Tag: habitat

Development Mangling the Mangroves

  • Mangroves at Mary's Creek, St. John (Photo by Frank Olivier)

If you were a tropical fish living in the
Caribbean, there’s a good chance you would have spent
your youth darting between the roots of mangroves.
Those saltwater plants guard young fish from predators.
Mangroves also protect shorelines from erosion and
hurricanes. But now it’s the mangroves that need
protection. Ann Dornfeld reports:

Transcript

If you were a tropical fish living in the
Caribbean, there’s a good chance you would have spent
your youth darting between the roots of mangroves.
Those saltwater plants guard young fish from predators.
Mangroves also protect shorelines from erosion and
hurricanes. But now it’s the mangroves that need
protection. Ann Dornfeld reports:

It’s a brilliantly sunny, gusty day on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Stanley
Berry has backed his motorboat into an opening in this quiet mangrove bay. He’s
one of the island’s traditional French fishermen. He’s lean, bronzed and bare-
chested.

“I going yellowtail snapper tonight. I’m doin’ night fishing. See if I can catch
something tonight, God spare life.”

Berry says the red mangroves that ring this bay serve as a sort of daycare for the
young fish he’ll eventually catch.

“If you have to snorkel around and check it out, you’ll notice that all these little
fishes are different type of grouper, snapper, you name it all comes and all the
baby ones come and hang around in there so the big fish don’t eat ’em. It protects
’em. It’s real good for the fish to come and spawn in here and stuff.”

Mangroves’ dry branches are home to birds and lizards. Their roots prevent sediment
from the land from seeping into the water. And mangroves provide a buffer zone that
protects inland areas from storms moving in from the ocean.

As important as they are, these mangroves are at risk. David Olsen is director of the
US Virgin Islands Division of Fish and Wildlife. He says island natives understand
the value of the mangroves. But he says developers aren’t as appreciative. One
company wants to rip out the red mangroves on this bay for new construction.

“They would basically line the entire area with condominiums, have docks
basically filling the entire bay, eliminate all the traditional use, and plant a little
fringe of black mangroves.”

Olsen says developers have to leave some mangroves in their plans, because the
islands have a no-net-loss policy for wetlands. But the black mangroves they want to
plant don’t grow in the water. That means they wouldn’t serve as fish nurseries.

This is hardly an isolated incident.

“We have lost, in the Virgin Islands, probably 50 percent of our mangrove areas
over the last half a century.”

Rafe Boulon is Chief of Resource Management for the Virgin Islands National Park.
He says mangroves are often filled with dirt for new construction.

“Anytime people fill land, typically they’re filling mangroves because they’re
selecting nice calm bays and that’s where the mangroves are.”

Boulon says mangroves are in much better shape here on St. John, a 30-minute ferry
from St. Thomas. That’s because most of this island is a national park.

If you want to see firsthand why mangroves are so important, all you need is a mask
and snorkel. The water is kind of murky and golden from fallen leaves. But it’s rich
with sealife.

“Okay, so we just got out of the water, and we saw probably a dozen different
species of juvenile varieties of the fish you see when you snorkel or dive out in the
deep water. And they’re darting among the mangroves and chasing each other –
really, really playful.”

Boulon says for people new to the islands, mangroves can seem like a swamp. They
release methane as leaf litter decomposes. And the roots collect trash that floats in
from sea.

“So hence, if they’re dirty and smelly there’s no really good purpose for them –
however, they’re very, very important ecosystem here.”

The trick is to convince the scores of people who are building new homes on the
Virgin Islands of the value of mangroves, including a new wave of retiring baby
boomers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld in St. John.

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Construction Sites Mucking Up Rivers

  • The EPA says sediment runoff rates from construction sites are typically 10 to 20 times greater than from farmland. (Photo courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)

Some home builders say the housing market
is tough enough. They don’t need environmental
regulations that make it tougher on them. But
some “green” builders say the housing industry
can improve the environment, do the right thing
for communities, and still make money. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

Some home builders say the housing market
is tough enough. They don’t need environmental
regulations that make it tougher on them. But
some “green” builders say the housing industry
can improve the environment, do the right thing
for communities, and still make money. Julie Grant
reports:

Have you ever driven by a construction site and seen all that dirt? A lot of that dirt is washed off the site by
rainstorms and ends up in local creeks and rivers.

