Annual bird count finds 53 species

By M. G. Criscitiello, MD/ Special To The Tab

 

Robins, Blue Jays, Cedar Waxwings were up; American Crows, House Finches, Canada Geese were down; Nuthatches, Hooded Mergansers, Downy Woodpeckers were holding steady; but Wild Turkeys and Wood Ducks were no-shows. The 32nd Annual Christmas Bird Count was held in Newton on Dec. 18 (www.newtonconservators.org/christmasbirdcount.htm). This year 17 local birders joined in, grateful for clear weather: Susan Abele, Dorothy Anderson, Cris Criscitiello, Richard Danca, Pete Gilmore, Jan Gilpin, Liane Hartnett, Deborah & Frank Howard, Sam Jaffe, Ted Kuklinski, Liz Micheels, Steve Olanoff, Anne Pearson, Ian Reid, Al Scott, and David Tobias.

Those who braved the dark at 4:30 a.m. were rewarded by finding eight owls - seven Eastern Screech Owls and one Great Horned Owl - a considerably better showing than last year. Later, after sunrise, five teams of seasoned birders spread across the city, chalking up a list of 53 different species. Eight of these had not been seen in the past few Christmas Counts. They included one hardy American Coot at Crystal Lake; single examples each of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Swamp Sparrow, Rusty Blackbird, and Purple Finch in Cold Spring Park; six Common Mergansers on the Charles River; a Great Horned Owl in Kennard Park; and a Black/Mallard Duck hybrid at Newton Commonwealth Golf Course.

The number of count areas in the US and Canada is now well over 2,000, each consisting of a circle 15 miles in diameter. As the territory covered increases, the data derived become more valid statistically. The Count is performed under the auspices of the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Modestino Criscitiello, a retired cardiologist, is Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a Board member of the Newton Conservator and host of the Conservators' Environmental Show on NewTV.

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Making Newton more bike-friendly

By Gilbert Woolley/ Special To The Tab

 

Bicycle paths encourage people who are afraid to ride on the roads to ride for pleasure and business. Riding a bicycle provides healthy exercise without straining the heart and the rider is closer to nature and to other people than when driving. Using a cycle for day-to-day business reduces congestion on the roads and contributes to reducing oil imports, global warming and smog. Bicycle trails are also suitable for easy cross-country skiing.

Newton is not well provided with bicycle paths. The most interesting path passing through the city is the Charles River Bikeway, which goes from the Esplanade in Boston, to Waltham, along one, or sometimes both, sides of the Charles River. It is paved all the way, although full of potholes in places. It is managed, by the Mass. Dept. of Conservation and Recreation.

Although not designated a bicycle path, the "carriage road" on Commonwealth Avenue provides an outstanding bicycle route from Boston College almost to Route 128 and this could be the link to join various shorter trails. Cyclists can, of course, ride on the city’s highways and streets, but for this lifelong cyclist, the main obstacle to cycling on public roads is fear.

A spectacular example, which shows how people will use bicycles when a safe route is provided, is the Minuteman Bikeway, built on a defunct railroad bed from the Alewife ’T’ station in Cambridge, through downtown Lexington, to Bedford. This trail attracts over two million users each year, At times, this "Bikeway" is used too much, not only by cyclists, but also by skate boarders, rollerbladers and people pushing baby carriages. In areas of heavy use it would be helpful if these users could be separated. In the nearby towns of Hudson. Framingham and Natick, other unused rail tracks are being turned into bicycle trails.

Disused railroad beds provide ideal routes for bicycle paths. They are almost flat and there is conflict with automobile traffic only at highway crossings. Newton has an almost unused line from Newton Highlands to Newton Upper Falls and on to Needham. This line crosses the Charles River and Route 128 by bridges and would avoid the cyclist-hazardous intersection of Highland Avenue and Route 128. Other potential bicycle routes are the Sudbury and Cochituate aqueducts. Cycle routes could also be signed on little used streets in order to link cyclable trails in public parks and on conservation land. Proposals to create cycle trails often run into opposition from abutters, who fear that criminals will use it to gain access to their property. This has not proved to be a problem. Criminals, in this country at least, rarely ride bicycles! There has also been a fear that a trail would reduce property values, but realtors report, for example, that abutting the Minuteman trail actually adds value to properties.

Making Newton more bicycle-friendly could provide an opportunity for volunteers to work with the Parks and Recreation Department surveying possible cycle routes. The cost to the city would be minimal. Marking a street as a "bicycle path" gives people confidence that it goes somewhere and that it’s OK to use it.

Bicycle trails do more than provide access to local stores, libraries and schools. An ambitious national organization, Rails to Trails, promotes conversion of abandoned railroad beds to bicycle paths, and has had considerable success. The East Coast Greenway has succeeded in marking a bicycle path from Canada to Florida, and every year, the Greenway adds more "auto free" miles.

