Newsletters

June 2013 - Brayton Point, McGowan's Ledge, Dogwood, Coyote

 WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES !

JUNE, 2013

“To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all." 

- Elie Wiesel

 

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

- Calvin Coolidge 

 

BRAYTON POINT PROTEST – The heat is on!

350 parts per million is what many climate scientists say is the upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere before catastrophe strikes.

We are presently at that upper limit. This summer our atmosphere could reach the tipping point when irreversible impacts to our planet are expected to occur.

Dominion’s Brayton Point Station is the largest and filthiest fossil-fuel fired power plant in New England. A recent protest temporarily blocked delivery of a shipment of dirty Appalachian coal. Read about it here: http://www.ecori.org/greengroups/2013/5/16/recent-brayton-point-protest-first-of-many.html

Bill McKibben’s organization “350.org” (http://350.org/en) is planning a nationwide series of protests this summer. 350.org’s Massachusetts Chapter is planning a major protest event this July 27 and 28 at Brayton Point. See particulars, here: http://joinsummerheat.org/massachusetts/

To learn more about educator, author and activist Bill McKibben, go here: http://www.billmckibben.com/

 

FRAGMENTING THE REMNANT FOREST – Bye, bye McGowan’s Ledge

Quarrying continues at the McGowan’s Ledge inholding within the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve. Shameful!

We are interested in seeing what the forest/quarry interface will look like once the ledge is gone. Run-off from this destructive activity has already compromised a roadside waterhole immediately north of the project.

Here’s a photo of what the area looks like today.

To see what it looked like last year, go to our April, 2012, Newsletter: http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=RckpPY3b5kLaZ7WZ

 

BIORESERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH - American Dogwood – (Cornus florida)

American dogwood is an understory tree, one of our most shade tolerant tree species,  found growing in well-drained uplands at the forest edge and on ridge flats and hillsides in open forest from southern Maine to northern Florida and west to east Texas, east Oklahoma, southern Missouri, east to southern Michigan over to extreme southern Ontario.

In the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB) the dogwood blooms in early May. The inconspicuous white to yellowish-green flowers are grouped in terminal clusters surrounded by four large and showy white bracts (petals) that are 2 to 3 inches across. Flowers open just before the leaves begin to unfold. The dogwood flowers are bisexual, but they can’t self-fertilize.  Other dogwoods must be in the area for only cross-pollination will result in fruit and viable seed. Dogwood leaves are oval and opposite each other. They are 3 to 5 inches long, light green in summer turning reddish-brown in fall.

The fruits of the dogwood are bright red drupes (fleshy fruit with a central stone). They ripen in early fall and are much sought after by many forest birds and mammals. The drupes are inedible to humans. They were formerly used as a quinine substitute in treating malaria.

Most local wild dogwoods are 8 to 15 feet in height. Extremely favorable conditions may produce a dogwood 30 feet in height with a trunk 12 to 15 inches in diameter. The American Forestry Association’s “champion” dogwood tree is 55’ tall with an 18 inch diameter trunk.

The reddish-brown wood of the dogwood is very fine-grained and dense. It is used to make knife and tool handles, golf club heads, mallet heads, game calls, spools and other small wooden items requiring hard wood.

The effects of alien fungi and insects on our tree species are well known. Few North American tree species have been spared attack by introduced fungal and insect pests. Our dogwood is no exception. Our beautiful dogwoods are under attack and succumbing to anthracnose.

Anthracnose, Discula destructans, is an alien fungal disease that arrived in the United States around 30 years ago. It is deadly to dogwoods.

Dogwoods attacked by anthracnose have purple-bordered leaf spots and wrinkled tan areas that soon spread shriveling the entire leaf. These dead leaves often stay hanging from the tree’s infected branches. Branches die back, cankers form under the bark and the tree weakens and dies. 

Dogwood is also attacked by various native leaf eating insects and wood borers, but the tree evolved with these predators. Not having evolved with anthracnose, leaves dogwood defenseless when it is attacked.

Some dogwoods seem to be developing genetic resistance to the disease. Dendropathologists are also trying to save the dogwood using new genetic technologies to produce an anthracnose resistant strain. 

Take a walk in the SMB and say a few encouraging words to any dogwood you meet while on your ramble. If no one is watching, a hug is okay too.

 

BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Coyote (Canis latrans)

Coyote is just a little doggie. He’s little different than old Fido sitting at your feet eagerly waiting for a handout from that sandwich you’re eating and anticipating a loving pat on the head.

