Holed up in the Ivory Tower Too Long (A Discussion of a Recent Article by Researchers)

Light fixtures function as attractive nuisances to night-flying insects. Therefore, no more light fixtures than necessary should ever be employed to illuminate parking areas. In the parking lot shown above, light fixtures were placed closer together than needed for folks to safely navigate the area. 

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

On March 8, 2023, the Independent Media Institute published a paper, “5 Surprising Things That Could Be Preventing Your Yard from Serving as a Wildlife Sanctuary”. It’s credited to scientists Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware and Daniel Klem of Muhlenberg College, and Jim Cubie, a consultant to the Muhlenberg College Center for Ornithology.

https://independentmediainstitute.org/earth-food-life/

 

While these researchers seem to think they are informing folks of things they probably haven’t thought about, the reality is that not one of the five “things” listed should come as a surprise to anyone because they’ve been talked about in the media for many years. This article proves that scientists in ivory towers are often completely out of touch with the realities of the everyday world. 

 

For example, the first action the authors suggest people take is to ban cats from the area. I myself mentioned predation by cats in my Daily Progress column as long ago as September 2000. More recently, in my blog post of January 26, 2022, I wrote that “The more people there are, the more cats there are. Cats take a tremendous toll on birds, as well as other critters.” I cited the American Bird Conservancy that has been ringing this bell for decades.

 

https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/

 

But the fact of the matter is that no matter how often it’s suggested to people, far too many cat owners will never make the effort involved to keep cats indoors, and they certainly aren’t going to do it for the benefit of wildlife.

 

Then there are the folks who maintain feral cat colonies and have convinced government to allow this disservice to wildlife. In law, cats (and dogs) are now viewed as if they are human, often with more rights than people! So, if Drs. Tallamy and Klem, and Jim Cubie think their list is going to suddenly bring about a change in human behavior, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

 

Second, these writers (while providing a shout-out to Dr. Klem’s new book, Solid Air/Invisible Killer: Saving Billions of Birds from Windows) discuss bird/window collisions. Almost two decades ago, in 2004, I wrote that birds would pay the price for the glass towers architects envisioned for the new World Trade Center to replace those that came down in the terrorist attacks of September 2001. I’ve written about numerous buildings that would kill birds—all to no avail because no one else clamors for consideration of our wildlife. So, the buildings go up anyway because, truth be told, most people just don’t care much at all about wildlife if it means they need to change what they desire.

 

Third, you are told “to manage pests without pesticides”. Wow, this statement from Doug Tallamy, who shares with readers of his first book, Bringing Nature Home, that he sprayed the “invasive” plants on his new property and has never truly discouraged people since from using these poisons. In fact, I feel he’s to blame for the tremendous increase in herbicide usage in this country—Rachel Carson’s warnings from her 1962 book, Silent Spring, be damned. By applying the phrase “biological pollution” to so-called invasive plants, he stigmatized these alien plants to encourage the uninitiated to take action. Yet these plants are quite useful in our environment (please see, “Invasive Plants: Friends or Foes?”—https://indefenseofnature.blogspot.com/2023/01/), and certainly better for our environment than the poisons people use to get rid of them.

 

Strangely, these authors then go on to suggest that people employ “safe and effective products with the active ingredient Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, or BTI for short. It’s deadly to mosquito larvae but harmless to all other living things [emphasis mine], including bees, butterflies, caterpillars, fireflies, dragonflies, and humans.”  Dr. Tallamy, an entomologist, surely knows that this statement is patently false.

 

BTI will kill insects that are closely related to mosquitoes. Since when is it okay to kill nontarget species? And anyway, the link these authors provided (above) takes the reader to a site selling mosquito dunks that are recommended for “rain barrels, bird baths, tree holes, elevator shafts, planter reservoirs, rain gutters, etc.”  Honestly? People should concern themselves with tree holes?! Isn’t Doug Tallamy the man who’s supposedly concerned about bird numbers dropping precipitously because of a lack of insect food?

 

But he’s okay with killing immature mosquitoes in the natural world where birds, salamanders, and reptiles could get sustenance from this food source. No one should encourage folks to try to kill off every mosquito out there by concerning themselves with tree holes and other such natural features that feed wildlife with mosquito larvae. Is it any wonder people don’t want ephemeral wetlands around, and poison or drain those that are nearby?    

 

Not to mention that people could be minimizing mosquito numbers without even using BTI dunks. Mosquitoes lay their eggs in still water where eggs remain moist and larvae that hatch out can feed on organic matter. Therefore, if a bird bath is dumped and refilled daily, or at least every other day, neither eggs nor larvae could survive.

