CONDON’S CORNER—Especially During Drought, Everyone Should Limit Water Usage  

© 2026 Marlene A. Condon All Rights Reserved 

 [Published September 24, 2026, by The Daily Progress [the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia] and on September 26, 2026, by The News Virginian [the daily newspaper of  Waynesboro, Virginia].

Water is not only essential for wildlife to drink, but also for critters to keep clean. Here, a Tufted Titmouse takes a bath, but if your water pan is too deep for insects to access for a drink, help them by putting in a rock they can use to safely approach the water.

CONDON’S CORNER—Especially During Drought, Everyone Should Limit Water Usage

 

By the beginning of spring this year in Western Albemarle (the area where I reside), we were already in a serious drought. We had gotten only 6.2 inches of rain (according to my rain gauge) through the end of March—a paltry figure when compared to a normal of 12 inches in preparation for our growing season.

 

Time was when Virginia would average about an inch of rain per week each month, or 48 inches per year. Sadly, that is no longer true, with most years falling short of that number. Yet the 21st century has seen local meteorologists abandon the usual 48-inch number, settling instead for a 42-inch yearly rainfall average for the Charlottesville area.

 

Though we have weather records dating back to before the 1900s (courtesy of the astronomical observatory located atop Observatory Hill [O-hill] on the UVA campus), TV weather presenters have chosen to focus only on precipitation data averages over the last 20 years—thus arriving at the 42-inch number by eschewing a century's worth of O-Hill precipitation info that says the number should be closer to 48.

 

As a result, an unknowing public has been misled into thinking that 42 inches is “normal” and not a problem, but when the true average annual rainfall is supposed to be closer to the historical 48 inches, the natural world knows there is a problem, even if you don’t. Trees in our neighborhoods and forests are dying as most of us have never seen before in our lives, making abundantly clear how dry this area has become.

 

Still, one would never have known we were facing an extremely serious shortfall in the amount of moisture we should have received. Despite the continuing lower-than-normal amounts of precipitation for the months of April and May (not to mention June and July), people began to put up new pools and prepare garden soil to receive seeds or transplants.

 

Was this a display of baseless optimism or of sheer ignorance regarding how the environment works? As the drought continued, folks should have realized they should forego their gardening and instead purchase food from the grocery store or farm outlets.

 

Believe me, as a lifelong gardener, I fully understand how much better garden-fresh food is on the palette. But when water is in short supply and food is available elsewhere, it becomes a basic necessity to conserve your water for drinking and personal hygiene. And while I certainly understand the desire to cool off in a pool, filling it with water that’s in short supply is probably not the best use for it. 

 

Even our new governor exhibited no real concern about the drought, telling folks they could water their lawns, etc., every other day instead of conserving all water for the more important functions of personal cleanliness and maintaining a supply of drinking water. Of course, the governor may well be personally using reservoir water, which perhaps seems unlikely to her to run out when these deep “bowls” are full. But multiply one person by the many who are using that reservoir water, and you should realize that even reservoirs aren’t unlimited.

 

For those of us who live in rural areas and depend upon well water, we could easily fall short of what we need. Wells only have access to the amount of water that has managed over many years to accumulate far below the ground surface. Considering that since 2002, Virginia has often fallen short of the usual annual amount of precipitation its environment requires to sustain itself, even well water should be conserved as much as possible.

 

We are almost through our seventh month of the year and we have had less than 14 inches of rain when, by the end of the month, we should have gotten 28 inches. Consequently, I’ve watched as the local streams have begun to dry up, some completely while others are drying back towards their source.

 

While it hasn’t been unusual for some of the streams in my local area to completely dry out whenever local rainfall doesn’t hit the mark, some of the streams I’ve seen drying up this year are ones that usually don’t do so. In other words, we are so low on moisture that all of the streams are drying out, which is a very bad sign, not only for well users, but also for those who depend upon reservoirs. Deficient rainfall amounts are not going to keep them filled either. And this isn’t even to mention how tough this is for our wildlife.

 

As our environmental conditions continue to be altered by climate change, it’s crucial that everyone conserve water, whether you’re obtaining water from a reservoir or a well. And it would certainly assist our wild critters if you’d put out a pan of water for them, too. 

 

CONDON’S CORNER

Nature’s Best Hope: “Invasive” Plants

© Marlene A. Condon 2025 All Rights Reserved

[Published January 27, 2026, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia.]   

 

People’s desire to “sanitize” the natural world is highly destructive because it destroys habitat for wildlife. Additionally, when all of the shrubby undergrowth along a stream is cleared away (as seen here), the owner is likely to suffer loss of soil due to erosion in a severe rain event.

