Newsletters
November 2016 - DCR Problems, Pickerel Weed, Pickerel Weed
WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES !
NOVEMBER, 2016
"When I stepped away from the white pine, I had the definite feeling that we had exchanged some form of life energy. ...Clearly white pines and I are on the same wavelength. What I give back to the trees I cannot imagine. I hope they receive something, because trees are among my closest friends.” - Anne LaBastille
"If the day is fine, any walk will do; it all looks good." - Annie Dillard
TERMINATE DCR - YOU CAN'T MAKE CHICKEN SOUP OUT OF CHICKEN SHI POOP
For the past four years there has been an article, almost monthly, in this newsletter about our experiences with the dysfunctional Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). In the beginning we naively thought DCR would welcome our interest and volunteer efforts in helping them repair a hillside and brook damaged due to their negligence and take back the Freetown-Fall River State Forest, a part of the greater Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve, from vandals and illegal off-road vehicle riders ... changing the “anything goes at Freetown” culture that unfortunately persists there to this day.
The damage to the land, streams, wetlands, sensitive habitats and wildlife species in the Freetown Fall River State Forest is unacceptable …even more so in a bioreserve.
We've gone 'round and 'round, over the years, with passive-aggressive DCR Boston bureaucrats. State laws and DCR's own rules and regulations just aren't adhered to and enforced.
With Governor Baker appointing his own hacks and toadies, most with scant knowledge of forests, conservation and land management, DCR is even more dysfunctional, if that's possible, than it was before. With DCR it's déjà vu …over and over and over again.
It appears we are slow learners, but we have finally figured out that DCR is never going to be a responsible state agency ...is never going to live up to its mission statement, “To protect, promote and enhance our common wealth of natural, cultural and recreational resources for the well-being of all. Expanding public involvement in carrying out DCR's mission and establishing first-rate management systems and practices.”
This summer we took a little tour and visited some local (Bristol/Plymouth County) DCR forests, parks and reservations and a few out in Berkshire and Franklin counties. We talked to a few permanent and more seasonal DCR employees. Most appeared involved and interested in their work, but they didn't need any coaxing to tell us of their complaints with DCR management ...and lack of funds and staff were not at the top of their lists.
We have come to realize that the problems at DCR are statewide. Due to location and demographics our state forest and greater Bioreserve have suffered more from DCR's lack of involvement and management than most, but DCR forest, park and reservations across the state, for the most part, are a mess.
Where's the outrage, the outcry? This is serious. Any help in turning dysfunctional DCR around from the major state environmental organizations? Apparently not. It appears at this time that many of those organizations have been co-opted via shared programs and/or shared funding sources with DCR so are loath to criticize or they are so focused on alternative energy or other environmentally “hot” issues that public land and DCR problems are not on their agendas except for the usual bleat of, “DCR needs more funding and staff.” More funding and staff can't fix a huge state agency staffed at the top by problematic cronies and hacks.
We thought there would be an outcry from environmental organizations and forest/park groups after news stories broke on illegal activities engaged in by folks at the very top of the DCR pyramid. Wrists were slapped, lightly, and business went on as usual. If you missed it, you can read about it here: http://www.telegram.com/news/20160901/dcr-chief-aide-suspended-for-private-party
Top administrators at DCR should have resigned. If not, they should have been fired.
And more DCR shenanigans. Got to love the badge, radio and tactical gloves.https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/10/01/baker-administration-says-dcr-official-misused-state-car/1oR3C5GASE9KoXo2zM1DYM/story.html
And another one bites the dust. http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2016/10/04/dcr-resigned-michael-crowley/
Michigan and Utah carpetbagger Governor Romney created the DCR, back in 2003, by merging the thoroughly corrupt and hack filled Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) with the far less corrupt and less hack ridden Department of Environmental Management (DEM).
Like the proverbial bad apple, former MDC management staff and culture dominated the new DCR and that's still the way it is today.
DCR can never receive enough funding. Old MDC political and other alliances and past roles and obligations will have DCR squandering their funds in the Boston metropolitan area. Little will filter out to the rest of the state.
With DCR now responsible for almost 100 boulevards, streets, bridges, playgrounds, buildings, dams, tennis courts, ball fields, skating rinks, swimming pools and other recreational facilities, little additional funding will escape greater Boston.
According to news reports DCR spent over 5 million dollars rehabing and filling in wetlands, much to the anger of environmentalists, at DCR's Ponkapoag Golf Course. Check on Google for reviews of that golf course to see if that was even a remotely good investment.
Last year, according to reports, over-populated deer at DCR's Blue Hills Reservation that could have been thinned by educated, ethical and licensed hunters for free, cost DCR $2,200 for every deer killed.
Locally, DCR spends millions on underutilized state piers in Fall River and New Bedford. Why?
Time to end DCR. Recreation and urban interests will always trump conservation. DCR has become the old MDC.
Okay, so forests and parks are ignored, their mission statement too. What can be done? We suggest taking forests and parks from DCR and adding them to a new Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many states have done that, e.g., Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
How about a Massachusetts Department of Land and Wildlife (fish are wildlife) or Massachusetts Department of Wildlife, Forests and Parks?
What about recreation? Hiking, camping, canoeing, mountain biking and other forms of true outdoor recreation are, of course, kept with the change in departments.
Rinks, pools, ball fields, golf courses, bocce courts and all other forms of recreation may be placed in a new department of recreation or privatized.
DCR must go. This is a start. Got a better plan for our forests, parks, reservations and wildlife? Let us know.
