[HN Gopher] The new golden age of wildlife in New England ___________________________________________________________________ The new golden age of wildlife in New England Author : nkurz Score : 101 points Date : 2022-04-19 13:48 UTC (2 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.bostonglobe.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bostonglobe.com) | 1970-01-01 wrote: | I don't like how they declare a golden age while native species | are still endangered. It's like saying we're in a golden age of | peace because we're fighting in less wars. | frankbreetz wrote: | This metaphor doesn't make sense to me. Isn't less war good for | peace? | 1970-01-01 wrote: | If you have much less credit card debt than before and still | have student loans to pay, would you declare yourself | financially golden? Probably not. | ejb999 wrote: | better is still better. | Tr3nton wrote: | Any time a website greets me with a giant page-filling banner | that I can't close, or they cut off the article after a few words | in order to get me to sign up, I close the tab. | mywacaday wrote: | You can add to that the allow notifications dialog, has anybody | ever clicked yes on one of those? | simonsarris wrote: | fyi in Chrome you can turn those off for all sites in the | settings: | | chrome://settings/content/notifications | ilamont wrote: | I grew up outside of Boston in the 70s and 80s. Never saw a | turkey, coyote, or bald eagle. I thought the latter were extinct | east of the Mississippi. | | The Charles River was still a polluted mess from years of neglect | and old industrial use. There was a derelict watch factory in | Waltham next to the river, former vehicle assembly works in | Watertown and Cambridge, and all kinds of old industrial sites | further upriver. There's one section of Waltham Mass still called | "the bleachery" which was the site of a dye factory, which, of | course, emptied right into the Charles up until the 1950s. | | I live a few miles from my childhood home now. The factories are | gone, and the riverside has mostly been cleaned up. I see all of | these animals plus many more including foxes and waterfowl. At | night we hear great horned owls and the yipping of a local coyote | pack. There are news stories about bears making it to within | route 128 (the innermost ring road) and even the outer reaches of | Cape Cod, which requires crossing a major bridge. | https://www.wbur.org/news/2012/05/31/cape-cod-bear-twitter | jmalicki wrote: | "which requires crossing a major bridge." - The biologist | quoted in your linked article believes the bear likely swam | across the canal. | pridkett wrote: | It's nice to see articles that help confirm some of my anecdotes. | I live in Connecticut, and in the last year I've seen both a bear | and a moose in my yard. And, it's not like I live somewhere crazy | rural - I live on a 0.3 acre lot near UCONN. My neighbors, many | of whom have been here for 50 years, comment about how many more | eagles, ospreys, fishers, fox, and deer there are today. However, | there hasn't been data to back up these anecdotes. | | For the most part, people enjoy it, but there's a growing cluster | of outdoor house cat owners who are dismayed when nature does its | thing and Sir Fluffsalot meets his end after an encounter with a | fox or eagle. | y-c-o-m-b wrote: | > there's a growing cluster of outdoor house cat owners who are | dismayed when nature does its thing and Sir Fluffsalot meets | his end after an encounter with a fox or eagle. | | Here in Oregon - known for its thriving wildlife - the number 1 | complaint on Nextdoor is "coyote sighting, bring in your | pets!". | foobarian wrote: | We're right outside Boston, and this spring was the first time | we've had an owl hooting pretty much every night since March. | terran57 wrote: | > For the most part, people enjoy it, but there's a growing | cluster of outdoor house cat owners who are dismayed when | nature does its thing and Sir Fluffsalot meets his end after an | encounter with a fox or eagle. | | Outdoor cats do far more damage to wildlife populations than | they receive. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife | is_true wrote: | Cats shouldn't be allowed outside. My neighbor has a cat and it | always shit on my lawn and if it find something soft it | scratches | uptime wrote: | New Haven, CT has seen a bear in a public park, lots of foxes | and turkeys and deer. I've heard of wildcats a little further | out. Also agree that housecats need to stay indoors to stop | killing birds. We built an enclosure for ours to be outside but | not freeranging. | neonate wrote: | https://archive.ph/vR1G6 | JohnWhigham wrote: | Yeah I wouldn't be proud of having all those deer given how large | of a vector they are for ticks... | kibwen wrote: | Reducing deer populations doesn't actually reduce the spread of | Lyme disease, unless you completely eradicate all deer. Ticks | get Lyme from feeding on mice, the deer is just one part of | their life cycle. | BostonEnginerd wrote: | I hope that the insect and bird populations also start to | recover. We don't see that many bugs in the Boston area, and the | cities spray mosquito fog every summer because of EEE. | | Our birds of prey in Eastern MA are being impacted by rat poison | - they eat rats which have been poisoned. | | Certainly there are improvements, and we should celebrate those. | But we