Russ Gibson is with Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
He says that dirt kills aquatic bugs and fish.

The dirt covers up gravel bottom streams – that fills holes
where bugs want to live. If bugs can’t live it mucks up the
food chain. Gibson says fishermen know when this
happens.

“You’ll have some of the smaller fish and the bait fish, like
minnows and darters, will feed on the small bugs that live
there. If you don’t have bugs to feed the bait fish you don’t
have bait fish to feed the big fish.”

Beyond that, the silt from construction sites can also muddy
up where fish lay their eggs.

And enough construction dirt can fill a stream so much that it
can make flooding more of a problem.

So, how much dirt are we talking about?

The EPA estimates that 20 to 150 tons of soil per acre is lost
to storm water runoff from construction sites.

That means every time a new house is built, truckloads of
soil can wind up in local streams.

If a homebuilder pulled a truck up to a bridge and dumped a
load of dirt into a creek, people would scream. But because
construction site runoff is gradual and not as obvious,
builders get away with it.

Lance Schmidt is a builder. But he’s not your typical builder.
They used to call him a “tree-hugger builder.” These days
he’s seen as a trend setter.

Schmidt says nobody in the building industry is talking much
about construction silt.

“Believe me, stormwater’s not a fun issue to talk about. (laughs)”

But it’s one of the biggest pollution problems in creeks and
rivers.

Schmidt’s crew just dug a hole for the foundation of a small
house. He’s climbs up on one of four mounds of dirt. He
knows when it rains, some dirt can get washed away, and
end up in a nearby river. That’s why he puts up sediment
barriers. But most of the time no one checks to see if he
does.

“There aren’t any regulations as far as I know. I mean other
than if somebody was to complain.”

The Environmental Protection Agency in Ohio says it does
regulate construction sites. But, usually just the larger ones,
where there might be problems. The homebuilding industry
doesn’t really think it’s the problem.

Vince Squallice is director of the Ohio Homebuilders
Association.

“Construction and earth disturbing activities in construction is
not causing the siltation problem in Ohio.”

Squallice says farmers are mostly to blame for dirt runoff in
the rivers. It’s true that sediment runoff from farms is a huge
problem. But the EPA says sediment runoff rates from
construction sites are typically 10 to 20 times greater than
from farmland.

Squallice says builders already have to deal with too many
regulations such as setbacks from streams.

“Some of the regulations recommended to protect streams go
overboard in terms of environmental protection.”

Squallice says because of the housing bust, it’s a time to
help homebuilders, not enforce more environmental
regulations.

Builder Lance Schmidt says homebuilders need to look at it
a little differently. They can help solve a problem, keep
streams clean, and help cities with flooding problems.

“And that’s the avenue that I’ve decided to attack at. Rather
than attack the regulations, let’s sit back and find ways that
we can actually do this.”

Schmidt says there are lots of creative building ideas that
can reduce flooding, and improve the rivers for fish and other
wildlife. But in this competitive market, builders won’t do it
until everyone has to play by the same rules. And he
doesn’t expect that to happen without better enforcement by
regulators.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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New Rules Mean More Logging?

  • Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

The US Forest Service has just released new
rules for managing the nation’s forests. Some
environmental groups say the new rules don’t do enough
to protect wildlife. They also believe it will mean more
logging on national forest land. Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

The US Forest Service has just released new
rules for managing the nation’s forests. Some
environmental groups say the new rules don’t do enough
to protect wildlife. They also believe it will mean more
logging on national forest land. Mark Brush reports:

The National Forest Service is required to draw up management plans for all 155
National Forests. Environmentalists say the new rules for drawing up these management
plans gut environmental protection standards.

The Center for Biological Diversity along with 13 other environmental groups have filed
suit against the Forest Service. They say the new rules will keep citizens in the dark.

Marc Fink is a lawyer for the Center.

“We’re talking about our public national forests. And I think it’s important to give the
citizens who are concerned about these forest the right to have meaningful standards to
hold their local officials accountable for when they’re proposing projects that might be
bad for the forests.”

Fink says, if the plan goes forward, logging could increase, or wildlife habitat could be
damaged without the public knowing about it.