Gilbert Woolley, a retired engineer, has been a very active member of the Sierra Club since 1971, He has led Youth Hostel bicycle tours in Europe.

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Zoos and wildlife conservation

By John Linehan/ Special To The Tab

 

 

It never ceases to amaze me when people appear surprised to learn how much zoos in general, and Zoo New England in particular, are doing in the conservation arena. Perhaps some people hold to the outdated perspective of zoos as purely recreational facilities. The role and function of zoos has evolved dramatically in recent years. In the past, we were animal exhibitors and wildlife consumers. Today we are net wildlife producers as well as interpreters for, and advocates of, a natural world under siege.

Zoos are uniquely positioned between the increasingly urbanized human world and the world of wildlife. We are the most effective bridge linking these two disparate worlds. The irony is, of course, that these are not two worlds at all; humans and wildlife are inhabitants of one planet and the survival of all of us is inextricably linked. The bridge we zoos create is built with informational logs and intellectual mortar provided through our exhibits, our signage and our programming. The underpinnings of the bridge lie in the creation of emotional bonds between people and animals. In establishing these bonds, the animals in our Zoos serve as ambassadors par excellence for their wild living brethren. Once established, this is a "bridge" that grows and takes on a life of its own. The challenge for zoos today lies in knowing that there is much bridge construction to be done if we are to secure a healthy future for the children and grandchildren of the Earth’s current inhabitants.

The conservation projects and programs we engage in and support are either in-situ (in an animal’s natural range) or ex-situ (outside an animal’

s natural range), or sometimes both. An example: Zoo NE staff has perfected artificial insemination techniques to produce fertile eggs from our red-crowned cranes which have then been shipped to a Russian nature reserve for hatching, rearing and release. We have supported projects around the world: we are helping to protect African Wild Dogs in Zimbabwe, training herders in Pakistan to manage their flocks to avoid snow leopard predation, and identifying prime jaguar habitat for priority protection in Guatemala. The sad truth is that these programs and projects are mere bandages to slow the bleeding.

In order to save the patient, we must connect the urban population with the natural world and ultimately find ways to change human behavior. To succeed in our mission, our ex-situ programs must replace ignorance with understanding, fear with compassion, and irreverence with respect.

If we can achieve these lofty visions, we will have a profound impact on the generations that follow us. This is a daunting task, and it will not be easy, but we must keep trying, In Margaret Mead’s immortal words, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

John Linehan is president and CEO of Zoo New England, the non-profit organization which manages our two state-owned zoos, Franklin Park Zoo in Dorchester and Stone Zoo in Stoneham. He serves on several committees of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

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Throwing water away

By Robert Zimmerman, Jr./ Special To The Tab

 

Massachusetts is facing serious water shortages in spite of receiving an average of 45 inches of rainfall a year, or nearly 6.5 trillion gallons of precipitation - enough water to fill 12,922,465 Olympic-sized swimming pools. What is happening to all that water? The scientists and water policy experts at Charles River Watershed Association, located at 190 Park Street in Weston, are studying this complex problem and seeking sustainable solutions.

Groundwater (water in underground aquifers) and surface water (streams, rivers, and lakes, which are slowly replenished by aquifers) in the area surrounding the Charles River have been steadily decreasing for years. Many streams now go dry in summer months, and water use limits are being imposed by some municipalities. The water shortages are primarily the result of the "engineered water cycle" created through uncontrolled development, improper stormwater management, and current wastewater disposal and treatment techniques.

The I-495 technology corridor, one of the fastest growing areas in the state, is a perfect example of what is happening. Land is being rapidly developed, buildings and roads constructed, and traffic congestion is worsening. High-impact development creates more demand for water, to be used in businesses and industries. But the real problem is that the increase in impervious surfaces - roads, parking lots, sidewalks, driveways and buildings - prevent rainwater from infiltrating into the ground and recharging aquifers. In Boston, groundwater infiltration "losses" of stormwater have more than doubled in the past 20 years - in other words, half as much rain now gets through the soil and into the groundwater.

When water cannot percolate through the ground, filtering as it goes down into the aquifer, more contaminants enter the surface waters and negatively impact aquatic habitats. Rainwater is polluted through coming into contact with oil, gasoline, and other substances on roads and buildings, and it is discharged through elaborate drain systems to nearby water bodies. Additionally, during heavy rains, sewer pipes are often designed to overflow and discharge sewage waste directly to rivers and coastal areas.

