Large Burmese pythons are now regularly encountered along trails and visitor areas in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
The Burmese Python is showing up in Everglades National Park in Florida.
That’s because people who no longer want their pet pythons are releasing them there.
Now these babies are big — usually they between 6 to 12 feet long. And there could be as many as 150,000 pythons in the Everglades.
The snakes are not so much a threat to humans. But they are a threat to animals – especially to endangered ones.
Scott Hardin is an exotic species coordinator. He’s with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“You just got a great big snake, nothing like it, nothing analogous in the native snake fauna in Florida. So it opens up a whole new range of prey that was not susceptible before.”
He says officials are brainstorming ways to deal with the problem.
They’re trying to rig up some really big traps. And they’ve also thrown out the idea of a bounty — basically a cash reward for catching the snakes.
JP Anderson, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Park Ranger, at
the start of National Geographic and the National Park Service's 2009
BioBlitz at The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. (Photo by Enrique Pulido)
BioBlitz volunteers turned up two species of fungi that hadn't been
officially identified in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. (Photo courtesy of The Field Museum of Chicago)
The National Park Service has a slightly embarrassing problem. It manages some of the nation’s most
environmentally valuable land – but it doesn’t have a full account of plant and animal species that live in
the parks. One remedy is the BioBlitz. A BioBlitz is a kind of whirlwind count of all the species in a
specific place. The Park Service has been co-sponsoring BioBlitzes with National Geographic. We sent
Shawn Allee to their latest:
Transcript
The National Park Service has a slightly embarrassing problem. It manages some of the nation’s most
environmentally valuable land – but it doesn’t have a full account of plant and animal species that live in
the parks. One remedy is the BioBlitz. A BioBlitz is a kind of whirlwind count of all the species in a
specific place. The Park Service has been co-sponsoring BioBlitzes with National Geographic. We sent
Shawn Allee to their latest:
The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is spread along Lake Michigan’s southern shoreline.
During this BioBlitz, scientists and volunteers fan out in teams to search the sand dunes, woods, and
grassland around here.
At first, the mood’s high, but then it rains kinda hard.
We’re supposed to be counting species for 24 hours, but at first, we can’t even get out of our cars.
(ring of a phone)
“Hello? Yeah. We’re stuck in traffic, here. We came out here and I thought we were going
out in the wrong direction.”
I hitch a ride with Dr. Patrick Leacock. He’s a mycologist, a kind of mushroom expert.
I’m actually lucky to be on his BioBlitz team, because organizers from National Geographic and the National Park Service want people to count all the species
in the park.
And they mean everything – not just plants and animals that are a cinch to find.
Allee: “Are fungi something you feel that the average person doesn’t think about when it comes
to biodiversity?”
Leacock: “Yeah, there’s people, you tell them you study mushrooms, and they talk about their
athlete’s foot, or they think there’s only six different kinds or something like
that.”
Leacock says, in fact, the Indiana Dunes Lakeshore has at least 600 fungi species. He hopes the
BioBlitz team will add to that list.
Leacock: “Here we are.”
Allee: “I’m hunting mushrooms with three trained mycologists and there are six other volunteers on my team here. One of them is Zachary Benes – he’s just 9 years old. But, I gotta say, Dr. Leacock is pretty lucky
to have Zachary on the team – since he’s found the most mushrooms of anyone on the team.”
Benes: “Is it poisonous?”
Leacock: “Nope. A real mushroom.”
Tang: “Yeah.”
Allee: “Looks like you found another one, too. Where’d you find it?”
Benes: “Over there by the wood.”
Leacock: “This is collybia sub-sulphurea. Do you know what sulfur means?”
Benes: “No.”
Leacock: “It’s a kind of a yellow-orange color. So, this might be a new record for the dunes. So that’s a good one. Was it
just the one?”
Benes: “Yeah. Just the one.”
Leacock: “It’s in good shape.”
Along the trail, I chat with Yaya Tang. She’s one of the other mycologists on the team.
Tang says she’s glad to see BioBlitz volunteers search for elusive species of bats, bugs, and fungi.
“I feel like that’s an issue with biodiversity in general. Where people care about things that are cute or
that they see immediately. Like, there’s insects, too, that don’t get a lot of attention.”
Allee: “Dr. Leacock, we’re pretty much finished here. You got this container of many varieties
of fungi we’ve collected within an hour, would you have been able to get this many
yourself? If you had come out here on your own?”
