Talking about Sustainability? Is Tree Preservation the most ‘pro-Sustainable” Function?

Today is Arbor Day and I have stopped normal business to participate in the 7:00 AM free tree giveaway sponsored by the Fort Wayne Arborists Association. At 1:00 PM today, I’ll be at Buckner Park for the Annual Mayor’s Proclamation/Tree Planting.

This morning, while handing out trees to interested citizens, it dawned on me how impassioned people are about planting trees; and rightly so. Tree planting is a sign of hope! It is a practical action in the belief that the future can be made better.

But, it is hard to motivate people in time and money to save trees! Inspiring tree planting is easy; precipitate commitments to do the things to insure larger trees, which are now contributing to the site, are not! There is a gap, in the valuation and in thinking, on what is needed for large viable trees to remain, be vital and grow in size and contribution.

Casting the vision for large tree preservation is pivotal to site future; it is the starting point! Large enough root zones and the needed micro-environment are mandatory to support a tree over its expected life. if the site can’t provide the 100’s of cu. ft. of root zone to support the trees structurally and sustain them physiologically for decades, its future is a guaranteed failure.

Want broad, full canopies, green cities in 2060? Give them root zones today! “Happy Arbor Day all!”

Blue Planet, Wet Place 5

It has been over two months since the last posting, a function of my work schedule and my impasse in this thread, but the rumination has fermented new thoughts.

Not long ago, I came across an article written by Clark L. Erickson, in Expedition Magazine, Vol. 30, Issue 3, “Raised Field Agriculture in the Lake Titicaca Basin.”

What I “gleaned” from this article is the affects of impounded water on micro-environments. Climates studies and USDA Growth Zones clearly show the impacts of large water features on the weather patterns. Most notably, in the Great Lakes are the “warmer” growth zones along Lake Michigan, Erie and Ontario, and their capacity to grow fruit and wine grapes. Often they are one full growth zone warmer than just 50 miles inland.

According to Erickson, the Inca natives around the lake were able to grow maize and other “warm” weather plants at altitudes unthinkable, because the gardens were “surrounded” by water retention. Ponds are a heat retention vehicle and they absorbed and held the mountain solar energy as warm water, then radiated it at night where air temperatures were sub-freezing. This added frost protection and growing degree days to grow grain and vegetables at 12,000’ +, twice as high as thought.

So, here comes the connection: If every creek, east of the Mississippi had a beaver dam, and associated wetland every 200’ (Wet Place III); and if, according to Steve Granner, http://www.beaverdam.info/ there was 1.5 million+ beaver dams in Midwest (Wet Place IV), what was the affects of all the retained water:
On the micro-environment around each dam?
On the localized climate??
On the Great Lakes region as an eco-system???

Work permitting, more will come soon!

Blue Planet, Wet Place 4

How many streets, creeks, towns, counties have the name “Beaver”? In the Midwest, it seems far more prevalent than “Beech Grove” or “Chestnut St”.

In the mid 1600’s, there was no studies in ecology and hydrology. The wilderness was to be conquered, not managed. The natural resource seemed endless, preservation was not a consideration.

So the environmental impact of the water in the characteristic beaver ponds is conjecture. But, modeling and observations of modern dams and the resultant marshes, wetlands and meadows gives us a basis to project the ecology of pre-17th century North America.

For more information, this website, http://www.beaverdam.info/, lays out in a more scientific way the current analysis of beaver affects on hydrology. (My thanks to Steven Grannes) There is a behavioral consistency in this rodent, which allows projections to be valid.

According to Mr. Grannes, each Midwest state, pre-whiteman, had 250,000 beaver dams! 1600th century French accounts report a beaver dam every 200’ in every creek in the Great Lakes drainage! Mr. Grannes reports later that North America had an estimated 6 million to 20 million beaver. Give the real time reports; Mr. Grannes is probably conservative in his calculations, or the French fur traders ‘promotional’.

(Here we go, campers!) If each of the 5 states in the “Old Northwest Territories”: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin (yes, and a section of Minnesota) had 250,000 dams and each dam had 6 beaver, that’s 1.5 million beaver per state, or 7.5 million just in the USA side of the Great Lakes! This number makes the yearly harvest reports in Chapter 3 probable.

