In reference to these emails, I just saw this today at Beaver Lake Rec Area
in Dallas County. So much growth has been chopped down here.
Karen Fieg
Grimes
On Wed, Jun 4, 2025, 11:22 AM Angela Battle <argusbee23...> wrote:
> I hear everything you say with saddened heart and have seen similar
> impacts to Stevens State Forest near me. Additionally county practices
> along rock roads to 'bush hog' and apply pesticide is also occurring
> seemingly with some of the same goals in mind and whatever others they may
> have and has increased ten fold over the past four or five years no matter
> what road you travel anywhere in the state and so there goes even more
> crucial edge habitat.
>
> The edges of rock roads used to sustain all kinds of nesting birds and I
> could walk the road and count the nests. There were so many prairie remnant
> plants along these roads too that are now replaced by noxious weeds that
> seem to thrive in poisoned soils, those seeds spread wide and far by the
> bush hog blades.
>
> In the old days before these newer roadside initiatives began in earnest
> these edges supported birds and it might also be said, healthy populations
> of reptiles, amphibians and small mammals not to mention the insect
> diversity so essential to it all. I could walk the road I live on and count
> the nests, name the remnant prairie plants and dodge the bumble bees and
> garter snakes and toads. All of that is nearly gone now - palpably so.
> Heartbreaking.
>
> It matters to know that the increase in noxious weeds along roadways is a
> direct response to all of this over management too as such weeks love
> disturbed ground either by clearing or poisoning so, those areas mentioned
> by Clayton Will are now ripe ground for further disturbance and so will
> require further pesticide and clearing management. All these practices are
> doing is creating a vicious cycle of misguided treatment that only seems to
> reinforce the need for such in the first place. They create the thing they
> attempt to manage over and over again.
>
> I am happy to add my voice and concerns all based on evidentiary
> experience over seventeen years of being an observer in wonder at the wild
> world around me.
>
> Angela Battle
> Rural Clarke County
>
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