Leacock: “No. The more people you have searching, that helps a lot. Different people will see
different things, too, I think. So we’ve 14 or 15 things right in my box. We have two that might be new
records for the dunes.”
The BioBlitz at The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore lasts another 20 hours.
A few days later, Dr. Leacock writes me.
He tells me volunteers turned up at least one fungi specimen no one had ever seen in the Dunes park.
It’s a small success – enough that National Geographic, the Park Service, and other groups are
planning more BioBlitzes across the country.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (Photo by Andy Pernick, courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation)
The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:
Transcript
The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:
Lester Graham: Interior is a huge department, with many services and bureaus. Some of those departments deal with oil and gas exploration on public lands and places such as Alaska, Utah, and offshore. During the Bush Administration, the Department of the Interior was criticized for being too cozy with the oil and gas industry. And it culminated with a scandal involving oil company execs, government workers, and wild parties – complete with cocaine and sex. Secretary Salazar stressed to me, those days of partying and sweetheart deals with oil and gas companies are over.
Ken Salazar: It is unfortunate that the department was blemished in the Bush era because of the transgressions which occurred here and the paradigm which unfolded – which we are seeing the results of today – is that there was a bending of the rules and a flaunting of the law. There is a lot of cleaning up that has to be done.
Graham: Recently you came to a memorandum, I’m understanding, with FERC about offshore wind turbines. How soon might we see wind turbines off the coasts of the US?
Salazar: I expect that it will happen during the first term of the Obama Administration. I think that there is a huge potential for wind energy, especially off the shores of the Atlantic, because of the shallowness of those waters.
Graham: Will we ever see a point where we have windmills near coast, and drilling rigs out farther, along the Atlantic Coast?
Salazar: I do believe that we will see the wind potential develop. I think it will be similar to what we already see in the United Kingdom and Denmark and Norway. In respect to oil and gas off the Atlantic, I think that is still a question that needs to be looked at. And it’s part of what we’re doing in looking at a new 5-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf. And we are not making a decision at this point, or pre-judging where we will end up after we complete the comment process which ends in September.
Graham: Secretary Salazar says domestic oil and gas will play a role in American energy. He talked about the Department of Interior’s role in the nation’s energy independence, and noted the departments 15,000 scientists will be helping deal with the big issues such as global warming and climate change. Ken Salazar says that since the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other nature-related agencies make up Interior, one of its top priorities is a program called ‘Treasured Landscapes.’
Salazar: I am hopeful that we will be able to, in this Administration, create the kind of legacy that was created by Teddy Roosevelt. President Obama has a vision for the landscapes of America, which is one that I believe we can deliver on. Restoration of major landscapes, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes and the Everglades and so many others, will be a part of that agenda.
Graham: Secretary Salazar, thank you so much for your time.
Salazar: Thank you very much, Lester.
Graham: Ken Salazar, President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.
Trussville, Alabama Mayor Gene Melton may not be a staunch environmentalist - take a look at his car - but he still thinks greenspace is important in his city (Photo by Gigi Douban)
David Dobbs, Trussville's high school environmental science teacher, takes his students out behind the school to check on the river. (Photo by Gigi Douban)
For many small town mayors, growth is all good. After all, more houses means more tax revenue, more retail, more jobs. One Alabama mayor agrees, but he also recognizes green space is an amenity worth keeping. And for that, the timing couldn’t be better. Gigi Douban reports:
Transcript
For many small town mayors, growth is all good. After all, more houses means more tax revenue, more retail, more jobs. One Alabama mayor agrees, but he also recognizes green space is an amenity worth keeping. And for that, the timing couldn’t be better. Gigi Douban reports:
Here at the grand opening of a subdivision in Trussville, Alabama, a few dozen families gather outside the sales office for the usual ribbon cutting with giant scissors.
(sound of applause and cheers)
Soon, everyone heads down to the Cahaba River. The river literally will be in the backyard of these houses once they’re built. On the river, they’re having a rubber duck race.
(announcement of duck race)
It’s gimmicky, but these days developers will do just about anything to attract potential buyers.
Another developer had approached Trussville about building homes along the Cahaba River, but then the housing market took a nose dive. The developer wanted out.
Trussville Mayor Gene Melton says the city would have been crazy not to buy the land.
“This property was probably going to sell for $35,000 or $40,000 an acre. We got to the point where we were able to acquire this for $4,500 an acre.”
The city could have turned it into an industrial park or zoned it for retail. But instead, they’ll turn it into a greenway. It’ll connect to nearby parks with the river as the centerpiece.