Recently a number of posts were made on the Virginia Bird List-serve (a website where birders comment on anything having to do with birds) regarding quite a decrease in the numbers of birds seen this fall. One woman, from the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County, commented that she had been noticing “this for several months now, particularly the local birds. Numbers are way down. I am hoping that the abundant natural foods are more enticing to them, but I have lots of oak trees, beech trees, winterberry holly and native perennials and shrubs that should be drawing the birds to my yard.  They are just not here…”

If you realize the important roles birds play in our environment, such as helping to limit plant-feeding invertebrates as well as excess numbers of plants by eating their fruits or seeds, the above comment that birds “are just not here”—despite supposedly ideal plant conditions in the commenter’s area —should frighten you. Even more concerning is that a dearth of avian species confirms what I’ve been observing for decades now: a dearth of insect species for them and other animals to feed upon. And it’s not only animal life, but also plant life that impacts our critters’ ability to continue on.

Over the past several decades, more years have been drought-stricken, meaning plants don’t get the amount of water they need to survive and reproduce well. This situation greatly affects native plants because they evolved under better conditions of adequate rainfall for their needs. 

Additionally, the overpopulation of deer in Virginia that has been the case for many years means too many plants get eaten by them, not only depriving birds of food, but also cover where they can sleep, roost, and nest.

Without sufficient food and habitat, many kinds of wildlife cannot reproduce as it should and is, therefore, bound to die off. Indeed, each passing year has made clear that not only do we have fewer and fewer birds, but also many other kinds of animals.

The only saving grace that has helped our wildlife survive this long is the presence of so-called invasive plants that people love to hate. Many of these plants are not (yet) eaten by deer, and they can survive the drought conditions that have become so prevalent these days. Yet even these plants can hardly make a go of it, thanks to a majority of people weed-whacking and mowing every last bit of land they own. I live in a rural area of western Albemarle where homeowners not only limit plants on their properties, but also all along roadways, ditches, and old fence rows. Needless to say, this type of “sanitizing” occurs in suburban and urban areas as well.

Poor people and wildlife both suffer the ravages of sanitization. “Waste places”, which should more accurately be seen as natural areas, allow plants and animals to eke out a living, just as those with limited incomes do in trailer parks. Precious-few wild areas exist anywhere to support wildlife, just as precious-few living arrangements are now available for those with small incomes.

Both are viewed in the same disparaging way, as if both are a blight in need of "renewal". But please note: As a poor college student dependent upon grants and work-study programs, I myself lived in a trailer, which was conveniently located near the university I attended. I’d have to say those were some of the best years of my life as I worked to make my dream of getting a college degree come true. And, living in a rural area, I was able to continue my life-long learning about the “weeds” wildlife lived upon.

For a long time now, schools have been teaching children that “invasive” plants are very bad and should be eliminated. When these children become adults, they learn to use pesticides to remove the plants and, consequently, poison the environment. They work at places like Charlottesville Parks & Rec, removing “invasive” plants practically year-around, leaving precious little food or cover behind for birds and other critters.

If native plants could survive in today's world of altered environmental conditions, they—instead of alien plants—would already be growing there. Unfortunately, people have embraced this nonsensical obsession with getting rid of so-called invasive plants that can survive drought and poor soil conditions and thus assist our wildlife to keep it alive. 

I’ve always grown both native and nonnative plants on my property. I’ve witnessed what has happened over the past half a century and have recognized the true value of “invasive” plants. Read most of the articles I’ve had published over the past 35 years and you’ll see my photos of many kinds of creatures making use of the very plants people insist upon removing.

Environmental circumstances have changed, making it terribly difficult for native plants to do well. The anti-invasive-plant movement has done far more harm than good, which means wildlife numbers will continue to drop as long as people adhere to this false dogma.

There can be no denying that Nature’s best hope in a human-degraded world are so-called invasive plants.

 

You Reap What You Sow—Pesticide Usage Guarantees Collateral Damage

This Ortho ad hanging in front of its product line at a store could not have made any clearer the attempt to persuade an unknowing public to unnecessarily use poison on an insect that would only be around for a limited period of time.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

Almost 60 years ago, Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, was published. Warning us of the danger pesticides posed to wildlife, especially birds, it impacted people’s feelings towards these products that are meant for only one purpose: to put an end to life. For some time afterwards, neither environmental activists nor people who cared about nature would employ pesticides in the landscape.

 

But, just as the effort back then to get society to view women as equal counterparts to men, rather than as sex objects, has somehow backfired (today’s women and teenaged girls routinely dress in clothing that brings sex to mind), so too has Ms. Carson’s admonition about pesticides been turned on its head.