The Forest Service says it’s just trying to take the red tape out of the forest planning
process.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Airlifts for Wildlife

  • On March 5, 2008 the Wisconsin Army National Guard airlifted 75 tons of mature trees to improve wildlife habitat in the Kettle Moraine State Forest. The aviation training mission used UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to lift the trees on the east shore of Long Lake. (Photo by Steve Apps, courtesy of the Wisconsin State Journal)

There’s an old saying that goes ‘There’s more
life in a dead tree than a live one.’ That’s because
bugs and birds and burrowing animals can all find homes
in dead trees. Trees that are cut down are also sometimes
dropped into lakes to make habitat for fish. Chuck
Quirmbach reports sometimes getting the right tree to the
right spot requires some creative thinking:

Transcript

There’s an old saying that goes ‘There’s more
life in a dead tree than a live one.’ That’s because
bugs and birds and burrowing animals can all find homes
in dead trees. Trees that are cut down are also sometimes
dropped into lakes to make habitat for fish. Chuck
Quirmbach reports sometimes getting the right tree to the
right spot requires some creative thinking:

(helicopter noise)

It’s not every day you seen an upside down tree flying through the air.

But this Blackhawk helicopter is skimming along with a big tree dangling on a
line beneath it.

We’ll get to why in a moment. But to do that you’ve got to meet the guy who thought
up the idea.

Mark Sesing is sitting in his pickup truck. He’s
a wildlife manager – actually, a water specialist. He’s looking through the windshield at a
stretch of shoreline of Long Lake in Wisconsin.

“The habitat’s been stripped away. We’ve got piers; we’ve got boats, boathouses, we’ve got houses
and cottages. All that development has resulted in, I guess what I’ll call a
sterilization of the shore.”

On the other side of the lake there’s an area that’s a bit better for birds and fish.
But Sesing thought the wildlife needed a little help. He knew putting some dead
trees there could benefit the animals.

Put the crown of the tree in the water for the fish, so they can hide from predators
and lay eggs in the thicket. Put the trunk on the shore, and all kinds of animals can
make a home. Or birds can find bugs in the dead tree.

But there was a problem: you couldn’t get to the area with trucks without cutting a road down a steep hillside. And Mark Sesing was not interested in damaging more of the
shoreline.

So he got to thinking. Why not get the Wisconsin Air National Guard to help?

(helicopter sound)

So why would the Air Guard want to move trees? Practice!

Chief Warrant Officer Dirk Brandt is with the National Guard’s 832nd medical
company. He says practicing lifting trees and placing them on the shoreline could
help pilots and crew prepare for a med.-evac. lift in a war zone.

“If it was medical supplies, or critical medical supplies, since our unit is med.-evac., then the more we practice with, I guess you could say, ‘inanimate objects’, then the
better off when we actually physically have to do it.”

The airlift worked like this: first, one of the copters would hover over a forested
area about a quarter mile from the lake. That’s where trees had been cut down to
improve the health of the woods.

(hover sound)

Then, ground crew would grab a nylon strap hanging down from the aircraft and wrap it around a tree.

(helicopter lifting sound)

The helicopter would then go up. And carry the dead tree to the water’s edge.

(helicopter fades)

By the time the project was done, there were 23 dead trees placed along about a-
quarter mile of lake shoreline.

Wildlife managers will start watching the trees and collecting scientific data on the
project this summer. They estimate the trees will provide habitat for fish and birds for
the next ten to twenty years.

For the Environment report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Chester the Molting Monk Seal

  • Hawaiian Monk Seal on Sandy Beach (Photo by Ann-Marie Kirk)

This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:

Transcript

This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:

Chester is among only 1200 Hawaiian Monk Seals alive today. Most of them live in the
Northwest Hawaiian Islands.

They’re called Monk Seals because they’re solitary animals.
They prefer their own company to socializing with each other, especially during a
molt. Molting is a process that renders them weak and vulnerable.

“This animal is on the beach because it is going through a huge physiological change
right now.”

That’s David Schofield. He’s the marine mammal response coordinator in Honolulu for
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s shedding all of its skin and fur in a relatively short period of time, keeping
his behavior very minimal. So he is actually not getting into the water, he is not
swimming; he is not expending a lot of energy.”