 

Even minus mosquitoes, you should be practicing this hygienic maintenance of your bird bath so that you provide only fresh water for the health of any animals that drink from it. And roof gutters should be kept free of debris so that all water can drain away rather than pooling there.

 

Fourth, the researchers want you to turn off your outdoor lights because they “are a major cause of insect declines, particularly the moths that create the caterpillars that feed the birds.” If you are a regular reader of this blog, you probably know I’ve been writing about this problem at this site, as well as for years in newspapers and my book, The Nature-friendly Garden, that was published in 2006. In the section, “Tips to Help Garden Wildlife”, I mentioned that “Many kinds of insects are disappearing [more than a decade before researchers started talking about an ‘insect apocalypse’], in part due to the prevalence of manmade lighting.”

 

Did Doug Tallamy mention this problem in his book, Bringing Nature Home, that was published a year later? No. He used a nighttime map of the United States (page 28, Advance Reading Copy) to make his point that a lack of native trees due to conversion of “natural areas to developed landscapes” was the explanation for ever-decreasing bird numbers.

 

He wrote that moths need native trees to produce caterpillars, rather than recognizing that we were losing the moths themselves due to the abundance of lights shining in that photo. Moths hanging around lights don’t survive to lay eggs; hence, no caterpillars for birds. This entomologist completely missed the more impactful significance of that nighttime photo.

 

The last two points made by these three writers—not mowing in the evening so as not to kill toads and raising the mower blade to mow over a Box Turtle—are rather nonsensical in today’s world and thus puzzling as to why they were included.

 

First, most people employ lawn care services that don’t send employees to cut grass in the evening anyway. Second, lawns these days—whether cut by homeowners or lawn care services—are cropped so short that toads and Box Turtles are highly unlikely to reside in such a barren environment. Even if a turtle showed up, the person mowing should be able to see it in such short grass. However, the probability of even seeing one of these reptiles that are native only to the eastern part of the United States is low because this species is much in decline.

 

Considering that the authors are decades late to the party themselves, it’s rather amusing that they would take aim at a “major wildlife organization [that] recently published a long article about the benefits of native plants, including detailed descriptions of how to select, buy and plant them...[yet] only the final closing paragraph mentioned protecting birds from window strikes—and this article was an exception.” 

 

They go on to say that, “Most articles promoting native plants say nothing about protecting the wildlife those plants will attract to your yard.” Considering that Professor Tallamy—who’s been preaching to the choir about growing native plants and eliminating alien ones (especially those deemed “invasive”) for virtually the entirety of his more-than-a-decade of activism—has only recently begun to bring up this subject himself, it’s rather ludicrous that he chooses to deride others.

 

Tallamy, Klem, and Cubie finish their article with, “We need to change the narrative so we aren’t leading our wildlife to death traps. If we don't plant and protect simultaneously, we have actually conserved little.” 

 

In other words, these scientists really believe they are the very first to recognize the “ecological traps” they’ve listed. Are they just egotistical, or didn’t they bother to search public media? Either way, this paper—in its condescending tone and presumptuousness—paints scientists in a very unflattering light. 

NATURE ADVICE:

 

Personally, I would take anything written by Doug Tallamy with a grain of salt. Though many people gush with adulation for this scientist, I’ve found his knowledge of the natural world (including his specialty, entomology) to be lacking. Consider that this article claims mosquito dunks are harmless to all other living things—when they most definitely are not—and that he’s an entomologist (someone whose career is studying insects) who did not recognize the extreme harm being done to insects by the excessive lighting shown in the nighttime photo he chose to use in his book. It’s a truism that when someone doesn’t possess comprehensive knowledge of the subject he’s discussing (in this case, nature-friendly gardening), he can’t possibly provide sound advice. In my opinion, Doug Tallamy’s woeful ignorance of the natural world in its entirety is why he’s been leading people down the wrong garden path, and he obviously is still doing so as he attempts to make amends for previous oversights.

 

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Time to See the Light Regarding Loss of Insects and Birds

This Christiansburg, Virginia, plaza could be planted with native trees and still not support caterpillars, thanks to the excessive lighting that is a prime killer of moths.

Plenty of native trees exist in the eastern United States to support moth caterpillars, but when moths spend the night circling artificial lights—such as the street lamps seen here among an abundance of large native trees—they die without reproducing.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

Originally published in The News-Virginian (Waynesboro, Virginia) on July 16, 2022

https://newsvirginian.com/opinion/columnists/condon-time-to-see-the-light-regarding-loss-of-insects-and-birds/article_6d0f3322-03eb-11ed-8317-53ceb5edb5ab.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

On summer nights, when I was a child, my mother would scream at us kids to quickly get into the house before all the insects (mainly moths) circling our carport light had a chance to come inside with us. Nowadays, I can put on my own carport light with hardly any insects—certainly not moths—coming to it.