 

Today, people treat these poisons as innocuous substances. Pesticides line shelves in stores for homeowners and gardeners to employ as they see fit (although this retail practice should be discontinued).

 

Thus, in the spring of 2021, when humongous numbers of periodical cicadas emerged in several areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states, it’s quite possible that many people may have decided they should employ pesticides, even though these other-worldly insects would only be around for 3-4 weeks, at most. (They exit the ground to mate so females can lay fertilized eggs in twigs to start the cycle of life all over again; then all the adults die.)

And from May to the end of July, juvenile songbirds in the Mid-Atlantic and all the way to the Midwest became ill and died.

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/suspect-list-narrows-in-mysterious-bird-die-off/

 

Although no agency is saying it has determined the cause to be pesticides (or anything else, for that matter), there are many factors pointing strongly towards that conclusion.

 

·    Ortho has blatantly advertised one of its more potent insect-killing brands precisely for the killing of periodical cicadas (see photo).

 

·    Most of the affected birds were fledglings (they’d only recently left the nest) of species likely to eat large cicadas: Common Grackles, Blue Jays, American Robins, and European Starlings. Young, inexperienced birds would be more likely to make a meal of the abundant and easily caught insects.

 

·    Pesticides affect neurological function, such as the seizures exhibited by dying birds.

 

·    The fact that bird deaths precisely coincided with the time-frame of the periodical cicada emergence, and has subsided with the end of this event, is highly unlikely to be mere coincidence.

 

You reap what you sow—pesticide usage guarantees collateral damage. If the insects were poisoned, birds eating them would also suffer the effects of these chemicals. (Yes, it’s cruel to employ pesticides for insects, as if they are somehow not worthy of a humane death.)

 

On neighborhood blogs, people exhibit little patience with wildlife, especially insects that they’ve been led to believe can be very dangerous to them or their plants. Not having much knowledge of periodical cicadas (most people nowadays know far too little about wildlife), folks may have feared the great numbers of these insects would destroy their plantings (ignorance is a prime instigator of apprehension).

 

In this age of the Internet, too many faux “experts” effortlessly spread misinformation far and wide. Those working in the gardening industry are perhaps the lead offenders in this regard, telling people these insects will kill the branch tips of small trees and thus “harm” them. But this notion is wrong.

 

Plants exist to support animal life, which they can do quite successfully if their local environment is functioning properly. In other words, when predator/prey relationships are in balance, insects and other forms of life do not overwhelm plants with their presence, which is why everyone should create nature-friendly gardens. Sure, critters may injure plants, but not enough to cause serious harm. Plants are extremely resilient and bounce back from a bit of loss; otherwise, life would not persist as it has for eons.

 

Now, you may not like to see dead branchlets on your tree, but within a year, your tree will be flush with new growth while many of the lifeless branchlets will have fallen to the ground. As most birds require those twigs for nest building, periodical cicadas obviously help provide them with the “lumber” they need.

 

This incident should make abundantly clear to folks the havoc they are wreaking upon this planet with pesticides. Our wildlife is struggling to survive, as we certainly will if we don’t wake up and recognize how much we depend upon wildlife for our own welfare. People must learn to live in agreement with nature instead of fighting it at every turn. And they must learn this lesson much sooner rather than later.

  

NATURE ADVICE:

 

When someone talks about doing right by the environment these days, it’s virtually guaranteed they will bring up so-called invasive plants that need to be gotten rid of. And how is that often accomplished? By employing pesticides.

 

You can rest assured that even though there may not be many (yes, there are some) species of insects that feed upon the leaves of alien plants, many kinds of critters make use of these plants. An overlooked aspect of “invasive” plants is that they do provide structure. Structure is a necessary component of a nature-friendly garden as it affords animals of many kinds a place to hide from predators, to rest a bit, or to build a nest (think web-weaving spiders). No one looks for these animals before spraying with deadly chemicals that will kill them, and no one would be able to locate all of them anyway.

 

Pesticides are meant to kill, and they do. No one needs to use chemicals that bring further harm to our environment on a home property or in what’s supposed to be a natural area.

 Wasting Garbage

If people put wasted food into a compost pile, they wouldn’t have so much trouble with bears and raccoons overturning their trash cans. You don’t need a bin to compost; just place scraps into a pile in an out-of-the-way spot away from the house where bears, raccoons, opossums, and other critters can recycle the material by consuming it. Anything they don’t eat will be broken down by microorganisms into rich soil for your garden.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

You may have heard that humans are made of “stardust”. Although you could imagine this ethereal statement springing from some poet’s imagination, it’s quite true. Your body regenerates most of its cells every seven to 15 years, but the elements that comprise those cells have been in existence for millions of millennia.