He says Chester has
chosen to molt on Kailua, an East Oahu beach that attracts thousands of visitors. It’s not a very safe place for a defenseless seal. Because of budget cuts, NOAA relies almost
completely on volunteers to help protect seals when they come on shore. They keep
curious people and their pets away from Chester.

Chester is known here. He’s been seen on a number of Oahu beaches over the years.
Usually he stays along isolated stretches. But he’s never been seen on the busy east side. In
fact, he is the first Monk Seal anyone recalls seeing on Kailua Beach.

DB Dunlap coordinates volunteers for NOAA. He says this is not the first time he’s seen
Chester.

“I met Chester in 2002. And he was emaciated and skinny, I didn’t think he was gonna
make it through the day he was so pathetic looking. Now I realize that he had just
finished a molt, just exactly like he’s doing here and during that process they lose a lot of
weight.”

The molt takes a while. About two weeks into his molt, Chester went missing. He’d rolled into the water. He
probably went into the ocean to eat. A couple of hours later he was back on the beach
about half a mile farther down. The volunteers quickly reassembled the yellow crime
scene tape around him fifteen feet in each direction.

Now, going into day 19, he appears even more lethargic. And… he smells bad if you’re
downwind. Half of his fur is hanging in dying patches on his now loose skin. David
Schofield, with NOAA, describes where Chester is in his molt.

“His belly and his face are pretty much done. That nice silvery coat is the new fur and
the brown stuff on the back is the old molt. So we’re saying right now he’s at about the
50% mark.”

One of the volunteers watching over Chester is a Hawaiian man named Eric Poohina. He
says though the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian
creation chant, native Hawaiians have spiritual ties to seals like Chester. Poohina refers to him as Kalaheo.

“I’m not naming him, I’m just referring to him as a Kalaheo, a Kalaheo is a verb, it’s not a
noun. Kalaheo is a proclamation, a urgent global proclamation. That animal is doomed.”

As Poohina explains the Hawaiian cultural relationship to this animal, he’s also
expressing the frustration many feel over political and economic values that have brought
the Monk Seal to the brink of extinction.

In the main Hawaiian Islands, military and real estate interests have over-developed the
coastline. They’ve been taking over the seal’s habitat. And in the Northwest Hawaiian
Islands where most of the seals live, young seals become easily entangled in fishing
industry debris. The young seals often drown. And, military maneuvers disrupt normal
breeding and nursing of healthy pups.

Schofield: “If this population is gonna recover, it’s gonna take all of us. We need 2900
of them for 20-years to get them off the endangered species list.”

(chanting)

Volunteer Eric Poohina is chanting about the sacredness of Chester’s ordeal. 26-days after
he started, Chester has finished his molt. It’s a process that has remained virtually
unchanged in his species’ genetic code for more than 15 million years. Imagine, once a
year, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, nature demands that you just have to
stop and let it all go.

Poohina: “What the chant means is we acknowledging the laws of the universe, yeah.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Anne Keala Kelly.

Related Links

Crop Prices Cut Into Conservation

  • Corn production in Colorado. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

With grain prices hitting record highs, a lot
of farmers are removing land from the federal Conservation
Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to stop growing
crops on poor land and instead grow trees or grass cover.
That creates habitat for wildlife. The US Department of
Agriculture, which runs the program, says the CRP is still
in good shape. Katherine Glover reports some conservationists
disagree:

Transcript

With grain prices hitting record highs, a lot
of farmers are removing land from the federal Conservation
Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to stop growing
crops on poor land and instead grow trees or grass cover.
That creates habitat for wildlife. The US Department of
Agriculture, which runs the program, says the CRP is still
in good shape. Katherine Glover reports some conservationists
disagree:

When the Conservation Reserve Program started in 1985, David Schoenborn was among
the first on board.

He stopped farming some of his land and let natural cover grow. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture paid him. Usually land that wasn’t the best farmland or land that was prone
to erosion was set aside for the program.

Conservationists say CRP has been great for reducing soil erosion, improving water
quality and restoring wildlife habitat.

But this year, for the first time, Schoenborn is letting some of his CRP contracts expire.

“It’s not a bad program, but the payments have to be more to keep them in line with the
rest of the farming economy.”

Corn and other grain prices are at record highs. So a lot of farmers are taking land out of
CRP and plowing it up. The program lost more than two million acres last September.

