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Housing developments choking wildlife around America's national parks Jeremy Hance mongabay.com January 05, 2010 Americans are 'loving [their] protected areas to death'. "We are in danger of loving these protected areas to death," says co-author Anna Pidgeon as assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Housing developments introduce domestic species like dogs and cats; attract raccoons opossum, and skunks; threaten vital migration routes; give off extensive light pollution; and bring with them increased recreational use to important conservation areas.
Ground-nesting birds are threatened by alien predators like domestic cats and dogs. Window in homes also kill over a billion birds a year in the US, while cats kill approximately 400,000 birds a year. Light pollution can interrupt hunting, travel, and migration for a variety of species including moths and other insects, amphibians and reptiles, bats, birds, and even some plants. "People don't always think about this, but a lot of wildlife species base their way-finding on the stars or the moon, and a lot of outside light can be confusing and harmful," explains Volker Radeloff, lead author and associate professor, also at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Housing developments may also stymie natural wildfires, which are key to regenerating ecosystems. If houses are close to a park "the manager of a wilderness area might decide to fight a fire instead of letting this natural process run its course. If the house burns, the manager might be in trouble," explains Pidgeon. Top predators like wolves and cougars are also threatened by housing developments surrounding their wilderness. "People are not building houses intending to kill cougars, but that may be the effect if a cougar starts to threaten children and has to be removed," says Pidgeon. Recently, as wolves were removed from the Endangered Species Act in Montana and Idaho, a number of well-known and long-studied wolves were killed by hunters just outside of protected areas. The researchers say that the trend of building adjacent to parks is not slowing down anytime soon: they estimate that by 2030 housing developments will grow by 45 percent from 2000 levels, including another 10 million units. "I was shocked to think that these protected areas aren't doing the job we believe they were doing. There are now rings of housing around national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite. I don't think it's occurred to people to think about how that may affect biodiversity. These parks, wilderness areas and forests are intended to protect biodiversity, so we need look at what is going on," says Pidgeon. Many countries have established buffer zones around national parks, putting in place regulations to protect species and ecosystems. Citation: Volker C. Radeloff, Susan I. Stewart, Todd J. Hawbaker, Urs Gimmi, Anna M. Pidgeon, Curtis H. Flather, Roger B. Hammer, and David P. Helmers. Housing growth in and near United States protected areas limits their conservation value. PNAS published online December 22, 2009, doi:10.1073/pnas.0911131107. Related articles Obama slower than Bush in protecting America's endangered species (11/08/2009) In George W. Bush's eight years as president, he placed 62 species under the protection of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), an average of eight species per year. While, Bush's slow pace in protecting endangered species frustrated environmentalists in light of continued decline among many species, Obama is moving even slower. Wolves keep forests nutrient-rich (11/02/2009) As hunting wolves is legal again in two American states, Montana and Idaho, researchers have discovered an important role these large predators play in creating nutrient hotspots in northern forest environments. Researchers from Michigan Technological University found that when wolves take down their prey—in this case moose—they do more than simply keep a check on herbivore populations. The corpses of wolf-hunted moose create hotspots of forest fertility by enriching the soil with biochemicals. Due to this sudden up-tick in nutrients, microbial and fungal growth explodes, in turn providing extra nutrients for plants near the kill. Americans need to be resolute in protecting our last wild places (10/07/2009) In Wilderness Warrior, a new and acclaimed biography of Theodore Roosevelt, author Douglas Brinkley says the former Rough Rider’s crusade for conservation was perhaps the greatest presidential initiative between the Civil War and World War II. Brinkley credits the 26th president with saving, virtually single-handedly, 234 million acres of public lands through the creation of national parks, forests and monuments, like the Grand Canyon, as well as federal bird reservations and game preserves.
Tags: united states parks protected areas wildlife biodiversity migration hunting jeremy hance green environment animals endangered species Animal behvaior birds cats conservation environmental politics governance insects mammals temperate forests Environmental news index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements:
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