The reigning assumption regarding the loss of insects and birds (derived from research published in 2017, “Native plants improve breeding and foraging habitat for an insectivorous bird”,

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717305153)

 

is that the most crucial step people can take to save the environment is to grow native plants. But is this theory truly the environmental panacea for our time?

 

Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy also stressed the importance of growing native, rather than nonnative, plants. In this book, the author showed a nighttime image of the United States aglow with lights [page 28, 2007 advance reading copy]. He captioned it, “A composite image from space of the United States at night shows the extent to which we have converted natural areas [i.e., native plants] to developed landscapes [i.e., alien plants]”.

 

True enough. However, the more ominous takeaway is the dire effect of all those lights upon insects, especially the moths whose caterpillars have always been essential to birds raising their young. These larvae are now largely gone because adults are largely gone. Moths that circle lights all night until they are exhausted, or where they are easily caught by predators (such as bats and owls), are moths that don’t reproduce.

 

Why am I so sure that lights are the problem rather than a decrease in the number of native plants? I’ve lived in my home for more than 36 years. My yard has always been surrounded by mature oak forest, and I’ve watched through the decades the trees growing so tall that I can no longer view the Blue Ridge Mountains only a few miles to the west.

 

Nevertheless, despite the ever-increasing woody mass of native trees and shrubs around me, the numbers and kinds of insects and birds have decreased in my yard, just as they have elsewhere. I’ve never employed pesticides on my property, and I have gardened in full agreement with Mother Nature (hence my 2006 book on this subject).

 

The argument that there’s not enough native woody plants doesn’t work here because mature forests have comprised a substantial percentage of my property as well as the surrounding area. In fact, this idea doesn’t apply to much of the eastern United States.

 

Travel in a plane between New England and the South or fly in a hot-air balloon over your local area, and—unless you live in the concrete jungle of a city—you are going to observe plenty of large native trees in yards, parks, and “natural” (i.e., managed) areas.

 

In 2017, German researchers made world-wide headlines with their paper published in the journal, Nature, in which they detailed their own discovery of insects disappearing. Many suggestions have been put forth for the loss, including such things as pesticides (over 1 billion pounds a year are deployed in the United States, https://www.brownfieldsummit.com/how-many-pesticides-are-used-in-the-us) and loss of natural habitat due to development.

 

None of these considerations explains the loss of insects on my property over the course of almost four decades. A more plausible explanation is the ever-increasing number of lights needlessly burning all night around homes, churches, schools, libraries, businesses, barns, vineyards, American flags, and in parking lots and even national parks. Indeed, despite living in a rural area, it’s now difficult for me to view the Milky Way, thanks to light pollution.

 

Light constitutes an insidious menace because its allure to insects is so strong and its effect upon them so deadly, while people are oblivious to its ramifications. There’s no harm in growing more native plants, but this action is not going to prevent the loss of more insects.

 

If you truly want to help our insects and birds, you need to shut off lights burning all night, every night, for no good reason. Then we might see a light at the end of the tunnel for saving what’s left of our insects and the birds dependent upon them.

NATURE ADVICE:

 

In addition to limiting the amount of time you leave exterior lights burning after dark, you should take into account the amount of light exiting your windows. This light also attracts insects and keeps them “glued” to windowpanes instead of reproducing. To prevent light from escaping your windows, please use curtains or blinds.

 

And please keep in mind that lighted yard decorations also contribute to the loss of insects.

 

 Emerald Ash Borer—Save the Tree, Endanger the Ecosystem

A purple-box survey program was carried out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to detect the spread of Emerald Ash Borers throughout the country. Coated with an “extremely sticky” glue, the numerous traps each caught and killed a large variety of insects (including butterflies) that were viewed as collateral damage by authorities. As very little could be done to halt the spread of EAB, the purple boxes simply served to deplete already-dwindling insect populations.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

Almost 20 years ago, I attended a Virginia Outdoor Writers Association meeting that was held at Mountain Lake near Virginia Tech [VT]. A VT entomologist led us on a walk around the lake. He spoke about the systemic pesticide injections they were using to try to save the hemlock trees from the overly populous nonnative Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae) feeding on them.