It could have been much worse. Originally sixteen million acres were set to expire in ’07.
But, in 2006 the USDA offered landowners the option to renew their contracts. About 80
to 85 percent of the land was re-enrolled.

The USDA is focusing its conservation efforts towards environmentally sensitive lands
and critical wildlife habitat.

Perry Aasness is the state director for the USDA Farm Service Agency in Minnesota.

“We’re not enrolling whole fields of land anymore, but there are still conservation
programs which we call the continuous CRP and that primarily focuses on really
targeting buffer strips, waterways, and that sort of thing.”

The targeted programs pay more than the general CRP contracts, making them more
attractive to farmers. Schoenborn, for example, is reenrolling eligible lands in these
targeted programs.

Altogether, the various programs have about 34 million acres enrolled. This is slightly
above the average enrollment for the past ten years, but less than the 39 million acres
authorized by Congress. Aasness says the program is still in good shape.

“I think the overall percentage of land going into production from CRP is pretty
minimal.”

But conservationists have a different perspective. They want to see as much land as
possible enrolled in CRP.

Dave Nomsen is with the conservation group Pheasants Forever:

“Frankly I think the program is more in doubt than it ever has been. It’s great that
farmers are benefiting from record crop prices but it’s making it a real challenge to keep
conservation as part of that agricultural landscape.”

And political pressure is part of that challenge.

The American Bakers Association even asked the government to let CRP contracts expire
early so farmers can plant more grain. This would hopefully lower the price of flour.

But a huge reduction in CRP acres is unlikely. Both Republicans and Democrats support
CRP.

Dave Nomsen with Pheasants Forever says the problem is finding enough money to make
it worth it to farmers.

CRP payments do change over time depending on the market. But Nomsen says they
haven’t kept up.

“It’s been lagging behind by several years. We just don’t have the money to raise it up to
an equal basis, but if we can get those payments high enough the long-term nature of the
contracts, the many, many other benefits of the program will hopefully sell the program
for farmers and landowners.”

Farmer David Schoenborn says payments vary, but generally he gets between 75 and 90
dollars an acre. By planting corn, he thinks he could make at least $400 an acre. But he’d
stay in CRP if payments increased just 30 percent.

That’s not likely. So chances are that more farmers will be putting land that’s set aside
for wildlife back into crops.

For the Environment Report, I’m Katherine Glover.

Related Links

Feds Pass on Wolverine Listing

  • Wolverine display at Arctic Interagency Visitor Center at Coldfoot. (Photo from the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:

Transcript

The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:

A federal court ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take a fresh look
at whether the wolverine should be listed. After the review, the agency
announced that it would not propose a listing for the animal.

Shawn Sartorius is the wolverine expert for the Wildlife Service.

He says the wolverine’s future is not dependant on the estimated 500 animals
that live in the lower 48 states.

“The healthy part of the population, the real genetically diverse and well connected population, is in Alaska and
Canada.”

Sartorius says between 15 and 20 thousand Wolverines live in Alaska and
Canada.

Wolverine numbers are down in the lower 48 states because they have been trapped for fur and
pushed out by development.

A former director of the US Fish Wildlife Service called the decision
“irresponsible.”

For the Environment Report, I’m Steve Carmody.

Related Links

Saving the Orcas

  • Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)

For many people orca whales are very
familiar. Think Shamu. We’ve even given the wild
killer whales of the Pacific Northwest individual
names. But there’s still a lot we don’t know, like
where the whales go and what they eat. Now that they’re
listed as endangered, those have become important
questions. Liam Moriarty accompanied a research
crew trying to get answers:

Transcript

For many people orca whales are very
familiar. Think Shamu. We’ve even given the wild
killer whales of the Pacific Northwest individual
names. But there’s still a lot we don’t know, like
where the whales go and what they eat. Now that they’re
listed as endangered, those have become important
questions. Liam Moriarty accompanied a research
crew trying to get answers:

Killer whales are sloppy eaters, so one way to study their diet is to
scoop up the leftover crumbs. Robin Baird says another way is to
study what comes out the other end.

“And so we basically follow behind the whales and pick up whatever
they leave behind, so either bits of fish if they’re actually catching
prey, or fecal material which we can use to look at what they’re
feeding on using genetic analysis.”

