Att: Laura McCarthy

 

Sept. 11 2013

Dear Laura,

I'm writing the NYS audubon society to ask for your support in opposing DEC plans to destroy the phragmites population in the Piermont marsh.

I live on Ferdon Ave, directly on the banks of the Sparkill pond, and less than a 10 minute walk from the marsh. 

I am thus closer to the contested piece of real estate than 99.9% of the power-posessing individuals out there in the big wide world making their bureaucratic and "environmentally sound" decisions about it. 

Furthermore, I walk my dog along this creek and marsh every single morning and have done so without exception — except for the weeks I am on business trips— for the last six years, rain or shine, ice, snow, or heat wave, January through June and July through December. I watch turtles lay their eggs there, right at the edge of the marsh. I see yellowthroats migrating, bald eagles roosting, golden and ruby crowned kinglets, downy woodpeckers and redwing blackbirds foraging. IMO, the marsh is only bio-impoverished in the minds of people who want it to be so that they can spend taxpayer money meddling with it. 

I have almost certainly spent more time in aggregate in and around this marsh than any of the biologists studying it, and most if not all of the local people who don't live directly on the marsh itself. Anyone who wants a tour of the wildlife and bird population  in and around the marsh area can visit my web sitehttp://www.hudsonriverdiaries.com and take a look. All of the pictures there were taken within a quarter to half mile of the area they want to spray. Many are right on the edge of the marsh itself, or in it.

The idea of repeatedly spraying enough herbicide to "control" the phrag here is absurd. Only people sitting in offices looking at charts can come up with ideas like this, to be applied in neighborhoods where they don't live, affecting wildlife they don't actually interact with.

The marsh is not a field laboratory. It is a living, breathing, thriving neighborhood. What is being proposed is a form of engineered genocide, directed at the millions of living creatures in many forms who will be exterminated, either directly or indirectly, by poisoning or loss of functional habitat. Birds will definitely be among the primary vertebrate victims of this action (see below) and no right thinking birder can possibly endorse the idea.

Even worse, Roundup is known to be toxic to aquatic invertebrates, and its overall toxicity is still open to question and certainly of active concern. I never use it in my garden for exactly that reason. How anyone can credibly propose spraying it near bodies of water is frankly impossible to understand.

I have video of the redwing blackbird flock that inhabits the marsh, though it was done casually and hardly does justice to the many thousands of birds that winter over there— the population increases in the winter months. 

I posted the video on my blog some weeks ago (my blog is on esoteric spirituality and has little to do, at least on the surface, with ornithology, but you can see the video here.)

Keep in mind, when you watch it, that it shows a very small fraction of the flock as it leaves the marsh in the morning. The exodus often takes a half hour or more to complete and takes place in waves.

On mornings in January and February at sunrise, the sound of the birds is like a huge waterfall- loud enough to take one's breath away, and reminiscent of forgotten eras when animal populations were so much higher than today, and the sound of birds was deafening. One has to be out in the marsh at 6 or 7 am (depending on when the sun rises) to fully appreciate it. 

I'm frankly puzzled as to how the biologists on this project can argue about phrag reducing biodiversity. Perhaps the "monoculture" changes it—but there's an abundance and diversity of bird life in the marsh that I encounter on a regular bases. Quite honestly, I believe spartina would provide a different and less suitable habitat for some of these species. 

No dedicated birder could possibly fail to be thrilled with this sight. I don't understand why they aren't out there in the morning to check it out, it's magnificent.

________________________________________________________________________

Laura's response, Sept. 17, 2013:

 

Hi Lee,

Thanks for your note. It is clear you have a strong connection with this place and I understand your concerns. I sent your message to our science staff and wanted to share a response based on those conversations. Basically, in the early stages of phragmites invasion the vegetative diversity does not visually appear to be impacted. Wildlife will use the sparse phrag stand as perches and cover like it would other marsh plants. However, in the later stages of infestation the phrag does become so thick that it crowds out the native vegetation that our native critters utilize for forage and cover so much so that it can become undesirable to them. This monoculture of Phragmites becomes unsuitable for certain species that have specific habitat needs while it still may be used by generalist species, which tend to be more common species, in the absence of other preferred habitat. Negative impact to these specialist species is what we as conservationists are trying to prevent by managing habitat.