The hydrogen atoms in your body were produced at the beginning of time when the universe originated with the Big Bang. Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms were created in burning stars, and the heavy metals or elements essential for human health in trace amounts (such as iron, copper, and zinc) are the result of stars that exploded (supernovae) long ago.

 

In other words, humans and all life forms are dependent upon the recycling of matter, especially that which is organic—carbon-based matter that comes from the remains of other life forms, such as plants and animals and their waste products. Because existing matter must be reused in the creation of new lives, it should never be sent to a landfill where it’s essentially locked away and unavailable.

 

Most landfills contain little dirt, very little oxygen, and therefore few if any microorganisms, which means any biodegradation of the discarded, tightly compacted material takes place extremely slowly. A landfill study conducted by University of Arizona researchers uncovered still-recognizable 25-year-old hot dogs, corn cobs, and grapes, as well as 50-year-old newspapers that could still be read.

 

(Talk, Earth. "Do Biodegradable Items Degrade in Landfills?" ThoughtCo, Oct. 29, 2020, thoughtco.com/do-biodegradable-items-really-break-down-1204144.)

 

Yard trimmings that can naturally decompose on their own comprise 6.2% of waste put into landfills. Food, another naturally degradable substance, accounts for another 21.9%. Thus, about a third of landfill deposits consist of organic material that’s trucked from suburban homes, restaurants and other businesses, hospitals, and every sector of society to be buried along with the rest of people’s discarded paraphernalia.

 

Instead, it should be composted, whether at homes with yards, at the landfill, or at special composting facilities. The material of life is not the “garbage” many people consider it to be, a word suggesting organic matter is worthless or useless.

 

Yet it may be difficult to alter people’s feelings about keeping organic material around to decompose on their property. Consider the following exchange from a social media site.

 

A woman posted a photo of a large pile of yard trimmings in her driveway and wanted to let folks know she was looking for someone to take it away. In the background of the photo, you could see a fancy garden of well manicured shrubs and trees with nice wooden fencing delineating the different parts of the landscape.

 

Knowledgeable gardeners would never part with such yard “debris”; they would realize it should be composted to be used to enrich the soil for those garden plants. Indeed, someone immediately suggested just that, while another person wrote in support of that notion and to add that it would be broken down and gone by spring.

 

At this point, yet another lady chimed in to ask which spring (2022? or 2023?) and to make clear it was already summer—the obvious intent of her comment being that she wouldn’t want those yard clippings sitting around in her yard for at least a year or more! For her and the lady who posted the original query, this material simply had no place in their well kept yards. They saw the unwanted organic matter as garbage that would rot and destroy the ambience of the beauty they had painstakingly created.

 

Introducing such folks to the realities of life is the only hope we have of possibly getting them to recognize the many reasons it’s vital to recycle organic matter. Even in space, stardust is recycled.

NATURE ADVICE:

 

Woody yard trimmings can be composted via a brush pile. It’s easy to build one. Simply pile logs and larger debris in the desired location, then add smaller branches, twigs, and even leaves on top of the assemblage. As with a compost pile, rich soil will be found at its base within a few years. Place the pile in a far corner away from the house where you or Mother Nature might plant flowering vines to grow over it.

 

NOTE: A brush pile can provide shelter, nesting areas, and “homes” for numerous kinds of wildlife. During summer, ground-nesting mammals and birds might build nests at the bottom. After the logs have begun to rot, salamanders can hide in them during the day, waiting for the cover of darkness to start hunting for food. If the logs are rotted enough, Eastern Five-lined Skinks and other lizards may lay their eggs there.

 

In winter, the brush pile will be used for shelter from harsh weather and for protection from predators. Birds will forage nearby so that they will have a place to hide if a hawk comes hunting. At night, some of these birds may sleep among the interlocking branches. Amphibians (such as treefrogs), reptiles, and many kinds of insects will spend the cold months in a dormant state inside the rotting logs.

 

The brush pile can also provide a learning experience for children (and adults!). Poke carefully at the decaying tissue and you may find millipedes and pillbugs, all of which dine on dead plant material, thus breaking down the brush pile. Bacteria and fungi are also present, drawing life from the lifeless wood and decomposing it in the process. Lichens (complex plants composed of an alga and a fungus in a symbiotic relationship) grow upon the wood surfaces, releasing a weak acid that breaks down plant tissue. Spiders and centipedes prey upon the scavengers (those organisms feeding on the wood), while skunks, birds, and other predators tear apart the logs in order to make a meal of the variety of creatures living there.

 

A brush pile is valuable in so many ways!

 

Oriental Bittersweet—A Murderer Who Kills by Strangling or Smothering His Victims?!

