see this program in action during December on NewTV, Newton’s community cable television channel.

This episode of The Environmental Show travels along with teens as they go hiking, biking, canoeing and climbing, and visit woods and ponds, the Charles River, parks, a salt marsh, and mountains, winding up with a stay at the highest peak in the northeast (Mt. Washington). They also participate in a hands-on environmental cleanup project each year. As several of the teens point out, they make friends and have fun while they’re out there.

The summer program was started by Newton teachers 38 years ago with a Ford Foundation grant designed to get kids out into the environment instead of learning about it only through books and labs. The program now operates under the Newton Conservation Commission. Many of the students eventually become leaders in the program, trained to teach their younger peers what they have learned about plants and animals, geology, and ecology.

In fact, many of the participants go on to careers in science. All carry with them a lifetime appreciation for our natural environment.

 To learn more about enrolling in this July program for teens, visit http://www.newtonenvisci.org or call David Backer, Exec. Director, at 617-969-0288.

 To watch this show, tune in to NewTV’s Blue Channel (Channel 10 for Comcast subscribers and Channel 15 for RCN subscribers). The show will run repeatedly through December on Saturdays (10 a.m.), Mondays (3 p.m.), Tuesdays (1:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.), Wednesdays (11:30 a.m.) and Thursdays noon, 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

 This episode of the Environmental Show is produced by the Newton Conservators. Learn more about the organization’s programs and view beautiful photographs at www.newtonconservators.org.

Patricia Goldman is a former Executive Director of the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America/New England Chapter, a former member of the Newton Human Rights Commission, and is currently a board member of NewTV helping to produce The Environmental Show.

Opinion: Chicken Little was right

By Lois Levin/ Special To The Tab

 

Your childhood fears were not irrational.  It’s a dangerous world.  Marvelous medical and technological innovations bring us many comforts, information at lightning speed, and can rescue us from the jaws of death, but we are nonetheless becoming more vulnerable to environmental collapse and to pandemics.

These two looming threats are interrelated.  The planet can support billions of people, but some of them, and enormous quantities of goods and natural resources, travel rapidly around the globe every day.  Toxic substances are dispersed unrelentingly into the air, water, soil; the planet warms, disrupting all of Earth’s ecosystems.

There have been many pandemics in human history.  Viruses mutate and cross into human populations from contact with wild animals, moving as rapidly as people and goods around the planet, as hitchhikers.  They include:  Avian Flu, West Nile Virus, SARS, Ebola and HIV/AIDS.  We have no natural immunity to these viruses, which spread wherever people congregate.

Avian flu, in particular, threatens the entire planet as fast as our efficient transportation systems are moving passengers.  We have the knowledge today to develop vaccines and to implement immunization programs against these diseases, but not rapidly enough to prevent large numbers of deaths and great human suffering.  Viruses spread like wildfire after escaping from a wild population and mutating.

We cannot keep apace of Emerging Infectious Disease (EIDs).  It took nearly two years for SARS viruses to get to the first human trials, and it will take another two years before safe general distribution is possible. And immunizing all at-risk individuals is impossible.

The underlying problems are: (1) Deforestation – humans are unrelentingly invading and destroying wildlife habitat, and  (2) inadequate control of wildlife commerce.  Even a crash program to produce enough vaccine for everyone within our borders would not solve those dilemmas.  And we cannot, like Osama bin Laden, all move to caves in remote mountains.

EID is a global issue.  The major burden of its costs to the environment and to human health are borne by the public. Most national governments have limited resources, but the rich nations and big corporations can afford to underwrite immunization programs in countries where cases of bird flu are now occurring.  Such programs, albeit reactive measures, could immunize all the farmers who handle poultry as well as their families, and could closely monitor the local people who are at greatest risk.  This is an approach that requires a shift in thinking beyond the current focus on domestic interventions.  But immunization programs are not enough.

We have much work to do to convince our own government and multinational corporations to take proactive actions to address this looming crisis.  That means looking at the big picture.  It means implementing tried and true conservation measures to stop deforestation and to control illegal wildlife trade – the reasons that these diseases are emerging in the first place.

Lois Levin, PhD, a Green Decade Coalition board member, coordinates the Environment Page of the Newton TAB.