Now, the mayor of Trussville is not a staunch environmentalist, by any measure. He tools around the city in a gas guzzling SUV. He’s pro-development. But, he says, the same way a city needs development, it needs greenspace, too.
“Have you ever flown in to a big city like Atlanta or Los Angeles and for miles and miles all you see is rooftops? Well that’s how not to build a city.”
The Cahaba River watershed stretches through Alabama’s most populous county. Recently, heavy development along the Cahaba has polluted the water. It’s endangered habitats not just here, but downstream. Trussville is very near the headwaters, so what happens there affects the entire river.
Randall Haddock is thrilled about the new greenspace. He’ a field director with the Cahaba River Society, a conservation group. Haddock says the Cahaba River is among the most biologically diverse in the country.
“It turns out that Alabama has more fish species, more snails, more crayfish, more turtles, freshwater snails more than any other state in the US. So when it comes to things that live in rivers, we’re at the top of the list by a long way.”
(sound of people walking near river)
Haddock says all along the Cahaba, he’s seen plenty of examples of how not to build near the river.
He says this greenspace is an example of how easy it is to minimize impact. Keeping grass on the ground not only means a cleaner river, but it might help reduce flooding.
“When you make so many hard surfaces, the water runs off real fast and gets into the river real quick. And you’ve increased the volume of water and the only response that a river can make is to get bigger.”
The bank erodes, the water is polluted and soon, you start to see species diminish.
(sound of high school students)
David Dobbs is the city’s high school environmental science teacher. He takes his students out behind the school to check on the river. The result: a clean bill of health.
“All the little bugs, they end up being food for the fish, and the more they are of the good ones that are here, that means there’s more food for the fish, so therefore there’s more fish, it’s a very healthy part of the river.”
Trussville, like many small towns, still says without growth, there’d be no city. But now they know, that growth has to protect one of its top amenities – the river.
Several neighbors near Cook County Illinois' Bunker Hill Forest Preserve are concerned about the loss of trees. Bathsheba Burmin is third from the left. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The Cook County Forest Preserve District has been transforming sections of the Somme Forest Preserve into savanna. This is after a small burn. It once had many more trees in the area. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
When somebody says a natural area, does everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
Transcript
When somebody says a natural area, dose everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
If you go to the Bunker Hill Forest Preserve just outside Chicago, you find picnic spaces, bike trails, and woods – acres of woods.
If it’s the wrong day, though, a security guard will turn you back from the woods.
Guard: “Closed off for a while? It’s closed off for a while. They’re doing a controlled burn – they’re burning that field over there.”
Man: “What are you doing exactly? Burning?”
Guard: “Controlled burn.”
Forest preserve workers in sooty, yellow fire suits are burning brush and trees.
They say soil tests show this land was once savanna – a kind of grassland with a few trees mixed in.
They’re trying to restore it to that original landscape.
Volunteers help out with this restoration, but a small number of people want to stop it.
“Everything they burned today is area they’ve cleared over the past two years. We’re opposed to cutting our urban forests.”
Bathsheba Burmin shows me the site – after it’s cooled.
She wants me to see what it takes to turn woods into savanna.
Burmin: “It’s a little muddy, so…”
Allee: “It’s hard not to notice.”
(sounds of walking through mud)
Allee: “This place is being actively transformed.”
Burmin: “Yes.”
Allee: “You can see brush piles moved around, trees have obviously been cut because you can see the stumps, and obviously they burned just today.”
Burmin: “What it does is tell the story of what the restructuring of an ecosystem looks like.”
Burmin and a few of her neighbors have protested the transformation of these woods into savanna.
Some don’t believe this was ever grassy savanna in the first place.
Burmin says, even if it was savanna – it’s not now; it’s woodland – and she regrets losing the trees.
Burmin: “If you’re not familiar with the site and you hear there’s an increase in grassland species you must be doing something wonderful. Nobody talked about what happened to all the woodland species. The reason you have an increase in grassland species, but that’s because you took out all the forest.”
Habitat restoration can be violent.
It can involve poisoning or burning unwanted plants or maybe killing animals like deer that graze on more desirable plants.
Wildlife managers use restoration techniques all the time, but on occasion critics like Burmin ask tough questions about it.
When that happens, people like Stephen Packard rush to its defense.
“Now we’re standing in a place where all the brush was cut last year.”
Packard heads the Chicago chapter of the Audobon Society.
He’s offered to show me some restored savanna, about ten miles north of that Bunker Hill spot.
It looks kinda familiar.