That is 7,000,000+, 30- 40 lb. rodents, all “busy as a beaver” impounding the Midwest creeks with 1.25 million+ ponds. What is this environmental reality?

Blue Planet, Wet Place 3

Before the time of the white man’s penetration into North America, pre-1600, beaver-directed ecosystem dominated the landscape in the drainage, just as the arboreal climax forest dominated the ridges.

Through out North America, nearly every creek and stream was dammed up and had beaver ponds. One European source of the mid-1600’s reported a beaver dam existed every 200’ on every creek and slough east of the Mississippi. Only the largest rivers, which had either too broad of banks or strong flows were not dammed.

The characteristic ponds and the resultant marshes, wetlands and meadows were directed by the water level and flows. But, due to Beaver diligence in maintenance, it was the ‘ecological default’. Directly adjacent, where there were slopes and ridges, the climax woodlands would dominate. The change zone between the beaver site and the forest could be sharp in many locations but in others they were diffused. The volume of marsh/meadow created and the margin with the forest eco-system was manipulated by the beaver and the topography.

There is not much analysis data available. However trading records and business reports to trading company headquarters in Europe are trustworthy. French reports in the 1670’s indicate 200,000 – 500,000 beaver pelts a year were exported to Europe from Quebec. One letter to French authorities in the mid 1700’s (during the French and Indiana wars) indicated 30,000 ‘bundles’ of beaver pelts were shipped yearly from Ke’keonga (Fort Wayne, Indiana pre-1750). “That’s a whole lot of rat skins.”

A major motivation for white man penetration into the continent and alliances with Native American nations was to take beaver. Fur trapping was the major cash business in 17th century North America (far exceeding tobacco, cotton and potash) and was the prime purpose for exploration of North America.

Blue Plant, Wet Place 2

10,000 to 12,000 years ago, nearly all of northern Indiana was covered by a 100 foot+ thick ice sheet. There is no need to discuss anything that happened north of the moraine, at current Fort Wayne, Indiana and along the north bank of the Wabash River all the way to Lafayette, Indiana.

During this time, there were two primary, though inferred, influences on the environment: the ice and the constant cold water flows from the glacier, both worked to control the ecology, weather and the micro-climate of the region.

Directly south and adjacent of the pushed up gravel and wall of ice, mega fauna thrived. We know this due to the numbers of Mastodon bones and whole skeletons found in Allen Co. Indiana. (Thus, the naming of the mascot of our local State University, IPFW.)

For a number of millennia, the glacier move progressively north exposing earth and depositing silts, sand and gravels. Plant colonization would have easily kept pace with the receding ice flows. Plant colonies would be selected by topography and hydrology as it is today.

Likewise, animals would have followed the landscape. Musk Oxen were in Indiana in 12,000 BC, just as they are now in the Artic, which in many ways mimics the ice face of the Paleo-glaciers (with the exception of the solar period, which will not be discussed here).

Returning to the protagonists introduced in “B P, W P 1,” the North American Beaver, Castor canadensis, would have been an early animal colonizer in front of the retreating glacier. Willow, Salix spp. and Cottonwood, Populus deltoides are aggressive, air sown seeders. Likewise, the wet, planed soils and topography would have been ideal for the two species to flourish. Couple this with the plants’ wide tolerance range and rapid growth rates. It is an easy projection to see groves of these two trees springing up within one or two years of the glaciers next “jerk” north.

Is this change a prime causation to the extinction of the mega fauna? The radical and rapid change induced by the retreating ice (another thread ignored . . . this time). It is possible the wooly’s didn’t eat Willow and Cottonwood! But, it is the primary food of the beaver.

If 21st century beaver behaviors mimic their ancient ancestors; exploration, mud dams and foraging for plants big and small, makes them a natural to follow the ice all the way to the Artic Circle.

So within 10-20 years of the “icewall’s” retreat, every lowland and drainage became beaver zones. The only variable of control was food (willow and cottonwood) and their reproductive capacity . . . and beavers are “rats”.

Blue Plant, Wet Place 1

Retained to survey a wooded site for trees to preserve in the pending construction, I walked down the slope considering a grouping of massive tulip poplars. As I gazed up, evaluating the 100’+ tall trees, I began working my way down the slope into the adjacent creek’s riparian plain, paying far more attention to the trees than to where I was walking. Upon hitting level ground and with my eyes fixed upon the poplar canopy, I sank ankle deep into mud, though a good 50’ from the creek.