A Northern Mockingbird defends its larder of Oriental Bittersweet fruits that would help it to survive the winter of 2019-2020.

Thanks to misguided human intervention, the vine was cut on this tree that had stood alongside a dirt road for decades, which resulted in the mockingbird losing its dependable food source for the following winter. The Oriental Bittersweet started to regrow in the spring of 2020 (seen here at bottom up to middle of photo), but wasn’t ready to make fruits by the winter of 2020-2021. How was depriving this bird (and possibly other animals) of food throughout the harshest time of the year helpful to our natural world?

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

A “fact” sheet from the Blue Ridge PRISM (https://blueridgeprism.org/factsheets/), a group whose “mission is to lessen the negative impact of invasive species on both private and public land within 10 counties located in Virginia’s northern Blue Ridge region” (https://blueridgeprism.org/) declares that Oriental Bittersweet “murders forests, strangles trees, [and] smothers [the] understory.”

 

Wow. This statement exemplifies perfectly how people concerned about “invasive” plants tend to employ derogatory accusations to prejudice the reader’s opinion right from the get-go. And that’s not all.

 

Continue reading and you find an emotional essay that, rather than straightforwardly supplying facts, instead infuses this vine with uniquely human behavior: “[T]his attractive vine has an aggressive agenda.” Honestly? For bittersweet to have an “aggressive agenda”, it would have to have brains to carry out a conscious and deliberate plan of assault upon the trees of the forest.

 

This type of barrage—one that accuses so-called invasive plants of behaving in the manner of disreputable human beings—is typical of much nativist rhetoric. It has always struck me as odd because we’re talking about plants.

 

So! Let’s move from the fantasy of plants behaving as if they are bad people to the reality of plants behaving quite naturally as plants.

 

What do plants need to do to perpetuate their species?

 

·    They need to grow to reach maturity; in the case of vines, that growth is usually upwards. Many vining plants cannot flower—which they need to do if they are to reproduce—if forced to grow horizontally.

·    Plants need to get their offspring into the wider world in case catastrophe strikes their original position. This feat is often accomplished with the help of animals that enjoy eating fruits produced by the plant. Whether the animal eats the fruits on the spot or carries them away, the seeds within the fruits may successfully get through the animal’s intestinal tract to land far away from the parent plant, allowing the species to spread for the continuation of its kind.

 

In other words, what people see as an “infestation” is simply a species doing what it must to keep from going extinct. It doesn’t know some people have a problem with that.

 

The aforementioned “fact” sheet notes that Oriental Bittersweet “thrives in disturbed soil and tolerates full sun and dappled shade. It may occur abundantly around old home sites, in fields and fencerows, along road edges, and in forests throughout the Blue Ridge.” The sheet goes on to mention that, “This invasive vine now infests the eastern U.S.” and “has been a serious pest in New England since the 1970’s [sic].”

 

What does this paragraph tell us? It says that rather than being “a real beast” as the fact sheet opines, Oriental Bittersweet is doing what comes naturally: It’s responding to what people do to their environment, a fact pretty-much always overlooked by nativists in their diatribes.

 

Disturbed soil is part and parcel of home sites, fields and fencerows created by people to grow crops, roadways because you can’t make a road without disturbing the land, and forests throughout the Blue Ridge because these mountains were denuded by logging—more than once in the history of the country.

 

And let’s not overlook another fact: People intentionally brought bittersweet here to grow in their gardens. This species is not the “invader” suggested by use of the term “invasive”. It should more accurately be described as an escapee.

 

Is bittersweet problematic? This question can’t be answered by a simple “yes” or “no” because the answer depends completely upon a person’s point of view, which is dependent upon what is most important to him.

 

For the person (such as I) who truly cares about wildlife and disappearing habitat in developed areas, the answer is no. Because most folks maintain very few plants around their homes (and even farms nowadays), there’s not much available for animals (especially birds) in need of food, shelter and nesting sites. Bittersweet that has climbed high into a tree on the edge of someone’s property or along roadways provides these necessities that are absent from most yards (and farms).

 

Does it matter if the vine’s presence kills the tree? In the natural world, there is nothing sacrosanct about a tree, and from the human perspective of someone who wants to help our feathered creatures, it shouldn’t be a problem either if the vine is providing more for wildlife than the tree does.

 

Now, if you’re managing a forest for lumber, your perspective is totally different. Since you look at every tree as a source of income, you want what’s best for your purposes rather than what’s best for wildlife.