Allee: “There’re stumps and sticks everywhere.”
Packard: “Is this ugly or is it not ugly? Here’s my perspective on it. To me it’s like a bunch of broken eggshells after someone made an omelet. I think this is a beautiful thing to see the first stage of recovery. It is stumps, it is bare ground, but from doing this, I know certain plants will start to come up and keep developing.”
Packard says no one restores savanna because they like chopping trees.
It’s just that some plants need open space and light – like in a savanna. Dense woods create too much shade for them.
He says if we let some natural areas literally run wild, a few aggressive species take over, and the rare ones lose out.
“You lose millions of years of evolution of these thousands of species that may be important to the planet, so why not have some places where we can take care of them?”
Packard says some natural areas are so unhealthy, that for now, we need to protect some parts of nature from others.
And if you don’t buy that – you don’t buy restoration.
Eric Fernandez of Oregon Wild says wild areas still allow for a lot of activity - "just leave your chainsaws and bulldozers at home." (Photo by Sadie Babits)
A view of Bonnie Butte in Oregon. This area is one of the proposed places to be designated as wilderness. (Photo by Sadie Babits)
Another view of Oregon's Mount Hood. (Photo by Sadie Babits)
More than two million acres in nine states could soon become permanent wilderness. Congress is expected to vote on the plan today. Sadie Babits recently visited one of the sites, Mount Hood in Oregon:
Transcript
More than two million acres in nine states could soon become permanent wilderness. Congress is expected to vote on the plan today. Sadie Babits recently visited one of the sites, Mount Hood in Oregon:
A steady stream of traffic runs through the small town of Sandy, Oregon every day.
It’s known as the “Gateway to Mount Hood.”
This used to be a town of lumberjacks. The timber industry was king here.
And a wilderness designation means no logging.
“It wasn’t that long ago that this was a mill town so for the city council unanimously support wilderness is an interesting thing.”
That’s Scott Lazenby. He’s the town’s city manager. He says in the past a wilderness proposal would end up in a Paul Bunyan sized tussle.
But Lazenby says the city council saw real benefits to having wilderness in Sandy’s backyard.
“We do have a watershed that our city water comes from. It’s important to protect that and part of that watershed would be protected by the wilderness bill.”
Not only that. Lazenby says these days, it’s not timber – it’s tourism that brings money to Sandy.
“Even though the number of people who can go into wilderness is relatively limited, the presence of wilderness is a very positive thing.”
Under a massive bundle of bills now before Congress, 127,000 acres surrounding Mount Hood would become wilderness along with other sites across the nation.
“Right now we’re standing in White River Canyon and in the winter this is a really popular place for cross country skiing, snow showing.”
That’s Eric Fernandez. He’s the wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild – a conservation group out of Portland.
He says a wilderness designation still leaves a place open to all kinds of activities hunting fishing camping.
“You just have to leave your chainsaw and bulldozer at home.”
Fernandez says, yes, this entire area will mean clean drinking water, and wildlife protection.
“But in this instance, the reason I’m so excited about protecting this area of White River Canyon as wilderness is because it has the world’s best sledding habitat.”
Yep, he said sledding – like tobogganing. There’s nobody sledding today.
But, we did bump into Jeff McKnown, who’s out skiing.
“It’s great to come here on the weekday when no one is here.”
McKnown says he loves the trees and the snow so bright it hurts your eyes.
He’s been escaping to White River canyon when he can for the last fifteen years.
“You know when you have a wife and five kids these moments are pretty precious.”
The law that makes wilderness designations possible has been around since 1964. There are more than 700 wilderness areas in 44 states.
But Oregon has lagged behind. Even conservative Idaho has more wilderness than the more progressive Oregon.
Mike Matz thinks that could change. He leads the ‘Campaign for America’s Wilderness’. It’s been pushing for the new wilderness designations before Congress.
“It’s really become amazingly so a motherhood and apple pie issue. This is something that Republicans and Democrats alike have gotten strongly behind.”
And from Oregon’s Mount Hood, to rolling hills in West Virginia, from red rock country in southern Utah, to sand dunes along the Great Lakes – it looks like Congress will preserve two million acres more as wilderness.
Everyone needs to eat. But
not everyone gets their groceries
at the shopping market. Some
people find their food. They forage
in backyards, forests, even city parks.
It’s free, some of it tastes pretty
good, and as Samara Freemark reports,
sometimes it’s even legal:
Transcript
Everyone needs to eat. But
not everyone gets their groceries
at the shopping market. Some
people find their food. They forage
in backyards, forests, even city parks.