Baird is a biologist with Cascadia Research in Olympia, Washington.

(outboard motorboat sounds up)

On this morning, Baird, biologist Brad Hanson, and several other
researchers are piled into a 19-foot inflatable boat. We’re heading out
from Friday Harbor, north of Seattle to look for whales. We head
toward the Canadian border, keeping our eyes peeled. A while later,
we locate a group of more than a dozen whales.

(boat slows down)

Now comes the tricky part. The game plan is to pick an animal to
follow, and hope it leaves a specimen in its wake.

Baird: “We’ll come along side this one, get an ID then we’ll start a
flukeprint on her.”

Whales are surfacing and diving all around us.

(whale exhalation)

Researchers call out sightings, directions and distances …

“Multiple targets. Two animals. (How far?) 100 meters.”

Robin Baird maneuvers the boat into the wake of a passing whale.

“Oh, fish in mouth! Eleven’s got … the male’s got a fish in mouth!”

Researcher Greg Shorr stands in a pulpit at the bow of the boat with
a long handled pool net, looking intently into the water for the telltale
glitter of fish scales.

“OK, dip!”

He dips the net and comes up with a few scales and bits of tissue.

(whale breath)

Soon we’re tracking other orcas.

Hanson: “Chase! Underwater chase, 12 o’clock! Another target up,
125 behind us at 5 o’clock … might be chasing something … Yep!
Definitely chasing something! Two animals back there, three
animals!”

We spend over an hour tailing whales and dipping pool nets that
mostly come up empty.
(whale breath)

Getting this up-close and personal with the whales would get anyone
who doesn’t have a federal research permit ticketed for whale
harassment … But this kind of work is one important way to get
information that could help save the orcas from extinction.
Eventually, the whales move on. We make the long trip back.

(boat motors up, fades)

(brewpub noise)

That evening, in a dockside brewpub, Brad Hanson and Robin Baird
reflect on the day’s work; twelve hours on often-choppy seas. Baird
says that’s what it takes to get close to the whales.

“If we want to be able to really understand what they’re doing, we
have to be able to see the fine details of their behavior. And the only
way we’re going to se those fine details is if we’re actually close
enough to see whether a whale has a fish in its mouth when it comes
up to the surface.”

Hanson says that approach is paying off.

“Some 30 years we’ve known all these individual animals and people
have spent a lot of time looking at them, but we are seeing things in
the last couple of years that other people have not seen.”

For instance, orcas sometimes play with their food or share prey with
each other. Analysis of fecal samples has pinpointed what kinds of
fish the whales eat, and when. Observations like these have given
researchers a better picture of how the animals interact with their
habitat. And that fills in a few more pieces of the puzzle they hope will
lead to recovery for the Pacific Northwest’s endangered killer
whales.

For The Environment Report, I’m Liam Moriarty.

Related Links

Man vs. Beast

  • Where is it?! Oh! There it is - up in the corner - eeek! (Photo by Tom Wojnowski)

More and more people are moving into areas that are natural habitats for animals. And a lot of people are finding that the animals don’t want to move out of the neighborhood. Kyle Norris reports that this can make for some interesting interactions:

Transcript

More and more people are moving into areas that are natural habitats for animals. And a lot of people are finding that the animals don’t want to move out of the neighborhood. Kyle Norris reports that this can make for some interesting interactions:


Get this: woodpeckers want to live inside Tom Wojnowski’s house.


“There’s a hole. And when you’re in house here’s what you hear, you hear this: (knocks) and you know you’re being attacked!”


Wojnowski is not so keen on sharing his house with the woodpeckers. He managed to scare that one away, but then another woodpecker made a pretty good-sized hole on the other side of the house.


Wojnowski put up one of those menacing plastic owls, you know, to scare the woodpecker away – and he thinks it’s working. He’ll probably even buy another plastic owl. You know, with those cute eyes, all wide.


Wojnowski lives in a suburb, but it’s sort of out in the country. There are dirt roads, and lots of trees. And lots of wildlife in the area.


Wojnowski started having problems with animals pretty much the day they moved into the house. Actually, he can list off his problems to the ABCs.


“Well let’s start with A. Ants haven’t been a big problem. There’s been a few but none in the house and they’re out there so I leave them alone. B. You have bees and bats.”