Our approach to wastewater disposal is another element in the water crisis. Instead of treating wastewater from homes and businesses and then returning it to where it came from, it is piped away to be treated, and often discharged to the ocean or a river. Treating water initially helps reduce local water pollution impacts, but in the long term this results in substantial water loss on the local level. Another problem is in the actual sewage infrastructure - as pipes age, they crack and begin to draw in clean groundwater, which is prone to move into the pipes because the water inside pipes moves much faster than groundwater. On average, about 60% of the wastewater treated at the MWRA’s Deer Island treatment plant is clean ground and storm water that has entered the sewer system through leaks, sump pumps, or roof leaders.

There are two fundamental problems with current approaches to water use and water engineering. First, drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater are looked at as three completely different entities. But water is water. By using it, we do not change its nature. However, when we withdraw water from ground and surface sources, use it, and then throw it away as if it were a waste product, we create enormous consequences for the environment and undermine efforts to sustain water resources. Second, capturing, storing, and centralizing water resource over large regions is unnatural. Nature likes to keep water local, filtering it through the ground, and only in the last instant releasing it as groundwater springs to tributaries and rivers and allowing it to escape to the sea.

To overcome the water shortages Eastern Massachusetts is currently experiencing, we must think about how nature intended the water cycle to be. There is plenty of water, but due to increased development there is not enough filtering through natural surfaces into the groundwater. We need to keep water local, instead of shipping it away to be treated. It is time to stop throwing water away.

Robert Zimmerman, Jr. has been Executive Director of Charles River Watershed Assoc. www.charlesriver.org since 1991. Peggy Sunshine, Development Dir, and Rebecca Scibek, Development Assoc, contributed to this report.

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What is a pesticide?

By Lucia Dolan/ Special To The Tab

 

A pesticide is a poison. It is designed to kill an insect, weed or fungus. Unfortunately pesticides do not limit themselves to just what we wish to kill. They travel. They run off into water. They vaporize and drift. They come into our home on shoes and pets.

Pesticides can spread very quickly. "Good Morning America" recently reported on an experiment in a classroom at PS 8 in New York City.

They applied Glo-Germ, a nontoxic powder visible only under ultraviolet light, in areas where pesticides are most likely to be sprayed or to settle, such as baseboards and windowsills. Then they invited the children to play. After 20 minutes, UV light showed traces of Glo-Germ all over the children’s clothes, hands and faces.

No pesticide is safe. Federal laws prohibit pesticide manufacturers from making safety claims. The EPA, which has the authority to waive all chronic toxicity testing for consumer pesticides, does not require that pesticides be tested for effects on the immune system or on hormonal systems. Additionally, we know little about "real world" exposures - how pesticides interact with other pesticides or substances such as prescription medicines.

Several studies have shown that dogs are more likely to get cancer when their owners use pesticides. In 2004, Dr. Larry Glickman of Purdue University found that Scottish terriers were four to seven times more likely to get bladder cancer when their owners used pesticides on their lawns. The more time the dogs spent on a treated lawn, the higher their risk. Glickman is now measuring the chemicals levels in children from homes that use pesticides, and he is attempting to discover which chemicals in pesticides cause cancer, the active or the inert ingredients.

One to 3 percent of a pesticide product is "active" ingredients, chemicals designed to kill an unwanted insect, weed or fungus. The other 97 percent consists of ingredients are added to deliver the active ingredient and to make it longer lasting or more effective.

"Inert" ingredients, which are protected by trade secrecy laws, may be more dangerous than "active" ingredients. Pesticide manufacturers can conceal the identity of these ingredients from the public and even from the EPA.

Inert pesticide ingredients can be as benign as water or as toxic as benzene, toluene or xylene. Along with inert ingredients, contaminants, such as dioxin and DDT, sometimes form in pesticides as a result of the chemical production process. When pesticide products are used they interact with the environment, (soil, water, air) and can form toxic metabolites. Only a few of the 613 active pesticide ingredients have been tested for health or environmental effects. But solid knowledge of a pesticides dangers do not automatically lead to a government ban.

Methyle bromide is a neurotoxin, and its effects have been known for years. It destroys the ozone layer and has fatally poisoned farm workers in California. The U.S. government has signed an international treaty to ban methyle bromide in 2005, but it is currently negotiating an exemption to prevent "market disruption." Fifty-six farm organizations, including the largest, the American Farm Bureau, oppose the ban on methyle bromide. Farmers insist that alternatives to methyle bromide are too costly.

Too costly to whom? When the EPA decides that a pesticide’s benefits outweigh its risks, they do not factor into the equation the cost of illnesses, disabilities or environmental degradation. These costs are difficult or impossible to measure in the short term, but they are substantial and serious.