At one of our sanctuaries, we’re actively working to help manage phragmites on a smaller scale with the use of black tarps in particular areas. This is extremely time and labor intensive, and might not be right for many sites. It also may be the case that glyphosate is inappropriately used in some cases, but ultimately, the reduction of species diversity, including less common specialists, in our marshes is a real issue we’re concerned about. Application of herbicides when done in a very controlled situation with a trained, certified applicator and a proper management plan can involve minimal chemical use and be one of the few tools in the tool box for managing invaded habitat and bring back the vegetative diversity beneficial to marshes and their inhabitants.

It’s clear you are extremely passionate about the environment, and I welcome you to contact Eric Lind, the Director of our Constitution Marsh Audubon Center and Sanctuary. He’s been working with Audubon at this site on the Hudson for 20 years, and has a rich understanding of the wetland systems you’re concerned about. I know he is away for a couple of weeks, but might be a great person to connect with when he returns, and I’ve copied his email here. I hope this email is helpful.

Most sincerely,
Laura

Laura McCarthy
Manager of Conservation Engagement
Audubon New York
200 Trillium Lane
Albany, NY 12203
518-869-9731
lmccarthy@audubon.org

 

________________________________________________________________________

 

My response 9/17/2013:

 

The subject is of more than passing interest to me.

1. I invite you to consider whether you'd consent to me coming along and applying an admittedly toxic product (as attested to by Monsanto's own product description) in some thousands of gallons by airborne method within a half mile of your home (I live within a half mile of the marsh.)

2. I am a longtime hobby biologist and as conversant as any serious layman can be with wildlife diversity issues and the impact of invasive species on environments. I well understand the issues at hand here; and I am in favor of habitat restoration, as long as it is not don with chemical agents.

My reasons for this are carefully thought out and do not depend on my emotional reactions, which are admittedly negative.

Consider this.

The fact of the matter is that environments, and the mix of species in them, change. This is not a game where "winners" and "losers" can be so readily identified, and the active forces of evolution are perpetually at work everywhere, on scales and in time frames that are objectively not perceptible to human beings. Only hubris causes us to believe we can understand or control these forces over geological time... which is the only time scale that actually matters in terms of species diversity and adaptation. Multiple extinction events and dramatic rebound of species diversity on the planet demonstrate this principle beyond any reasonable doubt. If it weren't for such events, in fact, you and I would not be having this conversation, since mammals so obviously benefitted from one such event.

Human beings, it might be noted, have been changing the mix of species in places all over the planet since at least 10,000 years ago when agricultural practices first emerged, and, more likely, much earlier than that, as the initial great migrations following the retreat of the ice sheets took place. In fact, we can be quite certain that species mix changes driven by human beings began when man first left the African continent, since those men undoubtedly brought plant materials of interest to new places, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Many of those changes lie so far back in time that their origins are obscured. Today, we would consider those species native; yet they weren't always. The consequent mix of mammalian and avian species definitely changed with those events.

We cannot, in other words, be so confident as to predict the long-term effect of ecosystems changes due to the introduction or removal of plant or animal species on an environment. What looks bad now may turn out to be just fine later; and vice versa.

In the meantime, we CAN and most DEFINITELY can say that man's application of pesticides and herbicides across wide ranges of the planet has been, for the most part, extremely undesirable and deleterious, and has been consistently so over the century or so in which we have been able to track such events. No responsible biologist could deny it.

In light of these facts, there is no compelling need or reason for environmental organizations to agree to or endorse the application of any chemical herbicide or pesticide anywhere in order to reverse a perceived change in species mix. Mechanical means seem reasonable enough where indicated; but since the long-term impact of man's chemical pollution of the environment seems to be one of the overarching problem issues with human impact on ecosystems (due to its inimical actions on the microbial communities which ultimately provide the fundamental support all animal and plant communities), no real environmentalist can endorse such action without getting blood on their hands. Xenoestrogens are just one example of how badly we're messing things up on this scale.

In bringing the matter closer to home, we should note than human beings have dosed themselves up for nearly a century now with "safe" antibiotics which may have saved lives, but ultimately disrupted the gut bacterial communities we depend on for our own survival. The mounting scientific evidence for this is absolutely overwhelming; and it turns out that the cure, in the end, may well turn out to have been much worse than the disease; bringing us a host of debilitating diseases and even mental disorders that, until now, no one would have associated with microbial populations. It may well turn out that glyphosate IS associated with autism; and if it is, how will you feel about having sprayed it then? In the matter of chemistry, ecological conservatism demands restraint first.

This is an example of how using apparently safe chemical remedies can backfire over the long run. The irony here may be that the Audubon society, which one might expect to have learned its first lessons with the impact of DDT (another "safe" chemical agent) has perhaps forgotten how such things often play out over the long run.

Think it over.