It’s free, some of it tastes pretty
good, and as Samara Freemark reports,
sometimes it’s even legal:
It’s a beautiful fall day in New York’s Central Park, and Steve Brill is looking for
something to eat.
“Everyone come over here, we have another species. Come on over here.”
Steve Brill – I’m sorry, Wildman Steve – leads foraging tours in parks all over the New
York area. And today he says he’s going to prove to me and about thirty others that the
park is full of things to eat.
“Try this.”
But the tour starts off a little rough. At first we find a lot more plants that can kill us than
feed us. Yellow violets will make you vomit. So will pokeberries. And, so will
pokeweed.
“Is this the worst thing you’ve ever smelled? The chemical is called buteric
acid. The name comes from rancid butter. This is a common element in
decaying flesh.”
Foraging isn’t for the faint of heart – or the uneducated. Wildman is very careful to tell
people to study up before they start snacking on the weeds in their backyards. But he says
once you learn to recognize edible plants, it’s pretty easy to tell them apart from the
poisonous ones.
“You have to know what the plant is. If you go into a supermarket, you have
to tell the difference between the apples and the cigarettes. The apples are
good for you, the cigarettes will kill you. Black walnut doesn’t look much
like poison hemlock. They all have their identifying characteristics.”
And it turns out there’s a lot of stuff out there that is edible. Chew some birch bark – it
tastes like wintergreen. Primose has a root like a radish. Garlic mustard tastes like, well,
garlic. Mixed with freshly cut grass. We didn’t really love that one. But the crab apples
were great.
“This is a crab apple tree. And the ripe crab apples, they have a texture of applesauce and
a flavor like tamarind. Tell me if this doesn’t taste like tamarind.”
“Just eat it like this?”
“Yeah, just spit out the seeds. These are really addictive. I like these.”
Ok, but before you start poking around in your neighborhood park, there’s one more thing
you should know. The thing about foraging is, it’s kind of quasi-legal. You’re not really
supposed to pick the plants in most parks. And Wildman Steve himself has gotten in
trouble for this. In 1986 Central Park officials busted him for foraging. They led him off
in handcuffs and charged him with criminal mischief. Wildman eventually got off and he
hadn’t had any run ins with the law since, well, until this year.
A week after I met Wildman Steve he was in court again, this time for harvesting
sassafras.
“Defacing the park. That was my crime. There’s no defacing at all. I didn’t damage or
destroy anything. This is just total nonsense.”
Wildman Steve faces fines of up to $2000. But that hasn’t stopped him from leading
tours. Why would he stop, he asks me. His tours can change how people see the world
around them. And that’s more important than a court date.
Take 12 year old Rory Langan. Rory told me his cousin has a black walnut tree in his
backyard. But it never occurred to him that the walnuts he found on the lawn had any
connection to the nuts you buy in the store.
“I actually never thought you could eat these. I thought it was poisonous. It’s pretty cool
though. It’s actually pretty good.”
He says he can’t wait to go home and show his cousin what to do with all those snacks in
the backyard.
For The Environment Report, this is Samara Freemark.
Jennifer Pierce and David Wilkins stand in front of a ponderosa pine forest just outside the city of Boise. They hope to study the relationship between fire and climate here and recreate a snapshot of ancient climate. They are both teach at Boise State University's Geosciences Department. (Photo by Sadie Babits)
Twenty years ago this year, the
country watched its oldest national park
go up in flames. Looking back, scientists
believe the 1988 fires of Yellowstone
National Park were the signal fire of
climate change. Researchers have been
working ever since to understand this
relationship between climate and wildfire.
Sadie Babits reports on two scientists
searching for clues to ancient climates,
using trees as their guide:
Transcript
Twenty years ago this year, the
country watched its oldest national park
go up in flames. Looking back, scientists
believe the 1988 fires of Yellowstone
National Park were the signal fire of
climate change. Researchers have been
working ever since to understand this
relationship between climate and wildfire.
Sadie Babits reports on two scientists
searching for clues to ancient climates,
using trees as their guide:
Jennifer Pierce wears work boots as she plows down a steep slope in a
ponderosa pine forest.
(sound of walking, twigs breaking)
Her blonde hair is tucked up under her Boise State bronco cap, but it keeps
sneaking out. She has to keep brushing it back under. She and her
colleague David Wilkins are professors who work for Boise State
University’s Geosciences Department. They’re in the middle of tall pines in
a forest just outside of Boise, Idaho. Suddenly she’s crashing across the
brambles and heads for this tree.