Pesticides are a quick fix, a short-term approach. Fortunately, there are alternatives to pesticides, such as Integrated Pest Management, which offer long-term solutions that focuses on correcting the cause of insect, weed or fungus problems. IPM protects drinking water, food, soil and air by minimizing, if not eliminating, pesticide use. It is an ecosystem approach that protects biodiversity.

In the coming months GreenCAP will have articles on these pages discussing safer approaches to common pest problems, weedy lawns, bees and wasps, and more. For more information visit www.beyondpesticides.org, www.pesticide.org, and www.greendecade.org.

Lucia Dolan, co-chairman of GreenCAP, is on the board of the Green Decade Coalition.

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Pests who don’t take winter off

By Bruce Wenning/ Special To The Tab

 

 

Very few insects, especially pest species, are active at low temperatures. Most insect species in New England feed, mature and mate during the warmer months. The few that are active during the colder months have physiological traits that protect them from the cold. These traits lead to the production of specific sugar and alcohol compounds that circulate in their blood and prevent the insect from freezing when there is a gradual drop in air temperature.

 

In our area, there are three important insect pests that can tolerate cold weather. The first is a dull brownish moth that is drawn to house lights at night. Called the Winter Moth (Operophtera brumata), the males can be seen by the hundreds covering the sides of buildings, doors, and windows at dusk and dawn. (The wingless females are flightless.) This pest, which resembles our native Fall Cankerworm Moth - and makes its appearance at about the same time - is new to the area. However, Winter Moth is well known on the South Shore and Cape Cod, where oaks, maples, crabapples, cherries and other trees and shrubs have been partially to completely defoliated over the past few years.

After mating, Winter Moths leave clusters of eggs in tree bark, which begin to hatch in March. The yellow-green larvae crawl up the tree, inchworm style, to feed on buds and leaves until mid-June, creating holes in leaves and loss of flower petals. The larvae extrude a long silken thread that functions like a parachute to transport them from one tree to another. After they fall to the ground and penetrate the soil, they spin a cocoon, undergo pupation, and emerge as adult moths in late fall. Recently, the moth has been re-emerging in great numbers here. It is essential to understand the timing of this complex life cycle to address the problem. There are only short-term solutions available now (for specifics see the Web site listed at the end of this article). Fortunately, a promising long-term solution to this problem is being tested by Joseph Elkinton, PhD, an entomologist at U Mass/Amherst. His research will be described in detail in a follow-up article on these pages.

The second cold weather insect pest is more familiar - the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges tsugae). This sap- sucker attaches itself at the bases of hemlock needles and inserts its piercing mouth-parts into the needle base and siphons sap. It is a specific pest of Eastern hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis) and Carolina hemlock (T. caroliniana). This accidentally introduced insect, originally from Japan, has devastated hemlock stands in forests of Connecticut and further south. It is moving northward into southern New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. Both immature and adult stages are very small and are inactive during the summer months. They start feeding and maturing into adults during the fall. From January to mid-April, females produce egg masses secured in tiny "cotton balls" located at branch tips, white clusters that are easy to spot in the winter. The best time to treat these hemlocks is from late March to mid-September. Horticultural oil will suffocate the eggs, nymphs, and adults of this pest if you apply the oil thoroughly. Horticultural oil is very low in toxicity and is used and approved by organic farmers and gardeners. It kills all stages of the adelgid, including the egg stage by suffocation, unlike traditional petroleum based insecticides. Insect pests treated with oil do not build up resistance to this compound. However, petroleum based insecticides are neurotoxins and with overuse will cause insecticide resistance, health problems to humans and other animals and contaminate the environment.

The third cold weather pest, which feeds on turf grass roots, is the European chafer (Rhizotrogus majalis). The adults are brown colored beetles that emerge from the soil by mid June; the immature stage is called a white grub and is similar in appearance to the Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica) grub. Because European chafer adults mostly fly during the night to lights they frequently go unnoticed by people. The lawn damage caused by the grubs is noticed by most people, although it is frequently blamed on the Japanese beetle grub. But not all grubs are Japanese beetles. In fact, there are two more turf grass root-feeding white grubs common in our area, the Oriental beetle (Anomala orientalis) and the Asiatic garden beetle (Maladera castanea).

The European chafer can be much more devastating to home lawns than the other three grub species because it is the only grub that can feed during cold weather, causing turf grass root damage in the early spring and into the fall when the other grub species are inactive. According to Patricia Vittum, Professor of Entomology at UMA/Amherst, European chafers have been observed feeding on turf grass roots under snow as early as February, much earlier in the season than the other three grub species.

For more information on the identification, control and life cycle details of these insect pests visit, www.UMassGreenInfo.org

Bruce Wenning is the property manager at the Massachusetts Audubon Society Habitat sanctuary, Belmont, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Ecological Landscaping Association, www.ecolandscaping.org.

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