What the Ivory-bill is telling us

By M. G. Criscitiello, MD/ Special To The Tab

 

On April 28 this year, when Cornell scientists revealed the secret that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers had been spotted in an Arkansas swamp in early 2004, the news hit the front pages everywhere. Recent recordings of their call notes have convinced even the most skeptical that this elegant creature, long considered, extinct, still lives!

The news was especially exciting for me. It brought back the poignant moment, some months earlier, when I had held a specimen skin of this majestic creature in my own hand! It was larger than expected, big as a crow, and its feathers were still bright despite years in a darkened museum drawer. The fiery red crest, the brilliant stripes running down the sides of the neck, converging to form a broad white shield on the black back – these were markings quite different from those of its pileated cousin. Most striking was the impressive strong, white bill which gives the bird its name. A tag on its leg bore the date “1911,” the year it had met its fate in a Florida swamp. Inscribed also was the name of the naturalist who had shot it and later bequeathed it to the museum’s collection. Officials there had allowed me to examine some of their prized examples of “Campephilus principalis.” The name, roughly speaking, means “lover of grubs, chief of its tribe.” It had once been a fairly widespread, free-ranging inhabitant of southern bottomland forests.

My interest in the “ivory-bill” dates from 1935 when, as a boy, I learned that a team of Cornell ornithologists was searching the swamps of the Southeast for the very few remaining. Notice had been given of its dwindling population, and the aim was to take photos, record its voice and study its habits in hopes of finding some way to restore its numbers. Not one was seen until the group reached an area near the Tansas River in Louisiana. A few pairs were located there in a wetland forest of towering oak and sweetgums, set aside by the Singer Company as a source of wood for its sewing machine cabinets. Cumbersome equipment was lugged by mule cart into this swamp, and the bird’s calls and its typical “doublet” drumming beat were recorded for posterity.

The study, extending over three years, revealed discouraging data. The bird’s chief food consisted mostly of larvae of a particular kind of wood-boring beetle, retrieved by tearing off strips of bark from still-standing dead trees and probing for the grubs underneath. Fallen trees were generally not approached, and dead ones remaining upright were few and far between. James Tanner, Cornell’s on-site investigator, estimated that each nesting pair required a minimum of 2.5-3 square miles of forest to meet its needs.  These findings, in the face of rapid disappearance of these bottomland forests, seemed to seal its doom.  During World War II, the rate of cutting accelerated, and by mid-century, these southern primeval forests, accept for scattered remnants, had all been harvested.  Until February 2004, the last reliable sighting was that of a lone female in 1944.  (To check the 1935 Cornell Study, with photos, recorded calls, etc. see: http://www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2002/march).  A subspecies of the Ivory- bill had been known to exist in the easternmost forests of Cuba, but the last of these was seen in 1987.

“The Race to Save the Lord God Bird”

by Phillip Hoose, a full report of the struggle to save this bird, tells a story of heroes and villains. Among the latter were the bird-skin collectors and their hired gunners, who, perhaps unwittingly, continued to track down these woodpeckers despite severely declining numbers. Most of all, he faults the owners of lumber companies intent on harvesting all trees in the southern climax forests. Appeals to save areas as preserves for the ivory-bill went unheard — the rich market for valuable wood trumped all calls for caution. Today, in place of those great trees of the Singer tract are vast fields of soybeans. Loss of the water-holding capacity of former wetlands has now led to increased problems of flood control in the region. Continued replacement of such lands for agricultural or industrial use, there and elsewhere in the world, is taking its toll.

Ironically, while media attention was focused on one end-of-life story in Florida, the remarkable March 30 report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx) missed the headlines. It summarized the results of a joint effort of 1,360 specialists in 95 nations, warning that “human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”

In other words, besides a grim outlook for huge numbers of plants, animals, fish and other organisms, survival of the human species itself is increasingly under threat.  Those of us who continue to think of the “environment” as something surrounding us but not including us – something “out there’ consisting only of mountains, forests, wetlands, lakes and the like – are missing the point. We are messing up the very ecosystems we are part of.

We rejoice at having the ivory-bill still with us, but one big message it offers is this: – “Look, folks, we’re all in this together. Listen to my story and take better care of our habitat!”

Modestino Criscitiello, a retired cardiologist, is Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine. A Board member of the Newton Conservators and host of the Conservators’ Environmental Show on NewTV he is an avid bird-watcher.  A version of this article appeared in the Newton Conservators Newsletter, Spring 2005