 

A systemic pesticide is one in which the active chemical ingredients are water soluble so that the pesticide is absorbed by a plant and then circulates throughout the plant’s system. It’s akin to the chemotherapy used to treat cancer patients, except that instead of killing cells within the organism itself, as happens when a person is treated, the chemical kills any critter feeding on any part of the poisonous tree.

 

Therefore, I asked the entomologist if he wasn’t concerned about this effect on nontarget species (i.e., animals other than the adelgid). He answered that he’d never given it any thought.

 

As the saying goes, most folks can’t see the forest for the trees. They are so concerned about having to act to save trees that they lose sight of the bigger picture: the effects of their pesticide usage upon the ecosystem. The adelgid/hemlock scenario is now being played out with the Emerald Ash Borer [EAB].

 

Scientists and environmentalists alike argue that we cannot afford to lose our native trees because they support native insects. But what is the ecological value of using poison to keep alive an ash tree that will attract such critters as the Tiger Swallowtail (the state insect/butterfly of five states, including Virginia where I live) and then kill its caterpillars, among a multitude of other leaf-eating insects?

 

The pesticide Emamectin, recommended for EAB control, is widely used to eradicate “lepidopterous pests”—the caterpillars of moths and butterflies. It doesn’t discriminate between the larvae people want to get rid of and the ones they don’t. Imidiclopid can be used instead, but this pesticide has been implicated in the deaths of honey bees.

 

I’ve read that “Only about two-thirds of a teaspoon of active ingredient is used to treat the entire tree.” This statement suggests that the quantity of insecticide used is insignificant, but the quantity isn’t important—the effect is.

 

A catastrophic result of treating trees with an injected pesticide is that those trees become perpetual killing agents. In this time of increased environmental consciousness, most folks understand that the wanton extermination of non-targeted species is unsound.

 

You might think these animals are doomed to die anyway if the ash trees aren’t rescued, but that’s not necessarily true. Most of these insects are generalists that can feed upon a variety of plant species, but they won’t be able to move along to other plants if they are dispatched by the pesticide in your trees.

 

People shouldn’t be so willing to accept the poisoning of the creatures upon which the functioning of our environment depends. Rather than providing cost-share programs that monetarily assist folks to exterminate numerous species of arthropods, government should have spent its (our) money more wisely by paying citizens to collect ash seeds that could have been preserved to be planted after borer populations have plummeted—as they will.

 

As soon as large ash trees are greatly reduced in number, most of the borers will starve for lack of a food source. Meanwhile, a natural buildup of predator populations will have taken place to keep remaining borer populations in check.

 

I’ve lived at my nature-friendly and pesticide-free property for over 35 years, and native predators have always kept the numbers of Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar) and Japanese Beetle (Popillia japonica) limited to such a low level that I rarely see them. They are not at all problematic for my plants.

 

It should be noted that poisoning the Earth with chemicals has never solved nonnative-insect problems. Despite spending many millions of taxpayer dollars on pesticides, we still have Gypsy Moths (in the country since 1869) and Japanese Beetles (here since 1916).

 

The course of action to take cannot be based solely upon hysteria that makes people think, “We’ve got to do something (anything!).” Mother Nature can handle this situation far better than humans because the natural system of checks and balances works—far more sensibly and safely than our misguided efforts with pesticides.

 

NATURE ADVICE:

 

You might want to reconsider obtaining free leaves from friends and local government-run programs. Given people’s propensity these days to employ pesticides, you may be adding poisons to your garden. Yikes!

 

Tallamy’s Talking Points Miss the Point

Tiny Hover Flies in the author’s yard in Virginia flock to Black Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) for food in November. This “invasive” flowering plant is one of the last to hold blooms that serve as a lifeline for insects out and about on warm, late-fall days.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

A friend sent me a link to a YouTube video of a presentation for the Santa Clara (California) Native Plant Society by Doug Tallamy.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esNIhiWWr84

His basic message continues to be that the best way to save birds is via caterpillars, which he expects you to accomplish by landscaping your property with native woody plants.

 

The problem with Professor Tallamy’s directive is that it’s simplistic at best and destructive at worst. He ignores a whole host of injurious human activities to focus on the one (gardening) that may be the most palatable to people to act upon (because they enjoy this hobby), but it's actually the least helpful for the perpetuation of wildlife. 

 

And although Dr. Tallamy avoided mentioning pesticides in his talk to Californians who are presumably more sensitive (and thus more enlightened) to the pernicious effects of putting these chemicals into the environment, he has previously made clear his support for employing them to get rid of so-called invasive plants that he mistakenly believes have “pushed out” native plants. [Please see “Invasion Biology: Perception Trumps Reality”, posted here on October 6, 2020.]