Similarity, unfortunately, does not bring understanding and many people loath and fear Fido’s little wild canine cousin who rarely has a full belly …and is more likely to get a bullet in the head than a pat on the head.

In a society that comes close to deifying the domestic dog …and with many that consider their pooch a member of the family …it is amazing how little respect coyote dog gets.

Like us, coyotes are a highly adaptable species. This land may be our land, but it is also their land “from California to the New York island” …and from Panama to Alaska too. Do many dislike coyote because he is so like us?

The coyote, in many American Indian cultures, is a trickster or mischievous spirit guide. The name “coyote” comes to us from Mexican Spanish which comes from the Nahuatl Indian word coyotl. Canis latrans is Latin for “barking dog.”

Coyotes appear larger than they are due to their thick fur coat and their foot and a half long bushy tail. Body length, sans tail, is only 3 to 3½ feet. Coyote weights vary widely, anywhere from 12 to 40 pounds. 

Every year, usually during hunting season, news reports appear of someone with a dead coyote weighing 70 pounds or more. After biological examination and necropsy most of these large canines turn out to be feral dogs, dog-coyote hybrids (coydogs) or commercially raised wolf-dog hybrids (possession of which is banned in Massachusetts) that have escaped their owners.

Coyote coat colors range from black, to brown, to white. Most are a grizzled grayish-brown with black-tipped guard hairs along the neck, shoulders, back and tail. Underparts are lighter in color. Coyotes always have a black-tipped tail and generally carry their tail pointing down. The only other local canid with a black-tipped tail is the grey fox and they are a much smaller animal weighing 6 to 12 pounds and they usually carry their tail horizontally.

Again, like us, coyotes will eat practically anything. They will consume birds and bird eggs; seed and suet from bird feeders; mammals, from mice to deer; snakes and turtles; insects; fish; road-kill and other carrion; our garbage; watermelons and other fruits; corn and other vegetables; livestock ( a popular western bumper sticker reads: Eat American Lamb, 10,000  coyotes can’t be wrong!); small dogs and cats. When running down prey coyote’s top speed is around 45 miles per hour.

Coyotes live and travel in pairs and family groups and although primarily nocturnal hunters they can often be seen hunting during daylight hours.

In our area, coyotes mate in January and February. Once paired up they tend to remain together for multiple years. Coyote pups are born in March and April and a litter usually consists of three to six. 

Pups, locally, are usually born in an old woodchuck burrow their parents have enlarged and remodeled. Their eyes open ten days after birth and they leave the safety of the den after about one month. Both parents bring home food and feed their young. 

To feed their always hungry pups coyote parents often extend their hunting territory and may cover an area of 10 to 15 square miles each night.

By fall the pups are large enough to go off on their own seeking their own territory or they may stay and hunt with their parents through the winter.

We had a fun time playing with some coyote pups a few years ago near the gigantic Republic Services Allied Waste Dump. The dump, adjacent to the northwest corner of the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB) serves up “fast-food” to a wide array of scavenging birds and mammals. 

We were riding mountain bikes near the dump when we came upon 3 curious coyote pups playing in the grass. They approached us, crouched down in the grass, and when we pedaled toward them they would spring-up, run a short distance, crouch down again waiting for us to approach again. On our approach, they’d repeat their mock flight. If we didn’t promptly follow, when they stopped and crouched in the grass, they would spring-up and leap about to make sure we knew where they were so that we could continue the game. Like human children, they did not want to stop playing. Having tired us out, we finally called it quits and pedaled away.

Coyotes have a large vocabulary. Like most dogs they bark and howl. They also yip, yelp, squeal and growl. If you hear coyotes howling, howl back at them. Engage them in a conversation of the wild.

 

  

ILLEGAL ACTIVITY CAUSE OF EREGIOUS EROSION – MA DCR says they will fix 

 

Back in December we objected to a proposed logging operation in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB) until a plan is in place to address logging’s beneficial or detrimental effects on species diversity. This must happen before any logging is contemplated, anywhere in the SMB. We also asked that DCR repair a severely eroded hillside and adjacent Rattlesnake Brook before any timber cutting is allowed in that negatively impacted area.

The Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation's Bureau of Forest Stewardship oversees that area of the SMB and agreed to repair the damage and make the land whole. To help ensure species diversity and restore damaged land they will be repairing the vandalized ridge and slope along Rattlesnake Brook this June.

We will be conducting site visits to view the progress of the restoration. You will receive email “Alerts” when these visits are planned.

 

AND WHAT IS SO RARE AS A DAY IN JUNE? – Then, if ever, come perfect days …

Click on our Calendar for June activities and meetings.

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