 

And what if you’re an environmentalist who wants the natural world to more closely resemble its former self before Europeans arrived? Well, that’s a fantasy that can never become reality. Yes, you can work endlessly on your (and perhaps others’) property to get rid of the many plants people brought here some time ago, but the cat’s out of the bag. It’s a waste of your life, especially if your efforts don’t improve living conditions for wildlife, the main reason often given for “invasive-plant” removal. And if you’re employing pesticides that poison the Earth to accomplish this goal, you’re just adding insult to injury.

Lastly, I’ve been asked if I would be unhappy if a neighbor planted Oriental Bittersweet along my property line where it could spread onto my land. Mother Nature—who’s certainly a neighbor—has done just that, as I find this vine growing here and there around my yard. As it has yet to show up where I could let it grow without it being a problem for my preferred plants, I pull it out if it’s small enough and persistently cut it if it isn’t (so it can’t flower).

 

Gardening is the perpetual process of making decisions about which plants you want to encourage and which you don’t. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling himself.

 

NATURE ADVICE:

 

If you believe poisoning (pesticiding) our environment is better than allowing so-called invasive plants to grow, you really ought to rethink your perspective. Instead of buying into denunciations of these plants, get out into the world and observe it carefully with an open mind that will allow you to recognize the truth: The presence of nonnative plants that assist wildlife to survive is far better than the barren area that’s typically left when people remove “invasives”.

 

Few people make an effort to replace the plants removed because they mistakenly believe native plants will (magically) show up. It's possible they might, but the usual reason “invasive” plants grow where they do is because they are more suited than native plants to the environmental conditions in these locations.

 

Where’s the Tolerance for Wildlife?

People openly express tolerance for other people, but rarely for the wildlife that keeps the environment running properly for their benefit. The “Welcome Your Neighbors” sign pictured here grew out of an idea at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, VA. The church wanted to reach out to neighbors and neighborhoods to welcome those who come from different backgrounds and places. It would be wonderful if folks would reach out to their wildlife neighbors as well to make them feel more welcomed.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

Hoo-boy. If you care about our natural world, the last thing you should do is to read your neighborhood blog. It’s terribly disturbing to see how intolerant of wildlife people tend to be.

 

Recently, one man asked about advice for ridding his yard of an “invasion of chipmunks”. The replies brought me great consternation.

 

I fully expected someone would immediately tell him to get a cat, and it was, indeed, at the top of the list. Despite years of public service announcements by the American Bird Conservancy to inform people that cats kill huge numbers of birds (and many other kinds of animals) every year, a great many folks still believe cats are “natural” predators and useful for controlling “vermin”.

 

People don’t seem to understand that cats are nonselective when it comes to killing prey. “Now numbering well over 100 million in the United States, cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year in the U.S. alone, making cat predation by far the largest source of direct, human-caused mortality to birds.”

 

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

 

People also don’t recognize that “vermin” is a derogatory term that serves to implant a negative opinion in the public psyche, which encourages the wanton killing of animals described as such. It suggests that an animal is generally known as a “pest” (another derogatory term) that is dangerous in some way to humans and has no redeeming values. It’s a terrible way to view the organisms that, in fact, all exist to make the Earth habitable for mankind.

 

In the case of chipmunks, these mammals disperse seeds and thus help to replant forests and fields. They also serve as food for a variety of other animals, such as foxes and hawks. The best way to limit their numbers is by way of snakes, another kind of animal people kill needlessly, as evidenced by remarks from social media:

 

“I hate snakes.” “Ugly beast”.

 

Regarding copperheads:

 

· “See y’all don’t get it. For us city slickers the first sight of this snake is not oh cool. It’s more like of F}+{#k.”

 

·    “Copperheads are vicious.”

 

·    “I’m a big gardener and am in the woods daily. It’s one of my fears.”

 

·    “[W]e killed one last summer.”

 

·    “I smashed the copperheads [sic] head with the blunt end of my rake to keep others safe. These copperheads are aggressive as far as I know, no other snake has hissed at me aside from a copperhead.”

 

·    “Very nasty snakes! They bite for any reason at all. We have lost two small dogs to copperhead bites.”

 

·    “[Th]e shovel has been accurate. They have 6 acres of woods in my yard to do their thing. They don’t need to be by my pool to bite my dog (happened) or my grandkids.”

 

·    “Think we all got the point. Be safe and observe your surroundings. Got to do what you have to do. Called survival.”

 

·    “I killed them when I saw them. With dogs, and kids and a wife, I did it for the safety of my family.”

 

Are copperheads venomous? Yes. Are they “vicious”, “aggressive”, or “very nasty”? Absolutely not. They do NOT “bite for any reason at all”. They try to protect themselves (by biting) only when seriously threatened and frightened, as any animal (including dogs and cats) or person would do.