There in Carmel, Indiana, adjacent to houses and commercial buildings, a pair of beaver had taken residence: cutting trees, scooping mud and building a dam and lodge, flooding the creek bank and my boots!

Allow me to make an consideration of the “the history” of water, or more accurately, water impoundments in America.  Before 1600 in North America, the continent was primeval with minor human inputs. Native American actions were light and localized. Even large permanent settlements like Ke’keonga (Fort Wayne, Indiana pre-1750) impacted only a few hundred acres along the confluence of the Maumee, St. Joe and St. Mary’s Rivers.  Even the mound builders along the Ohio River drainage, who moved vast quantities of dirt in their constructions created no long-term impact.

The mammal who controlled North America and is the cause of this thread, which altered the environment in post-glacieral North America, was not Homo sapiens; it was the beaver, Castor canadensis!  The beaver is one of the few animals, which must purposefully change and manage its environment to accommodate its needs and expand its population. Their natural and on-going activity creates three conditions that are off “the norm” of the riparian micro-environments, as we understand it today:
1. reduction of tree canopy along water ways, allowing more light to the ground,
2. permanent impoundments and wet lands, and
3. the establishment of seasonal wet meadows and wet site grasslands.

Succeeding posts in “Blue Planet, Wet Place” will follow “this trail” to some logical conclusions and propose a macro-environment scenario which may challenge current thought on environmental history and our understanding of today’s climate.

“Chestnuts of Wrath”

“My apologies to Mr. Steinbeck”

In my post of 09/28/09, I related my childhood experiences with the end of the wild American Chestnut in SE Ohio hill country. In that post, I made this reference,
“. . . 1 of every 4 trees in the Appalachians. I heard the stories: nuts shoveled out of wagons heaped high from a day’s picking. Hogs let loose in the woods for a month, only to be lured back into the sty with corn and buttermilk for butchering, well larded from the excess calories. Fox squirrels moving across the trees in herds so large that it sounded like thunder. As told, my great grandfather would shoot squirrel by the hundreds and hang them in the well house to feed his family for most of the winter! Tree trunks bigger than wagons, were cut and split in the woods for mine timbers and cross members, barn beams and joists, fence posts and railroad ties that would never rot! A total eco-system and lifestyle based upon one tree; and by 1940, all but disappeared due to the Chestnut Blight.”

When the Depression began, the chestnut blight was in full swing. Until a few months ago, I never thought of the wide scale social/economic/environmental impacts created by the loss of the chestnut tree. Was it as damaging, more far-reaching in human terms than the Dust Bowl? Was the loss of the chestnut contributory to the deprivation and suffering of millions in the 30’s. It surely produced more hardship than the inflated cost of roasted Christmas chestnuts on the streets of Philadelphia, New York City and Boston!

With the chestnut loss, a major source of food production was lost to man and animal. The forest ecosystem was radically altered in 20 years! In the Appalachians, those affected by the chestnut demise had seen multiple generations on the same land, doing life in the same way. Surely, the airplane, the auto and rural electrification altered life in the 30’s but for millions of country folk in the mountain regions of the eastern United States, a way of life was lost. The scale of this loss could have been far greater and more grievous than in all of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Currently, a number of “blight” resistant chestnut hybrids are being sold over the internet. There is purported to be the “final” hybrid of blight resistant American Chestnut, which will be released to the public within the next several years.

In 1940 the chestnut was, for the most part, gone in the eastern United States. Will it and its positive economic/environmental advantages be back and thriving in 2040?

Mines and Times II

Let me make a second consideration of that little boy growing up in the 1950’s Ohio mine country. What a life, riding in trucks and on dozers, watching 1000’s of pounds of explosives go off; the noise, the dust, the flying rocks, the smell of expended nitrates!

As a man, in my personal experience with Mt. St. Helens, I marveled at both the scale of the event and the effects. There was no comparison to the few thousands of acres I observed in Ohio. Yet over time, nature had her way and the green returned on both sites. Now, almost 30 years later, satellite photos show green everywhere on St. Helens except at the top. The barren reaches, the gray pinnacle and even the crater region are not much larger, than it was pre-1980.