Mission of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve
The Mission of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve is to protect, restore, and enhance the biological diversity and ecological integrity of a large-scale ecosystem with diverse natural communities representative of the region; to promote sustainable natural resource management; to permanently protect public water supplies and cultural resources; to offer interpretive and educational programs communicating the value and significance of the Bioreserve; and to provide opportunities for appropriate recreational use and enjoyment of this natural environment.
BIORESERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH – Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)
Pickerelweed is an emergent aquatic plant often found keeping company with white water lilies in area ponds, quiet coves of lakes and rivers and along the edges of muddy, slow flowing streams and rivers. Pickerelweed's associate, white water lily, was our August 2012 “Bioreserve Flora of the Month.” http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=ScvmYG7qhmISYUw1.
Individual pickerelweed plants reach three to five feet in height, one to two feet of that height being underwater. Pickerelweed grows in dense colonies and provides hiding places for pickerel fish, hence this plant's common name. Pickerel, long and thin and similar in color to the yellow-green underwater stems of the plant, hover quietly there, perfectly camouflaged by the leaves and stems, darting out to ambush smaller fish that unsuspectingly swim by.
Pickerelweed leaves are three to ten inches long, bright green, point upward, variably arrowhead, heart or lance shaped with shallow, blunt, rear lobes (ears). The equally aquatic arrowhead plant (Sagittaria) also has arrowhead shaped leaves and has similar habitat requirements. Arrowhead leaves have prominent veins extending out from where the stem attaches at the base of the leaf. Arrowhead leaf bases also have long pointed rear lobes (ears).
Pickerelweed blooms extravagantly throughout the summer and into early autumn. Many tiny, funnel-shaped or tubular, deep-blue flowers bloom on stalks that rise a foot or two above the water. Each tiny blue flower has two yellow dots that direct pollinating insects to the nectar. The flowers are pollinated by bees, butterflies, moths and other nectar-loving insects.
Once pollinated a small fruit forms containing one seed. Each small fruit, on the now old and drooping flower stalks, drops its seed into the water. The seeds are eagerly eaten by muskrats, ducks, coots and rails. We humans can eat them too.
Pickerelweed can also reproduce asexually by sprouting from its rhizomes (underground stems that send out shoots and roots).
Pickerelweed is a perennial plant and native from Quebec south to Florida and Texas and from the Atlantic coast west to Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario.
BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Pickerel Frog (Lithobates palustris)
The pickerel frog is a 2 to 4 1/2 inch frog that got its name because it is a favorite bait used by fishermen to catch pickerel.
Pickerel frogs are tan or gray and have two rows of roughly rectangular brown squares on their backs and smaller oval and elongated brown rectangles below their dorsolateral folds (raised ridge of skin that runs along each side of a frog's back) and on their legs and head. Their underside is white, often with yellow or orange skin on their lower belly and thighs.
Pickerel frogs are often confused with leopard frogs, but in our neck of the woods pickerel frogs are much more common. Leopard frogs are generally larger with greenish colored backs and a random pattern of dark, roughly round shapes covering their body, head and legs. Leopard frogs also don't have yellow or orange colored skin on the lower belly and thighs.
In the spring and early summer pickerel frogs are found in heavily vegetated lakes, ponds and along slow flowing streams and rivers.In our area they breed later than spring peepers and wood frogs, but earlier than green frogs and bullfrogs.
In late April males begin calling to females with a nasal, snoring sound and their thumbs swell. Females are larger and darker than males. When a receptive female approaches a calling male he grasps her in a mating embrace (amplexus), his swollen thumbs allowing a tight hold. As she lays her eggs he fertilizes them.
The egg masses attach to aquatic vegetation and hatch within a week or two depending on water temperature. Warm weather encourages development of the tadpoles. Cold temperatures retard the process.
Upon hatching, tadpoles feed on algae and other aquatic vegetation. Over the course of the summer metamorphosis slowly transforms the tadpoles into frogs.
In mid to late summer pickerel frogs spend their time hunting small insect prey in wet meadows, along forest trails and in the grassy edges of forest clearings. In October they return to their aquatic home to spend the winter buried in the mud.
The range of the pickerel frog is the eastern half of the United States except for southern Georgia, south-central and southeastern Alabama and all of Florida. Pickerel frogs are also found in southeastern Ontario, extreme southern Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
The pickerel frog has fewer predators than most frogs and that is because their skin produces a toxic secretion that protects this frog from most mammals, birds, turtles and snakes.
NEWS ARTICLES TO SHARE - From Our Readers
Unagi demand results in poaching. http://bangordailynews.com/2016/10/04/news/portland/maine-man-pleads-guilty-to-illegally-trafficking-in-elvers-worth-540000/
Dead trees don't significantly increase the likelihood of wildfires. http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-miller-forests-arent-dying-20160925-snap-story.html
Conservation changed her life. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/jane-alexander-book-wild-things-places/
Help rescue Massachusetts' forests. http://massforestrescue.org/
Constitutionality of the EPA's Clean Power Plan: https://www.c-span.org/video/?415803-4/washington-journal-david-doniger-clean-power-plan
Voice of the Wapack: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/1578a6e4b82c336c
Talking trees: http://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other
Not the villain some make them out to be. http://www.gazettenet.com/The-facts-about-fishers-5039091 The fisher was our June, 2011, Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve Fauna of the Month. To read about it, go here: http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=kbGsIH6frfZvJ16b
SHAME ON DCR – November's photo of shame
LAST FULL MONTH OF FALL – Indian Summer
To have Indian Summer you first need a frost. We haven't had a frost yet this autumn, but the end of October is the time frost usually appears in our neck of the woods.
November may have some cold and snowy days, but it usually also has many Indian Summer days with bright sun, blue skies and mild temperatures. Perfect weather for taking a hike in area woods and forests. Enjoy your outdoor environment.
For a few items that may be of interest click on our Calendar.
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