[Pollinator] What does it take to save a species? Sometimes, high-voltage power wires

[Ladadams at aol.com]

Thanks to Gabriela Chavarria for this  article
What does it take to save a species? Sometimes, high-voltage power  wires
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff  |  November 22,  2009 
 
FOR DECADES, NOBODY in the US had seen the bee. 
The silver-haired black Epeoloides pilosula was once widespread in New  
England, often found where native yellow loosestrife plants grew. But as the  
region’s pastoral landscapes gave way to forests, the bee lost its sunny open 
 home. In 1927 it was spotted in a Needham meadow and then, despite years 
of  searching, not again. By the start of this century, dejected bee lovers 
were  forced to conclude that the insect was likely extinct in the US. 
Then, one bright June day in 2006, eureka: The bee was found in a hillside  
meadow by David Wagner, a University of Connecticut conservation biologist  
conducting a two-year bee survey in southern New England. Once the species 
was  confirmed, there was a celebratory Mexican dinner and a published paper 
that  rippled through the conservation world. If a rare bee like that could 
be found  again, biologists reasoned, maybe there were other rare bees, 
plants, and  wildlife hidden in similar environments. 
Even more remarkable, though, was the environment where this find was made: 
 In a 250-foot-wide power line corridor off Route 163 in Southeastern  
Connecticut. Transmission corridors have long been considered symbols of  
environmental degradation, with their enormous steel skeletons and high-voltage  
lines slicing through forests, wetlands, and salt marshes; they divide the  
landscapes that thousands of species need to survive. Yet now they are 
gaining a  new reputation: As critical homes for faltering species of birds, bees, 
 butterflies, plants, and a host of other species. 
The corridors - carefully maintained to prevent trees from growing high  
enough to touch tension lines - can recreate the meadow and shrubby landscape  
that once dominated New England. Some scientists are even looking at these  
corridors as grassy escape routes for animals and plants from the harsher  
effects of climate change as temperatures rise worldwide. 
“It’s hard to explain to conservation groups that [species] are being 
saved  in the most unpopular and disturbed kinds of landscapes,” said Robert 
Askins, a  biology professor at Connecticut College who has studied birds in 
transmission  corridors. “I was shocked originally to be working in them  
myself.” 
The idea that transmission line corridors or any human-built infrastructure 
 may actually help species is a counterintuitive one in the conservation  
movement, where the emphasis is often placed on preserving a landscape - 
usually  by leaving it alone or ensuring it remains in some “natural” state to 
help  certain species thrive. But in crowded New England, where people have 
altered  the landscape for so long, saving beloved species may actually take 
more - not  less - human intervention. 
As species become more integrated with the industrialized infrastructure we 
 have constructed, people’s view of nature is also changing. One reason 
delighted  commuters on Route 128 see more turkey vultures, some naturalists 
suggest, is  that the southern species might be enticed northward by the 
intricate array of  highways that makes it easy for them to find road kill. And 
who can’t be proud  that Boston’s skyscraper ledges have helped endangered 
peregrine falcons return  from the brink of extinction? 
“I have heard the Northeast described as a large zoo, the whole place is  
completely managed,” said Katharine C. Parsons, senior scientist at Manomet  
Center for Conservation Sciences in Plymouth. She is spearheading a new 
effort  to work with states, companies, and wildlife groups to best site, 
construct, and  manage transmission lines. “Intervention is what we do, whether we 
are  conservationists or not.” 
Parsons is looking at the possibility that new transmission corridors will  
serve as emergency exits for animals or plants as the climate shifts. New  
England is already experiencing warmer winters, lengthening springs, and 
more  extreme weather, such as severe rainstorms. Challenged species may be 
thwarted  from moving to better environments because of highways or other 
obstacles  blocking their way. The corridors, Parsons and others suggest, may 
provide these  species an easier path north. 
Now, as thousands of miles of new lines are proposed across the country to  
move wind and other renewable energy, conservationists are beginning to 
think  about ways the lines can also be used to help the species we want to 
save. That  may include avoiding biological hotspots where endangered species 
live, ensuring  the pathways serve as critical links between larger tracts of 
forest, and better  managing the corridors to entice species that have few 
other places to  go. 
It may not be a purist’s view of saving nature. But as the world gets more  
crowded and true natural lands disappear, it is quickly becoming what  
conservationists have to work with. 
“You wouldn’t go out and design a landscape for ecological services and 
put  roads or transmission lines there,” said Marc Lapin, a conservation 
biologist  who teaches environmental studies at Middlebury College. “But this is 
looking  for ecological value in something that is benefiting humans.” 
BEFORE EUROPEANS ARRIVED, New England’s vast mature forest wasn’t all 
shade.  Beavers would regularly chew down trees, creating dams that would flood 
- and  then drown - large sections of the forest. Lightning, or Native 
Americans, would  spark fires that consumed thousands of trees. And winds from 
fierce storms would  blow down enormous swaths of the woods. 
A baby forest would then spring up in the disturbances’ wake. Within 
months,  grasses and wildflowers would begin to grow in the sunny break. Vines and 
 thickets would follow. For a decade or two - before tall trees crowded out 
the  brush and shaded the area again - the swaths would be dense growths of 
 shrubland. 
Many animals seek or require these shrubs or clumps of grass as nest sites 
or  for feeding. Others find food and cover in the brambles and thickets. 