“Oh that’s a great one! Wow! Sweet!”
She drops to her knees and shows me how this tree has been scarred by
fire.
“You see this little V shaped cat face here at the bottom of the tree that’s
blackened? So during a fire when the bark of the tree gets damaged that
preserves a record of the fire as a scar on the tree.”
Pierce says since the tree has annual growth rings, she can tell when the
tree got burned.
It’s one way Pierce and Wilkins reconstruct the fire history of this forest.
It’s a key to understanding how climate has affected forest fires in the past.
“I think as we move into a likely warmer and drier future, it’s going to be
increasingly important to understand the relationship between climate and
fire.”
She says climate is the primary control for wildfires. As the West warms,
there’s less control. Recently, that’s meant a lot more wildfires.
(popping sound) “There you go!” (sound of a drill bit going through the tree
with sound of birds and forest)
David Wilkins is twisting an auger into the tree.
“It’s a good upper body workout!” (laughs)
It’s a way to take a sample of the rings of this tree. Within a half-minute,
Wilkins’ auger is stuck. The tree is rotten inside. An eight-inch core is all he
gets.
(sound of drill bit coming out of the tree)
Jennifer Pierce takes a look at this sample Wilkins twisted out. The rings –
some light, some dark – reveal just how the tree has responded to moisture
and temperature.
“If you have a tree that kind of is at the edge of its comfort zone so to
speak, it will be more of a sensitive recorder of those environmental
stresses. See this one looks pretty good.”
Tree rings aren’t the only clue these scientists use to reconstruct historic
climates.
(scraping sound)
“I didn’t bring my big shovel. I kind of feel naked without it.”
Pierce scrapes away dirt and she finds bits of charcoal. She can sometimes
use charcoal for radio carbon dating. But these won’t do.
“But, um, I wouldn’t use them for dating because you want to make sure
that the charcoal is stratographicly in place and that you haven’t had
critters burrowing and mixing things up.”
Charcoal can be dated much further back than the tree rings. It helps
Pierce and Wilkins understand what happened here thousands of years
ago. With samples from other scientists, they’ll get a snapshot of ancient
climate and how it affects wildfire.
And possibly determine what climate change will mean for forests in the
future.
Across the country, urban rivers that were once used almost
exclusively for industrial purposes are being reclaimed as parks.
Recently, a little island in New York City’s east river took the first
steps to becoming a nature preserve. Nora Flaherty has this report:
Transcript
Across the country, urban rivers that were once used almost
exclusively for industrial purposes are being reclaimed as parks.
Recently, a little island in New York City’s east river took the first
steps to becoming a nature preserve. Nora Flaherty has this report:
New York City’s south Brother Island used to belong to a gravel
and sand company. In spite of this, the island is a wild place, and
one that’s home to hundreds of herons and other birds, it’s also a
stopover on the Atlantic flyway migration. And now it’s the
property of New York City.
Rose Harvey is the mid-Atlantic regional director of the Trust For
Public Land. She says places like South Brother Island are a
national priority:
“We are pretty much working on all the coasts in the bays in the estuaries along the rivers
in the urban areas to ensure that the urban rivers and [all] are protected as much as the
more rural and remote areas.”
Harvey says that although New York residents won’t be able to use
the land for recreation, there’s value in just being able to see a
wild place from the riverbank.
A government watchdog agency is calling for recreation fees at parks and other public lands to be more coordinated. Lester Graham reports it could affect how you much you have to pay to get into parklands:
Transcript
A government watchdog agency is calling for recreation fees at parks and other public
lands to be more coordinated. Lester Graham reports it could affect how you much you
have to pay to get into parklands:
For the past nine years, agencies such as the National Park Service, and the Fish
and Wildlife Service have been allowed to come up with new fees and fee collection
programs, with the idea of improving visitor services at certain sites.
The Government Accountability Office studied how recreation entrance fees and user
fees are applied and used. The GAO found that some sites were bringing in more money
than they could use and others didn’t pull in enough money to keep up basic
maintenance. The report also indicated that a new annual visitor’s pass that would allow
you to get into sites regardless of which agency owned it was to be issued starting the
first of next year, but the agencies still haven’t come up with a price for the pass.
Finally, the GAO says many sites don’t have proper controls or audits on collected fees.
Sites say they trust their staff to handle the money properly, but the GAO indicates that’s
not quite good enough.
For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Large Burmese pythons are now regularly encountered along trails and visitor areas in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
