Help the environment--plant red hot pokers

By Martha M. Ireland

June 15, 2001 - Cedar waxwings feast on a forest of red hot pokers.

Finches—red, gold and brown—cling upside-down, probing towering flower spikes.

A lady hummingbird drinks deeply of the nectar, zips to the blossoming hawthorn tree, kisses the foxglove, then perches on a butterfly bush. We study one another through the foliage until her mate whirrs past, grazing the garden buffet.

Elsewhere in Sequim, a pair of eagles and their hatchling watch a human home take shape below their treetop nest. One can almost imagine the eagles finding entertainment in the activity.

But some people worry. One even called in a "rant" to the PDN (June 11, 2001) about the landowner who "insists on going forward with her house construction…in spite of the danger to the eagle chick in the nest!"

Danger? What danger?

"One of the great successes of the (Endangered Species) act has been the recovery of the bald eagle," observes Ebbtide, an environmental web-site (www.tidepool.org/ebbtide/ebb.cfm) "...in many places, the once-disappearing national bird has really bounced back—making a tenfold recovery following the ban on DDT and other chemicals."

Precisely. Eagles were endangered by DDT—not by human activity near their nests.

Why, then, do we have eagle nest restrictions? Perhaps just to make us feel like we're "doing something." Or perhaps, the eagles—like spotted owls—are exploited by zealots who use the environment as an excuse to restrict and regulate humans.

A local example of such extra-environmental regulation is former state Lands Commissioner Jennifer Belcher's voluntary creation of 85 more owl circles than required under the ESA. The Washington Environmental Council cries foul as our new Lands Commissioner, Doug Sutherland, considers restoring those circles to rational ecosystem management, rather than single-species management.

In reality, managing solely for one species is a threat to all species.

As Ebbtide reports, "A booming eagle population has meant trouble for blue heron rookeries...based on the findings of Simon Fraser University researcher Ross Vennesland. Observing 1,500 nests in 31 colonies, Vennesland found that eagles targeting heron nests for the eggs and young led to abandonment of 12 colonies in 1999—representing 58.5 percent of all nests."

Another example of single species management harming an entire ecosystem is the federal mandate to hoard all Klamath Basin water for suckers and coho. The Oregon Natural Resource Council (ONRC) is belatedly challenging that ruling in court on behalf of the bald eagle.

"I find it ironic," writes publisher Rod Dowse in the June Cascade Cattleman, "that the same group that told agriculture that there was not enough water to help maintain the viability of the agriculture economy in the region as the fish needed every single drop to flourish, now is calling for the release of water for eagles."

It's easy to call oneself an environmentalist, but narrow preservationist agendas harm the natural ecosystem every bit as much as does mindless or greedy disregard of the world around us.

Imposing ineffective or even counter-productive regulations on our fellow citizens accomplishes no real benefit for any wild species, and may do harm.

True environmental enhancement provides habitat for a host of species. For example, plant red hot pokers.

This column ran in the Peninsula Daily News.  Martha Ireland is a former Clallam County Commissioner and journalist.