Wisconsin’s Chippewa, Black rivers will get $500,000 to fight climate change and save an endangered snake

1 comment

1. This is awesome:

   Extract:

   “Human engineering, like the construction of locks and dams on the upper Mississippi River nearly a century ago, have altered the river’s floodplain ecosystem, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other organizations have spent millions of dollars trying to rejuvenate that natural ecosystem.”

   I didn’t know military army engineers were doing rehabilitation. That’s something I have never seen advertised or mentioned in Australia.

   And this:

   “Two distinct populations of Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake live in these areas. In addition to being endangered in Wisconsin, the species is listed federally as threatened — largely because of habitat loss, Chandler said. The snakes primarily use shallow, marshy wetlands close to the river but also like having access to upland areas for food and shelter.”

   My thoughts here are that most of my snake encounters in Australia (scores of them) have been on areas considered uplands, raised or higher. Particularly, on paths that are dry or dry out & warm up faster than surrounding bush that might be shaded or wet, or near paths. I’ve been interested in riparian corridors, but really wide ones, scores or hundreds of kilometres wide.

   If they are providing funds and signage, I wonder if it will extend to signs that sign how little land is protected, or that indicate that migration for flora and fauna needs riparian corridors that are much wider than under protection.

   Explained differently, can anyone recall seeing signs that suggest that while the riparian corridor protected is Eg imagine 1 km wide, but the sign actively says ‘it’s crucial that this be extended to eg. Imagine 200 kilometres wide?’

   Where I am, the signage never indicates the gaps or failures or the problems or limitations with the national parkland or world heritage listed areas.

   Even when it’s clear that the land under protection is totally inadequate, and it’s obvious that species are struggling and on the verge of extinction or are extinct in that area, supported by wildlife carers who transport them in and out of geographical fenced regions or regions fenced by roads or farmland or industrial areas or estates, I’ve never seen public access recreation areas that have official signs that on every sign, indicate the substantial limitation or the size of the area that needs protection.

   For example, one area near me is tiny, and the protected area is hillside and doesn’t have any extensive lands at sea or river floodplain level, or access to the coastline or riverbanks past extensive forests or wetlands or more dry scrub or eucalyptus forests.

   It’s a very popular jogging spot, and adjoining it is a tiny bit of a rich, wealthy or exclusive area, with popular cafes, food outlets or restaurants and mostly low density car based suburbs. Those suburbs completely ring the area.

   The protected area incorporates paths that are well known, and they go up to lookouts and act as paved hiking trails, and also, trails that are free from improved paths, but that are signed so that you can hike on dirt mostly ‘off the cement’ though stairs, steep inclines and creek crossings are still well done with steps and cement where needed.

   In these areas, the signage is mostly excellent, but like I mentioned, there’s absolutely no mention of the limitation or the problem with the area under protection.

   So every day people walk and jog and hike, often driving to park there, every day, and none of the signs indicate that the area size is inadequate or that the types of forests and elevation of land under protection is too small or inadequate, or the fencing or roads are creating barriers to migration for protected animal species or for plant migration (carried by animals).

   It’s an area you would consider ‘totally isolated’ like a fenced concentration camp where most species might starve or die out.

   But none of the signs have the courage to indicate which suburbs or housing estates or schools or airports need to be removed, or which roads need to be removed, to make the protected area into a place where species can migrate in and out, or travel for food and for mineral salt outcrops or access to perennial freshwater or coastal access.

   There’s actually an international airport and two or three schools and large potions of upper class suburbs, farmland, two national highways and at least two shopping districts, and an industrial zone that all could easily and trivially be removed.

   The adjoining suburbs are less critical to remove in majority, because the farmland is excellent to restore and alleviates the issues of not having enough near-sea level extensive forests or bush or wetlands or swamp, but some of them do need to be removed to join to other isolated bush or forest areas and estuaries and tidal brackish creeks and urban/suburban flood management drains.

   However the signage that people are exposed to never indicates that there’s any fundamental problems with the region, that make it less than fully functional as habitat that is supporting of species population recovery or of genetic diversity population growth of endangered or at risk or threatened species that are endemic and unique.

   So that’s my other point. If the region needs 20 or 200 kilometres or even sections that are 2 kilometres, but only has 2 meters or 20 meters or 200 meters under protection, the signage doesn’t indicate that.

   So no one who visits, especially children or the local residents or tourists or visitors, realise that it’s precious but a fake zone, valued but barely functional, and so barely supporting any populations of animals or completely failing to allow free migration.

   An example of this, is pademelons that have very limited land available, and also that cassowaries are extinct in the area, so that rainforest seed dispersal and activation by digestion is not functional at all.

   All it would take is some signage that indicates likely or known species extinct to that area, and some maps with crosscheck patterns to indicate the human exclusive areas that are impeding the natural flow of species or their ability to access other forests land or wetland or river or coast types at different elevations.

   As the map would be a zoom out, highlighting much larger regions than are usually considered as suitable for buyback or relocation or for development bans, I don’t see it would generate any political risk or animosity from residents or visitors or even landowners such as the local or state governments that own the roads that are impassable barriers creating the concentration camps, or the farmers that have the land that would connect perennial freshwater sea level or near-sea level rivers and substantially expand the area under protection.