Six easy ways to help birds, bees and butterflies
North Jersey Green
It’s hard to drive anywhere in New Jersey without seeing bulldozers eating up “unused” land. This is bad news for traffic—and terrible news for birds and the insects they depend on for food.
Three million birds have been lost since the 1970s. Bumblebee numbers have declined by 90 percent. Habitat loss is a key factor.
If you’re wondering what you can do to help, it’s time to meet Dr. Douglas Tallamy, wildlife ecologist, entomologist, author of the bestselling book "Nature’s Best Hope."
Last fall, Tallamy gave a talk, sponsored by the Madison Environmental Commission, that explained how each of us can help birds and pollinators right in our own yards. Together, we can create a biodiverse patchwork that Tallamy calls a “Homegrown National Park.”
If you have an hour, watch his talk on YouTube (youtu.be/anjQNC2jppg)—we can’t recommend it enough. Meanwhile, here are six ways to take action in your yard.
Bothered by These Suckers? Please Don’t Spray
Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
I’ve read the statistics. I know bumblebee populations have declined by 90% and up to a third of firefly species may risk extinction.
That’s why I grow milkweed and pollinator plants and leave leaf litter for firefly larva. But am I making a difference? Do I see more monarchs? Mason bees? Moths?
The only insect I can vouch for is the mosquito. Populations appear to be flourishing, judging by yard signs, flyers and billboards promoting mosquito spray services.
From my side of the fence, the problem is this: If someone sprays a fine mist of pesticides at the shady, flower-free areas where mosquitoes rest, it won’t just kill mosquitoes.
“It can impact bees, butterflies, moths, caterpillars and insects that birds depend on as a food,” says David Mizejewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation.
Drinking Water, Forests and Answers Beneath Your Feet
North Jersey Green Columnist, Madison Eagle
The answer to the question “where does your drinking water come from?” is right beneath your feet.
If you’re one of the 58,000 residents of Madison, Chatham Borough, Florham Park or East Hanover, you get your water from the Buried Valley Aquifer.
Every last drop.
The water that lands in your glass is pumped up from wells that have been drilled some 150 feet deep. It comes from the Buried Valley Aquifer (BVA), a network of buried glacial valleys that extends across parts of Morris, Essex, Somerset and Union Counties. The BVA is a major source of drinking water for a total of 31 towns.
Next question: If your tap is speedy, how fast is recharge?
The answer is: slow. Water needs to percolate back down through soil, rock and glacial debris.
To Grandmother’s House We Go
Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
“Over the river and through the woods” is as synonymous with Thanksgiving as turkey and pumpkin pie. But where exactly are the woods these days? And how much of our rivers are hidden as we zoom over cement bridges, thinking only about the traffic between here and the cranberry sauce?
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, with more urban terrain than forests, according to a 2015 study by Rowan and Rutgers universities.
What’s worse is that most of us can’t tell the forests from the trees. Me included.
This fact is especially embarrassing, given that I am chair of the environmental commission in Madison and live spitting distance from a rare, intact 53-acre forest on the Drew University campus.
I am sorry to admit that it took me 23 years and the threat of a land sale to realize that the Drew Forest was ecologically different from my yard — and the rest of the trees on Drew’s notably leafy campus.
This is not to say that I didn’t know it was important.