Killing Me Loudly

'There was a dramatic reduction in ship traffic that day. It was like being on the primal ocean.'

Rosalind Rolland of the New England Aquarium "was at sea in the Bay of Fundy on 11 September 2001 ... [when] ...  noise levels from shipping fell by half, as transport was shut down in response the terror attacks" reports Environmental Research Web.

"Whales use sound as their primary sense, just as humans use sight, and their singing enables them to find food, mates and to navigate. They are believed to be able to communicate over hundreds of kilometres. But the frequencies they use largely overlap with the frequencies generated by human activities in the oceans, which have increased tenfold in volume since the 1960s, disrupting their ability to communicate" and inflicting chronic long-term stress due to the man-made noise pollution which endangers their health and life.

Cetaceans are not the only wild creatures who benefit from a drastic reduction in human activity. In that same year, 2001, Foot and Mouth Disease shut down human access to the Cornish coastline, at which point a couple of wild Choughs (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) chose to alight in the newly peaceful habitat. As Peter Marren was amused to recount in British Wildlife (14:2 pp 77-8):

"The release of captive-bred Choughs ... would, it was hoped, result in the establishment of a resident population ... However, foot-and-mouth restrictions placed the project on hold, and in the meantime some wild Choughs turned up out of the blue on the Lizard. [They] ... promptly nested and raised four chicks."

Maybe the best single thing that we humans, as a mass, could do for wildlife is to learn to sit down and shut up for a change.

Ravilious Country

                Oak on our way to Halsdon NR

Easily attained from either Exeter or Barnstaple courtesy of taking a seat on Stagecoach bus 315, Dolton is a friendly sort of a place. Quiet, picturesque, it's only twenty minutes’ stroll down the lane at the feet of ‘mighty great hedges', richly stocked with even mightier great trees, to Halsdon nature reserve in the Torridge valley, where you might yet see an otter if you keep very quiet. Even now the countryside round here can sometimes still have a living feel, with real people in it, walking or working, the kind of thing James Ravilious recorded more eloquently than I, some thirty years ago.

 

                                                           Beech on our way to Beaford

Where Have They Gone?

Redwings and Pyracantha: who ate all the berries?

There’s a lot of argument now about whether, as well as how, what and when to feed wild birds, with the crucial word there being wild, ie not domesticated.

Now that most farmland has been turned over to little more than ‘green deserts’ of monoculture many farmland bird populations have died down to a tiny fraction of what they used to be, although some farmers are now growing some areas of seed crops to revive winter seed-feeders like tree sparrow, reed bunting, corn bunting, yellowhammer, linnet, house sparrow, bullfinch and skylark (PDF).

For anyone with a bit of garden or land, avoiding insecticides so as to allow insects and birds to flourish in the spring and summer, and growing a good diversity of plants to provide fruit and seeds naturally in the winter seems to me the best option for genuine long term benefit to wildlife.

County Celebrates Otter-Free Status

Residents of Kant expressed their relief at hearing themselves officially declared the only English county without otters.

Councillor Mrs Jean Control-Freke said “We’ve got a nice ordered environment here, within easy reach of London thanks to the M25 and high-speed rail link. Everywhere is buzzing with traffic and lots of new housing going up. The last thing we need is a load of wild animals coming here and making a mess."

Just a few minutes drive away, local developer Dennis Tidysum fully backs the Council’s stance, saying, “Jean’s absolutely right. Beasts like these can cause havoc with planning, because they seem to think they have some sort of right to live here for nothing. Why, they don’t even use shops and businesses, let alone pay council tax."

Local parents are also very worried about the threat that otters could pose to children. “We’ve already seen how foxes can attack babies. Otters are at least as dangerous because they can operate on both land and water, meaning that our children will not even be safe in the swimming pool or the bath."

And in the youth club we find a surprising consensus from young people concerned about their jobs and prospects; “Yeah, they stink of fish innit” is the unanimous verdict.