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.