Must you kill venomous snakes for the sake of your dogs, kids, and wife? Not necessarily. If you have decided to move to an area with such snakes, it’s smart to learn to be on the lookout for them around your home. Children and adults alike should never walk around without watching where they are stepping, and they need to remember to never, ever stick their hands or feet where they cannot see if something is there that could harm them.

Don’t think that’s a realistic expectation? Surely you teach your children not to stick their fingers into sockets (death by electrocution) and to look both ways before crossing the road (death by vehicular impact)—both of which are far more likely occurrences when kids are on their own than being injured or killed by a copperhead, especially if brought to the hospital immediately for treatment. Of course, common sense should dictate that very young children should never be outside all by themselves.

 

When it comes to snakes (or wild animals of any kind), you simply need to keep your distance to avoid being injured, and this important truism should be taught to children. Pets, on the other hand, cannot be taught to stay away from snakes; therefore, it’s your responsibility to accompany them outside instead of letting them roam freely.

 

Snakes don’t chase after people or pets; they prefer to be left alone to go on their merry way and strike only when feeling threatened. So, be smart! Stay away from these reptiles and keep your pets and small children away, too.

 

 NATURE ADVICE:

 

Never take advice from neighbors unless you know for a fact they are experts in the subject.

 

For example, regarding chipmunks, a person wrote that they “are very damaging. Many big holes all over the Yard [sic]”. Chipmunks do not make holes all over the yard. This person was probably seeing vole or shrew burrows. Chipmunks hide their burrows.

 

Another person suggested people should call “Critter Control. They will catch and relocate them with Have-a-Heart traps.” Not true. It’s illegal to relocate wildlife. If an animal control service says it will relocate wildlife, the company is being dishonest. Any animals trapped on your property are going to be killed, and perhaps not humanely.

Lastly, the original poster who asked about chipmunks said, “I can shoot them, right?” This person lives in a suburban area and his only concern was that the animal was eating his flowers. Imagine wanting to discharge a gun in a neighborhood where houses are not that far apart and killing animals that are simply trying to survive. Perhaps most disturbing of all, though, is that this man was undoubtedly blaming the wrong critter for his woes. Chipmunks are not herbivorous; they do not eat the greenery of growing plants or their blooms.

 

The Plant Police Are Coming for You

These two male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are feeding on sunflower seeds that originated in North America, but we often feed wild birds seeds from other lands, such as niger (also spelled nyger) that is grown in Africa, India, and other places in Southeast Asia. Why is it okay to provide foreign foods in a feeder to native animals, but frowned upon to feed them by way of nonnative plants that have the additional benefit of also providing shelter and nesting sites?

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

In 2010, overpopulated deer herds denuded virtually every native plant in my yard. Consequently, the plants were unable to flower and produce fruits. If I hadn’t grown nonnative plants unpalatable to deer, such as Japanese Barberry shrubs (Berberis thunbergii) that did make fruits, a flock of bluebirds that visited the following extremely cold and snowy winter would not have found nourishment. 

When I excitedly reported to the state Internet bird-reporting site my discovery that bluebirds ate Japanese Barberry fruits, I was taken to task for growing “such an invasive alien plant in [my] yard!” Although my comment went out to serious birders who presumably care about these avian creatures, no-one expressed happiness that the bluebirds at least found something to eat.

 

In the ensuing eleven years, a huge invasive-plant mythology has been written to support waging an unjustified war against specific alien plants, and government at all levels has been brought on board to deny you the right to grow plants that can survive deer overpopulations, climate change, and vast alteration of our physical environment.

 

The City of Cape May, New Jersey, almost passed Ordinance 404-2020 in December of 2020 “relating to the control and elimination of invasive plants”. It was much supported by the Cape May Environmental Commission, a member of which wrote a letter to the editor which contained the usual misinformation that, nevertheless, often convinces unknowledgeable government officials to act in a manner that harms, instead of helps, nature.

 

The letter writer spoke of kudzu to say that “It outcompetes all native vegetation and creates a monoculture made up of itself. This is true of all invasive plants [emphasis mine].” This last pronouncement is simply not true.

 

So-called invasive plants grow where conditions are especially suitable for them, but not for native plants, which means aliens aren’t “outcompeting” natives. Rather, native plants are not growing there in the first place. Additionally, “all invasive plants” do not necessarily create a monoculture. Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellatus) shrubs often share fields with Eastern Redcedar (Juniperus virginiana) and other species.

 

The next sentence of the letter reads that “You may control an invasive on your property, but if it has seeds, both the birds and the wind spread the tree, bush, or plant.” What does this statement tell you? It declares that the so-called invasive plant provides food for birds, and if it’s a tree or a bush, it goes without saying that it also supplies cover and perhaps a nesting site for them.

