Highlights
January 2020 - Extinct Species, Bioreserve Walk
INFO ALERT - Following the dodo
"Because the living environment is really what sustains us."
- E. O. Wilson
Lack of connectivity. Losing one species at a time.
Massachusetts is a small state, third most densely populated in the nation and since its founding, 240 years ago, has had a very checkered past in protecting its forests, wildlife and environment. The first English settlers back in the 17th century began to remove the forest and the forest didn't begin to return until the 19th century when farming went west and farms were abandoned. The 19th century was also the peak of the Industrial Revolution which resulted in multiple dams on every river, the growth of cities and sewer outflows polluting every major river in the state. Not good for wildlife, not good for us.
The 18th and especially the 19 century brought extirpations and extinctions for much of Massachusetts' megafauna. Gray wolves, elk, mountain lion, Canada lynx, moose and wild turkey disappeared. With the return of the forest in the late 20th and 21st centuries moose returned on their own as have fishers. Wild turkeys have returned thanks to help from Fish and Wildlife biologists.
Barring a deadly pandemic, accelerated rate of climate change and/or nuclear annihilation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock) eliminating most of us, species of flora and fauna in Massachusetts will, once again, wink out as the human population continues to grow (https://www.census.gov/popclock/) and development, especially with recent improvements in the economy, continues to eat up field and forest.
The good news, maybe, is that we supposedly now have almost a quarter of the state as protected open space land. Not nearly "half earth" yet (https://www.half-earthproject.org/video-spotlight-on-e-o-wilson-which-half/). Locally we have the 16,000 acre Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve and just to the east the 12,000 acre Myles Standish State Forest. Scattered between and about are smaller protected forest lands and Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife's wildlife management areas as well as a myriad of regional and local land trust properties.
To maintain genetic diversity and allow for species dispersal and migration between all these disparate public and private protected open space properties, in such a heavily populated and developed state, requires connections that in some cases already exist allowing for passage from the Berkshires to Cape Cod.
Plants and animals on a small land trust preserve surrounded by suburbia without access, connections, to other open space parcels and other members of their own species will lack genetic variation and and be unable to evolve and adapt to changing environmental conditions thus be more likely to become extinct.
Connectivity through dedicated urban/suburban greenways and even through managed public utility corridors (pipelines/powerlines), rail rights of way, etc. will allow animals and plants to move and disperse so that individuals from one group may find those from another. Leave no open space parcel unconnected. As population and development continues to increase, connectivity throughout the state will guarantee more species will survive and fewer will be lost.
Local species that have vanished from Massachusetts and some heading for oblivion if we don't don't, right now, save more land and connections.
Sadly, we'll never see these again:
We will never again see a heath hen calling out on the scrubby flats behind the the dune of Westport or walking along the grassy edge of a Dartmouth salt marsh. The last lonely heath hen, Booming Ben, was last seen wandering Martha's Vineyard in 1932.
Mourning what has been lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTkN2w5EnSA
(PD-US) No more Labrador ducks. A sea duck found along the coast during winter. Last seen in the late 1800s.
More on the Labrador duck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labrador_duck
"Brooks has let out some of his pigeons, which stay about the stands or perches to bait others. Wild one nest in his woods quite often, He begins to catch them in the middle of August." - Henry David Thoreau, 1854."
Like the American bison there were many millions of passenger pigeons before Europeans arrived. Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
The great auk was large, fat and couldn't fly. The last one was killed in 1844. More on the auk here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_auk
Find the list of Massachusetts Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Species here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/list-of-endangered-threatened-and-special-concern-species
Here are some local land trusts holding some amazing properties containing unique ecosystems. How can they be connected to each other? Visit their properties. Maybe become a member of one near you? Advocate for connections.
Dartmouth Natural Resuorces Trust - https://dnrt.org/
Westport Land Conservation Trust - https://westportlandtrust.org/
Tiverton Land Trust - tivertonlandtrust.org
Buzzards Bay Coalition - https://www.savebuzzardsbay.org/
Fairhaven Acushne Land Preservation Trust - http://www.falpt.org/TrustLands.html
Wildlands Trust - www.wildlandstrust.org
Massachusetts Audubon - www.massaudubon.org
Audubon Society of Rhode Island - www.asri.org
State open space land agencies:
Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation - www.mass.gov/dcr
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ACTIVITY ALERT - December's Exploring the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve Walk became January's Exploring the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve Walk
What beautiful and balmy weather this past Saturday compared to the snowy, sleety and rainy Saturday that cancelled our December walk. This year on this winter walk we were unable to rouse any flying squirrels, but Master Walker Catherine did spot a large clump of lingzhi (Chinese), reishi (Japanese) medicinal mushrooms in the Ganoderma genus, species complex, growing at the base of a tree. For more on this interesting fungus go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingzhi_mushroom
A beautiful winter morning and a group of happy hikers on the trail.
Carefully crossing an old bridge over Blossom Brook.
Swirling sand boils and bubbles at the bottom of Brightman Spring.
February's Exploring the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve Walk will be a night walk under the February Snow Moon. February 8, Saturday, 8 p.m. On last winter's night walk we were fortunate to encounter a group of very vocal barred owls. They were having quite a conversation. More info on February's night walk emailed out toward the end of January. Watch for it!
February's Snow Moon.
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