 

In other words, Doug Tallamy’s talking points miss the point; he’s not going after the real obstacles to maintaining insect and bird numbers, but rather is trying to get folks to apply a band-aid that will not make much difference. Even if everyone on the planet landscaped only with native plants, it still wouldn’t increase the populations of caterpillars and birds because a dearth of native plants is not the main reason for the dearth of caterpillars. The main reason there are so few caterpillars (the larvae of moths and butterflies) is due to the ubiquitous lights found in human environments.

 

Most of the caterpillars you’re likely to spot are immature moths, and what do many of them do nowadays as adults? Instead of mating to perpetuate the species, many spend the night flying around outdoor lighting along streets, in parking lots, and around homes and businesses where they are more easily caught and consumed by owls and bats. They also will remain on the outside surfaces of windows in which nothing blocks indoor lighting from escaping. When moths don’t get a chance to mate, caterpillars are not created.

 

When Dr. Tallamy penned his first book, he showed a nighttime composite photo of the United States that he employed to point out “the extent to which we have converted natural areas to developed landscapes”, rather than discuss the real danger illustrated in that picture: lights! Thirteen years later, he’s finally come to recognize the danger posed by lighting, but does he suggest that the Californians listening to his program shut off unnecessary lights and employ curtains or blinds to shield their glow from insects outside? Nope. His answer is to keep the lights burning! Just use yellow lights that are less attractive to insects.

 

Of course, keep unnecessary lights on and you are especially guilty of contributing to the warming of our climate. However, global climate change is somehow not high on Doug Tallamy’s list of environmental concerns, even though a real problem for many insects nowadays is that—thanks to warmer winter temperatures—they are active in months when they should be hibernating. With nary a bloom in sight, they can’t feed to replace the energy they are using. Run out of energy reserves and you die.

 

Then there’s the lawn. While showing a photo of a house with a humongous lawn, he blithely tells folks to just get rid of half of their lawn, as if wasting the remaining 50% of the sizable amount of land in the photo would be acceptable. Why doesn’t he tell folks that a manicured lawn—dosed at regular intervals with deadly chemicals and kept “weed-free” (i.e., no flowers, such as dandelions, for butterflies, bees, etc.) doesn’t help our wildlife? After all, aren’t the people listening to him supposed to be ones who care about doing what’s right by the environment? Or are native-plant folks flocking to his lectures only because he’s the spokesman for their raison d’être?

 

At the end of his presentation, the Santa Clarans were able to ask questions. One person wondered if it was okay to grow a close relative of a native plant instead of the actual plant native to California. Professor Tallamy’s answer? You should be more concerned with the function of a plant in the landscape rather than its origins—even though neither he nor nativists (people who prefer to see native plants being grown by gardeners) will ever make this statement when discussing purportedly invasive plants.

 

Doug Tallamy’s overall message perfectly meshes with the current push by native-plant societies to get rid of many alien-plant species. But, as exemplified above, this effort is contradictory. Everyone knows that when calling a plant “native”, it’s not supposed to have been imported from somewhere else. Yet plenty of nativists want to have it both ways, and Doug Tallamy isn’t going to incur their wrath by disagreeing with them.

 

Lastly, Tallamy has a bad habit of making comparative evaluations of both plants and animals. He has no problem denigrating the animal species he doesn’t believe are as “valuable” as caterpillars, and he implied that 85% of native plants are essentially useless because they “aren’t supporting that much in terms of food webs”. Of course, this suggestion is ludicrous.

 

First, as every creature exists for a reason (otherwise, evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn’t be here), it’s an improper concept to posit that some kinds are more valuable or important than others. Second, and perhaps more critically, people are already overly prejudiced against many lifeforms, which is hugely detrimental to the environment. It’s hard enough to get people to accept nature in its entirety without having an authority figure convincing them to favor some kinds of animals/plants over others.

 

If you listen to Doug Tallamy or read his books, I highly recommend you employ serious critical thinking. This scientist’s training is in entomology and it shows. He espouses a worldview that is far too narrowly focused, disqualifying him as a spokesman for the environment in its entirety.

 

NATURE ADVICE: 

With global climate change already occurring, consider growing nonnative plants that bloom as early as March and are still blooming in November (the Common Dandelion is a cheery flower that will bloom even in winter sometimes if it’s in a sunny spot and the temperature is warm enough). Many of these plants may be classified as “invasive weeds”, but they are crucial for assisting a variety of insects to survive the current conditions on Planet Earth.