 

Yet the sentence following the declaration above tells us that “Monocultures do not feed our bees, butterflies, or birds.” This kind of conflicting information is extremely common in letters to the editor and in articles in which the author wants to convince us of the evils of supposedly invasive plants.

 

Continuing, the writer says that, “Planting native trees attracts insects that are needed to feed the birds [but] [a]lien tree species do not attract these specific insects, so they may be pretty, but as far as the environment is concerned, they might as well be stone statues.” Wrong.

 

Native trees may support more caterpillars and sawfly larvae (an animal commonly considered a “pest” when feeding in people’s yards) than alien plants, but that doesn’t mean the pretty nonnative plants “might as well be stone statues”. Flowers are typically what make a plant pretty, and many so-called invasive plants make flowers that attract a huge number of pollinator species. These insects are dwindling in number, undoubtedly due, at least in part, to the vast amount of lawn area in this country that is devoid of "weeds" (interpretation: flowering herbaceous plants) that could feed them.

 

The conclusion of the letter writer is that, “We need this ordinance as a way of supporting the need to educate and control invasive species.” Amazingly, the local government tabled the ordinance, but you can bet the Cape May Environmental Commission will be back pushing for some version of it yet again, even though the “facts” provided by this member of the commission are inaccurate.

 

Unfortunately, some states have fallen under the spell of the mythological “invasive-plant” narrative. In the state of Washington, “plant police” are authorized to charge you with a crime (harboring an illegal alien!!!) and assess fines should your yard contain a plant on the “Noxious Weed List”.

 

https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/washingtons-noxious-weed-laws

 

The Environmental Protection Agency is working to bring this reality to backyards everywhere across the land of the free. Susan Gitlin, Office of Sustainable Communities at the EPA, writes of “refining lists of plants that are regulated at the state and federal level”, positing that such plants “have moved from their native regions into new areas where they crowd out native vegetation.”

 

https://www.astm.org/standardization-news/?q=update/invasive-plant-listing-ja13.html

 

This now entrenched, but false, belief of nonnative plants crowding out native plants has been made “factual” only by perpetual repetition by native-plant societies and other special-interest groups, including invasion-biology scientists, but it contains serious errors of omission. For example, people ignore the factuality that growing conditions in many locations are no longer hospitable to most native plants.

 

Alien plants, such as Autumn Olive that these folks are determined to eradicate, are especially noticeable along highway edges created by construction of roadways or in fields abandoned by farmers. Like native colonizers, such as Virginia Redcedar, they can grow just fine in soil compacted for centuries by cows weighing a half-ton each or road-building crews that bulldozed the land, removing topsoil.

 

If you weren’t paying attention for the past forty-five years and now notice the abundance of nonnative plants in such areas, you could easily believe that nonnative plants pushed out native plants. This misperception forms the basis for the entire field of invasion biology.

 

But the actuality is that abandoned fields, roadsides, hiking trails, and clearcut forest not replanted filled eventually—I’m talking many years—with colonizers, whether native, nonnative, or a mix of both. I’ve been watching it happen since I was a college student in the 1970s, and you don’t even need a scientist to explain why this scenario makes sense.

 

Any avid gardener knows the saying, “right plant, right place”, meaning that every plant has specific growing requirements that must be met for it to thrive. Most native plants cannot grow in the corrupted soil profile of disturbed areas, which includes homeowner yards that have been cleared and graded. When I moved into my house 35 years ago, the gray-clay subsoil had been exposed and the yard looked like the surface of the Moon.

 

Alien plants quickly provided wildlife habitat, and my moonscape became a nature-friendly garden supporting a larger diversity and abundance of wildlife than had existed when the land was deeply shaded by forest. Over the decades, these plants rehabilitated the soil and numerous species of native plants have moved naturally into my yard, but I refuse to remove the alien plants that have been—and remain—so helpful.

 

I’ve seen far more wildlife—in species and numbers—in my yard over the past 35 years than most folks will ever see in a lifetime of visiting wildlife refuges and national parks. I know for a fact that nonnative plants are beneficial to wildlife by providing them with food and shelter and to native plants by rehabbing the soil for them to return.

 

If you want to truly aid our wildlife and the environment in its entirety, you must ignore the mythmakers of plant-invasion biology. But don’t ignore your lawmakers! Please let your congressional representatives know you don’t want laws restricting alien plants on your property—and tell them the excellent reasons why not.

 

 NATURE ADVICE: 

Before taking advice from those folks who may have their own agendas for pushing you to remove alien plants, make notes on which animals are making use of them, as I have done for many years. It may well change your mind as to what’s in the best interest of our wildlife.