Ok, this could go on for a while… so I’m going to jump in here.

Bats were living in the attic. Carpenter bees chewed holes in the siding. So, for “D” you’ve got deer. The deer ate pretty much all the landscaped plants. Ok so now, let’s jump to “F.”


There was this fox. It had been living in Wojnowski’s drainage ditch. And it would bury its kill in the lawn—things like dead, smelly skunks. Yeah.

So, one day Wojnowski was getting his mail and the fox came strolling out of woods. And they locked eyes.


Wojnowski noticed the fox was small and red… and beautiful.

But he was tired of dealing with it.


“So I took this rock and I put it in front of the drainage ditch hole. And he watched me do that and it was almost like ‘what are you doing to me here?’ So then he went next door and went to their drainage ditch.”

Wojnowski is not the only guy who’s battling it out with the wildlife.


As people keep moving into areas near wildlife, there are problems. I mean at a certain point it starts to feel like…(Boxing announcer: in this corner, with acres of ravaged lawns and gardens to their credit, we have the wildlife. (applause and boos) And in this corner, with a hoe, live traps, and a BB gun, we have the human homeowners…” (applause and boos and the ‘ding’ of the boxing bell)


But experts say it does not actually have to be ‘us’ versus ‘them’.

Jennifer Kleitch is a wildlife technician with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


She says people need to realize that they’re part of the problem.


Dog food outside is a free meal for coyotes. People who mow their lawns all the way to the edge of their pond create paradise for geese: short grass near water.


And then there’s this kind of thing which can happen with raccoons:


“If we leave out our garbage and they get into it, we get mad and they’re being a nuisance. But we are in essence responsible for them being there and being drawn to it.”


She says people tend look at it as if animals are the problem. But… the people moved into the animals’ neighborhood.


Stephen Vantassel says we’re conflicted about wildlife. He’s a wildlife damage educator with the University of Nebraska Lincoln Extension office.


“We tend to have the Disney effect with wildlife. We have these rather pastoral images of a person walking through a deep forest and seeing the deer in the distance. And then that attitude can change dramatically when they see that same deer ravaging a plant they paid $500 for to have put in their backyard.”


He says when people start thinking of wildlife as “evil” (As in, “that thing that tore up my flower bed is ‘evil’”) well, that can be bad.


The animals are not the enemy… they’re part of the environment… the same environment that people want to live in.


So… Tom Wojnowski? You know, the ABC guy?


Well, he says his perspective has changed a little over time. He still thinks if animals are destroying his property… yeah, well then they’ve got to go. But he’s starting to realize there are things he can do to discourage wildlife from damaging his property… without waging war.


He’s kind of getting into it actually. He’s started reading up on different animals. He says he likes and respects animals… even the mole tearing up his lawn. He thought it was a whole colony. Turned out… it was just one mole. But one heck of a hard-working mole.

Experts say there are plenty of cheap, simple things you can do just to prevent problems.

Like modify bird feeders to guard against squirrels. Chimney caps discourage uninvited guests from dropping in. And people can fill in the cracks and crevices around their home to stop things like bees and mice from sneaking in.

But the experts say that the best thing you can do is cool your jets. Stop viewing the animal as the problem. And realize that the animal is just trying to do its thing.

As for the wildlife around Tom Wojnowski’s place, well, they’re stalled at the letter W. Which is the first letter in his last name. The animals are still trying to learn to live with him.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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Fed Dollars for the Birds

A conservation group says birds would get much needed help from President
Bush’s proposed federal budget. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A conservation group says birds would get much needed help from President
Bush’s proposed federal budget. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The National Audubon Society and other organizations have been warning that
many bird species are in decline because of threats such as loss of habitat. The
President’s budget would put 36 million dollars more into wildlife refuges.
There’d be another eight million dollars for keeping track of bird populations and
helping migrating birds.


The Bush Administration has often focused on birds that are hunted. Greg
Butcher is with the Audobon Society. He says the budget initiative would help
wetlands birds:


“And that’s going to include ducks and geese that are hunted, but it’s also going
to include herons and terns, and other species that aren’t hunted. So it’s a very
habitat-focused initiative.”


Congress still has to act on the President’s budget. It contains many
controversial items, so that could delay final passage.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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