In Defense of Nature

 

CONDON’S CORNER

December Clearing of Butterfly Greenway Left Birds without Shelter, Food in Overnight Sub-freezing Temperatures

(Published April 5, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia.)

© 2025 Marlene A. Condon All Rights Reserved

Imagine the public outcry if Charlottesville City Government suddenly removed shelter and food for homeless folks, leaving them outdoors in overnight subfreezing temperatures. This scenario is exactly what happened to our resident and visiting birds at the beginning of December 2024, along the Butterfly Greenway.

 Charlottesville Parks & Rec announced near the end of November the closing of this trail for removal of “invasive” species—trees, vines, and shrubs that are unwanted only because they are of alien origin and, as pioneer plants (the first species able to colonize a barren ecosystem to revitalize it), have grown well in the disturbed soil alongside the trail.

The numerous Bradford Pear trees lying on the ground that were removed from the bank supporting the John Warner Parkway could have been feeding an abundance of pollinators in early spring. Instead, the barren slope supports no wildlife at all and is a complete waste of a limited valuable resource: land.  

A United States Department of Agriculture 1937 map of the greenway area shows open land that had probably been farmland. Otherwise, it would have been forested (the climax community of this area).

Farmland can always be described in terms of nutrient-poor soil that’s been disturbed and compacted. Whether dirt-moving plows disrupting it or half-ton-plus cows plodding over it, the soil is necessarily degraded. And the continuing removal of organic matter—whether by harvesting crops or the feeding of cattle upon plants—results in further impoverishment.

The “invasive-plant” narrative has always employed anthropomorphically based terminology (the interpretation of something nonhuman in terms of human characteristics) to denigrate organisms that are simply behaving naturally. Rather than being invaders, these helpful plants survive in damaged ecosystems—such as farmland—where they refurbish the soil so plant species with higher-level nutritional needs (natives) can eventually inhabit the area.

In fact, native species, such as Tulip Poplar and American Sycamore, were already cohabiting alongside the Butterfly Greenway with the alien trees, shrubs, and vines targeted by Parks & Rec for removal with an extremely ruinous forestry mulcher.

In a statement announcing the closure of the Butterfly Greenway, Parks & Rec stated that native trees and groundcovers “will be replanted in December 2024 and spring 2025 and managed for long term [sic] growth [to restore this natural area]”—except they won’t restore the natural area. They will be replacing it with a garden; cultivated land is in no way natural.

But what is the point of “restoration” if wildlife is evicted, the very organisms that keep the natural world running properly? With remaining undeveloped areas in short supply, where do these people expect wildlife to live while they replant the newly barren areas that will take a decade or more to become habitat, if indeed it ever does?

You probably wonder why so-called invasive plants are now considered the main environmental scourge, especially given the obviously far more impactful consequences of development (removing habitat, usually permanently); cats roaming around freely (killing millions of birds and other kinds of critters annually); an abundance of lights burning all night (causing the deaths of organisms attracted to them, such as moths and migrating birds); ever-increasing traffic hitting animals along the roads; buildings designed with an abundance of windows (usually killing birds that fly into them); etc.

A huge construction area just above the entrance to the Butterfly Trail illustrates the difference between a wild area of plants that support wildlife (in the foreground) and the barrenness created by people that does not. 

A Luna Moth remains near a light that burned all night and still burns in the light of day. Living only a week to mate and reproduce in its adult stage, this moth can’t afford to waste time at lights burning. Note the mass of dead insects inside the light fixture—a testament to why insects, especially moths, have declined so much in number.      

I would nominate Audubon New York 2024 conservation-award winner entomologist/activist/author Doug Tallamy as the primary cause of the damage now being inflicted upon the environment. My question is, why have scientists with Ph.D. following their names, and environmentalists who should possess a measure of outdoor experience, all been hoodwinked by this man?

He has persistently worked to convince the uninitiated that a dearth of native plants constitutes the primary reason for the declining numbers of insects and birds, starting with his first book, Bringing Nature Home. However, a wonderful aspect of nature is that it’s fully accessible to those who open their eyes sans prejudice to what’s happening out there.

You can verify for yourself how many talking points of this “invasive-plant” tale comprise pure fiction, beginning with the fact that plenty of native woody plants (the trees and shrubs Tallamy’s mainly referring to) still exist. Sometimes, however, you do require prior knowledge to spot deception by those trying to convince you alien plants are simply “bad” with no redeeming value.

From high above the ground in a balloon basket, one can view a green sea of native trees stretching from Charlottesville, Virginia, to the forested Blue Ridge Mountains far off to the west. Does this look like a dearth of native woody plants?

In Dr. Tallamy’s book, he brazenly asserts that “Most of our native plant-eaters are not able to eat alien plants, and we are replacing native plants with alien species at an alarming rate, especially in the suburban gardens on which our wildlife increasingly depends.” Here we have quintessential Tallamy: He generalizes his statements to make folks think alien plants are a huge problem for all kinds of wildlife, but gardeners surely know how many nonnative fruits and vegetables are eaten by deer and rabbits—both of which are plant-eaters.

Strangely, this scientist who studies insects doesn’t tell his readers he is referring to insects, and more to the point, the caterpillars of moths. I suspect he misrepresents his actual concern because at the time his book was first published in 2007, most people saw insects, and especially caterpillars, as “pests”.

In my 2006 book, The Nature-friendly Garden, I encouraged people to accept all organisms because of the roles each played in keeping the natural world functioning properly, and some reviewers made fun of me for suggesting such a thing. Perhaps Tallamy realized people would never embrace the idea of helping caterpillars—once the most despised form of insect life by a majority of gardeners—so he shrewdly employed “wildlife” instead.

Sadly, his disingenuousness has worked well, even though the paucity of moth caterpillars is due to society burning an excessive number of lights that attract and cause the deaths of moths (and numerous other insect species) before they can reproduce.

This man’s perfidiousness appears again and again in his work so he can fool those without knowledge of the plant and animal world into believing that nonnative plants are useless, even though many of them provide nectar for pollinators and fruits for birds, along with cover from weather and predators with their ofttimes evergreen or early-growing leaves.

If you want to save wildlife, please speak out against this extremely destructive narrative so we don’t lose far more insects, birds, and other species of wildlife to “invasive”-plant hysteria.  

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