…plenty of money to ruin them. As I am sure I have mentioned at some time, I like to take a walk on a paved path through a nearby park. The park is a narrow strip of forest with a stream meandering through it and house on one side and office buildings on the other. The path exits the park after a while and briefly follows a power line which parallels a road. While this is hardly wilderness, it is pretty good for me in metro D.C., since it is only a five minute walk from my home.
I have noted for a months now that there has been little effort to maintain the path by clearing back brush and cleaning up trash. Today I found that they cleared all the brush back for about 10 to 20 feet on either side of the path on the power line. Woe am I and the fauna that used to inhabit and/or frequent that flora! I like a bit of trimming of the bush but they wiped out a large quantity of wild berry bushes that certainly provided forage for the birds if nothing else.
The area today seemed devoid of life. I usually see all kinds of birds and frequently deer, raccoons, and woodchucks. I don’t know if those bushes can grow back and, if so, how quickly but clearing them all out was a crime against nature. To make matters worse, now all the trash that has been and will be thrown from cars going down the road is and will be blatantly obvious. It is bad enough around when the foliage thins out. Our brown and gray winter landscapes are decorated with the detritus of our throw away society.
I think that I have a mission to lead a crew to clean up that area next year during the Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup!