In Defense of Nature

 Virginia Department of Forestry Has Made a Huge Mistake Removing Bradford Pear Trees

You need to place your nose right up to a Bradford Pear flower to smell it. It doesn’t perfume the air; if it did, no one would keep it long enough to grow large.

ALL TEXT © Marlene A. Condon

The Virginia Department of Forestry has committed a grievous error by encouraging folks to get rid of their Bradford Pear trees. The blooms of this cultivar feed uncountable numbers of pollinators in early spring when few other plants are blooming. Its fruits feed birds, such as waxwings and robins, in winter—the toughest time of year for them.

 

When Bradford Pears come up in degraded areas, such as roadsides, where the soil has been compacted and is nutrient-poor, they add value to the landscape by increasing the diversity of plant life and thus animal life. This tree is not “detrimental to the state’s environment” because it might not feed as many caterpillar species as a native tree. All plants cannot be all things to all animals. What matters is that they do support wildlife, be it by providing food, shelter, and/or nesting sites.

 

Environmentalists and government agencies have embraced the false narrative of “invasive” plants being to blame for our disappearing insects and birds because these plants don’t have a constituency that will fight tooth and nail against them. It’s easier to get folks to pull plants than to, say, get many cat lovers to keep their pets inside.

 

The American Bird Conservancy has been talking for decades about the 2.4 billion birds killed every year by cats. Can anyone really believe that alien plants pose more of a threat to birds than cats do? Yet government doesn’t regulate these felines as it should. https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/

 

The dearth of caterpillars is not due to an abundance of alien trees, but rather an abundance of far too many lights at night. Moths are attracted to lights where they are more easily predated by night-flying predators, such as bats and owls, which I watched happen every summer for years in Shenandoah National Park. And moths aren’t procreating if they’re spending the night at light fixtures that are left burning all night at people’s homes and businesses. 

 

You know an environmental narrative doesn’t carry much weight when the people pushing it need to resort to such silliness as how bad the blooms smell or how easily the plant breaks. This big stink about Bradford Pear trees is a solution in search of a problem.

 NATURE ADVICE:

If you like your Bradford Pear trees, keep them. Despite what government agencies, such as the Virginia Department of Forestry, may tell you, these trees DO feed and shelter wildlife. And that truth is what counts.

 

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