Returning to live in the Midwest, I had an opportunity in the late 1990’s to drive along US 250 in Stark County, Ohio. It wasn’t until passing the remains of the old tipple did I realize that this was that site of my childhood mining experience. A U-turn and a few minutes orientation and there was “the mine”.

40 years later, after that little boy had watched the land in Stark County become desolate; the man discovered a site wooded with red oaks and sugar maples. Where the mining ended, there was a large lake with pontoons floating and evidence of evening campfires, the water was clean and deep.

It was not clear, how much man intervention occurred on the Ohio site. I chose not to trespass (too far), but what was clear was the speed at which plants and climax tree species spread across the site. On that brief inspection, it was evident that 15”+ diameter oaks were common, pervasive and growing well, with height, caliper and green canopy. Under story plants are widespread and forest litter covered the ground. If this site could not be declared “healthy”, it would surely be categorizes at growing in vitality and entropy. Check it out: Google Earth – 40o40’50.34”N 81o40’17.12”W

The Mt. St. Helens eruption was a natural event, which has happened at least three different times in 2,000 years. The mining event happened only once. “The Earth” was altered, but not hurt by either event. A generation of people were impacted (many benefited for the mining actions), yet less than 50 years after, both sites grew back into an active “native” state.

Many will disagree with me, but whether natural event, which is grand in scale or man-made events, which are localized, “The Earth” is much bigger and far stronger then we can estimate, or some promote.

Mines and Times

From 1955 – 1960 my father worked for an east-central Ohio mining company as the stone tipple foreman. In the open pit mines, coal and limestone were extracted. The limestone was brought to “my dad’s” tipple to be crushed, sized and sent out for road projects, including the construction of I – 77 in eastern Ohio.

Now, pertinent to a specific 6 year old was the blasting used to dislodge and breakup the limestone seam for extraction. Especially important for this little boy is that “dynamite day” was Saturday and he could be with his dad and watch it go “boom”!

There were no mining reclamation laws in the ‘50’s; the land was gouged open, everything extractable was taken and all was left as is. As a boy, I watched 1000’s of acres of Ohio hill country turned over and let lay; made as sterile as a moon-scape.

Over the years, a number of experiences have tempered my views of this devastation. One of these was the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and my subsequent move to live and work outside Portland, Oregon.

I watched the mountain smoke, personally saw the debris filled rivers and the ash deposits. I also heard the “gloom and doom” forecasts predicting (prophesying) a century or more of barren acreage, where there was once lush forests.

It is calculated that Mount St. Helens belched 1.01 cubic kilometers of ash, 1.5 million metric tons of SO2 and 3 million cubic meters of debris in the form of pyroclastic flows and volcanic lahars of mud; in less than 12 hours.

Yet, within a few short years, with no human intervention, regrowth showed and began to flourish. We have less than 30 years of observation, but the natural rebound of nature to cover bare ground is staggering, some might say miraculous.

How does this relate to that little boy’s experience and the grown man’s opinons? Watch for Part 2!

Vulture Success

In nuisance bird work, which we perform across America, I often quote to my clients, “The creative genius is seen as much in the vulture as in the eagle.” It usually raises eyebrows and often a grimace. Vultures evoke negative reactions, both from our cultural perceptions as well as the birds’ behaviors. Yet Bald Eagle, our nation’s symbol, scavenges nearly as much!

Unlike the California Condor, vultures have adapted to man-activity and man-made structures. Add to this their being listed as protected birds.  When considering the increased amount of road kill, is it any wonder vulture populations have exploded!

No matter your opinions of species origins, wildlife theory and animal population realities are resolute: create habitat and animals will respond positively. Each bird species holds specificity, a niche in the environment, which is both physiological and behavioral.

All birds, all animals, yes, people too, exercise value judgments in relationship to their environment. Vultures, given their large home range, will find a positive place for themselves, which are bringing many more negative vulture/people interfaces and issues.

In the end, the vultures and people behave in similar ways: willing to take a free meal and willing to move to the ‘burbs’ or retirement community!

One thing vultures can’t do: change public perception so their image is placed on top of a flag pole like an eagle!