The  chestnut-sided warbler and American woodcock birds, snowshoe hares, and 
New  England cottontail all use this land. Frogs, snakes, bees, and 
butterflies also  need or thrive in the areas - often called early successional  
habitat. 
There was once lots of it. Most of New England was deforested by the late  
19th and early 20th centuries for farmland and pastures. The majority of 
rocky  ground was gradually abandoned. For generations, before the forest 
slowly took  over, there was an abundance of this open landscape. Animals, 
plants, and insect  species that thrived in that sun-loving habitat exploded. 
People began  treasuring them. 
Now, as forests mature, that landscape is disappearing. What’s more, there  
aren’t the natural disturbances that took place before Europeans arrived.  
Beavers are often not tolerated, and firefighters ensure forest blazes don’t 
get  out of control. 
As a result, some birds cannot find the grass or shrubland they need to 
nest  in and don’t reproduce in the numbers they historically did. There are 
fewer  swaths of meadow and shrub for many of the region’s hundreds of species 
of  native bees to pollinate, so they too have gradually disappeared. The 
reclusive  New England cottontail rabbit, which once found safety in the 
impenetrable  thickets of early successional habitat across the region, has not 
been seen in  Vermont since the early 1970s and the population has plummeted 
throughout the  region - largely because of habitat loss. 
And now, love them or hate them, New England transmission line corridors 
are  beginning to serve as substitutes for some of that shrub land - and are 
even  being deliberately managed to do so. Decades ago, the corridors were 
hand or  mechanically cut. Then, during the post-war suburbia boom when many 
more  corridors were being built, companies turned to the wide use of 
herbicides,  reducing most corridors to grassy swaths and reducing  biodiversity. 
In the 1950s, an independent Connecticut ecologist named Frank Egler began  
wondering if there was another way for the companies to ensure trees didn’t 
grow  without killing virtually everything else in the corridors. 
“He wanted to know could you just take out the tall trees and leave the  
native plants, shrubs, and low trees,” said Glenn Dreyer, director of  
Connecticut College’s Arboretum. Egler’s research showed yes - if herbicide was  
selectively applied to individual trees, only those trees would die.  
Wildflowers, grasses, and native shrubs would then take over, eventually making  it 
more difficult for tree saplings to grow. 
Northeast Utilities, which manages about 1,900 miles of transmission  
corridors in New England, was one of the first to buy into the idea. Today, it  
and other key regional transmission managers - National Grid with 2,000 
miles,  NStar with about 400 miles, and Central Maine Power Company with 2,100 
miles,  for example - say the vast majority of their corridors are managed 
that way.  Every few years, vegetation managers rotate through the paths, 
placing herbicide  on tall-growing trees such as ash, maple, birches, and other 
saplings. New  England remains an exception, however, according to national 
transmission line  experts. 
“We have a well-educated population here; if you don’t do things right you 
 are going to be in trouble,” said Tony Johnson, supervisor for 
transmission  vegetation management for Northeast Utilities. The utility helped fund 
the study  that found the almost extinct bee. “And if you do things right, you 
get to  convert some people.” 
Of course, some people dismiss the idea of transmission lines as beneficial 
 and say no herbicide should ever be used - especially in places with 
sensitive  waterways nearby. In Eastham, Wellfleet, and Orleans this summer, 
residents  became worried about an NStar plan to start using selective herbicide 
on  transmission corridors that were historically mowed. The plan is on 
hold,  according to NStar. 
ONE RECENT SUNNY day, Manomet’s Parsons stood knee high in brush on an  
arrow-straight transmission line corridor in Plymouth near Route 3. A loud,  
steady buzz of insects interrupted her identification of native shrub species. 
A  dragonfly careened in the air toward her. The hilly area was covered 
with  grasses, bushes, and small trees so dense it was impossible to walk 
through. A  small wetland surrounded the base of a few steel structures. 
As new transmission line corridors are built, Parsons and others are 
looking  for ways to make the corridors work with the ecosystems they cross. She 
says  some will need to avoid rare species habitat or critical wetlands. Her 
program,  funded by the Wildlife Action Opportunities Fund - a partnership 
between the  Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Wildlife Conservation 
Society - is helping  map those spots across New England and is beginning to talk 
to transmission line  companies early on to site new ones in appropriate 
places. Others suggest the  corridors should be built next to highways or 
railways to lessen the impact on  forests. Scientists at The Nature Conservancy 
in New Hampshire are researching  how and why lynx, black bear, bobcat, and 
other species use the corridors.  Meanwhile, David King at the US Forest 
Service in Amherst, Jeff Collins of the  Massachusetts Audubon Society, and 
other researchers published a paper this year  suggesting that wider corridors 
helped threatened shrubland bird species more  than narrow ones. Connecticut 
College’s Askins came to a similar conclusion in  his research. 
And the tiny bee? It’s not alone. Other corridors have rare plants. And a  
rare moth was recently found in another. 
“We’re finding lots of other rare plants and wildlife,” said  Wagner. 
Beth Daley is the Globe’s environment reporter. She can be reached at 
_bdaley at globe.com_ (mailto:bdaley at globe.com) .  
 





Laurie Davies Adams
Executive  Director
Pollinator Partnership 
423 Washington Street, 5th  floor
San Francisco, CA  94111
415-362-1137
LDA at pollinator.org

_www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 

_www.nappc.org_ (http://www.nappc.org/) 

National Pollinator Week is June 21-27, 2010. 
Beecome  involved at _www.pollinator.org_ (http://www.pollinator.org/) 
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