should also recognize that there's a way to go. | thehappypm wrote: | As someone who lives just outside of 95, I assure you, the bugs | are doing just fine. | kibwen wrote: | In Boston I do see a fair number of birds of prey. Most | memorably I was biking along the Charles in Cambridgeport and | stopped to observe one (a falcon, maybe?) feasting on a | squirrel not five feet from the path, unperturbed by the | passers-by. | fatnoah wrote: | I've seen red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, and peregrine | falcons in downtown Boston. One of the coolest things I've | seen was a hawk gliding down the bike path about 6 inches | from the ground near a large playground, as it tried to sneak | up on some squirrels. It did the nap of the earth flight for | a couple hundred feet and then pounced on a squirrel. It was | utterly unperturbed by the foot traffic around it. | | I also lived in a high-rise, and a peregrine falcon used a | ledge outside of my son's bedroom window as a perch to launch | attacks on pigeons and seagulls. | | And then there was that time a coyote was spotted in the | North End: | https://patch.com/massachusetts/charlestown/coyote- | spotted-i... | jakedata wrote: | I live northwest of Boston, bordering a wildlife refuge. I refuse | to have cameras inside my house but the woods around it are well | instrumented. I have many video clips documenting everything from | 'buns' to bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and of course deer. | | With regard to outdoor cats, they wouldn't last a fortnight | around here. Too many predators now and I am thankful for that. | As a result, the bird population borders on riotous in the | spring. | | I expect that we will see a bear before too long. | | -edit- oh, but those ticks... I have a jumpsuit treated with | permethrin for working out back. | mechanical_bear wrote: | > I refuse to have cameras inside my house... | | For any purpose? | NoSorryCannot wrote: | It's implied that they meant surveillance cameras. | jakedata wrote: | Indeed, that was poorly phrased. | pcmaffey wrote: | Now time to reintroduce wolves. | | (Will also help with the tick epidemic.) | shippintoboston wrote: | I also live in Boston and my poor dog got hounded by those | ticks. I assume it wolves eating deers is what would help | with that? | forgotmypw17 wrote: | For peopled areas, chickens do an amazing job clearing the | ticks. They mainly need somewhere to sleep safely at night | and can take care of themselves in groups during the day. | flint wrote: | Untill the hawk population recovers | exolymph wrote: | We have chickens, living on the edge of a regional park | where the hawks thrive. They are reluctant to hunt near | the house, probably mainly because the low tree cover | severely limits their maneuverability. | harpersealtako wrote: | that's what the guard dogs and guinea fowl are for | wing-_-nuts wrote: | >guinea fowl | | Forgive my ignorance, do they keep the hawks at bay by | alarming every time there's danger? Cause I can't imagine | the ones we have here fighting off anything | dugmartin wrote: | It is nice but I could do without the bear that demolished our | compost bin in the backyard twice last week (I live in town in a | small village in Western Massachusetts). Seeing bald eagles fly | right over your head with a fish they just caught in the | Deerfield River is pretty cool though. | marstall wrote: | NB: the photographer, John Tlumacki, won a Pulitzer Prize for the | images he captured in the moments after the Marathon bombings! | throwaway0a5e wrote: | For animals, sure, things are pretty good. | | For plants things kinda suck. Lots of invasive species have taken | root over the last 200yr and are holding down native species. | jmclnx wrote: | I do not know why you were down-voted, but this is true. I | those invasive vines I would see everywhere in the deep south | are starting to appear here. Probably due to climate change. | Never mind about the various water plants coking out native | water plants. | formerkrogemp wrote: | Hydrilla verticellata, Lemna minor, and phragmites are coming | for your cattails and Elodea :(. All of the poor fish will | not survive. | driverdan wrote: | Also disease and blights have decimated certain trees like Elm | and Chestnut. | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: | A cultural shift towards eating invasive species or both flora | and fauna would really help. Use that human tendency to cause | extirpation for good. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | That works for animals to a degree but you can't eat chestnut | blight. | gwbas1c wrote: | About half of the trees in a New England forest are "invasive." | They've been here so long someone like me doesn't even know | what's natural and what isn't. | | Earthworms are also invasive in New England. They're | everywhere, ubiquitous, and apparently the natural forest | doesn't have them. | kibwen wrote: | Earthworms would have once been native to New England, they | were just killed by the advancing glaciers of the pleistocene | epoch, which ended 12,000 years ago. They've been advancing | northward slowly ever since (though other species were | brought by colonists). | francisofascii wrote: | I was visiting Boston this past weekend for the marathon. Saw two | turkeys on separate days in the Lexington area near Minute Man | park. I was really cool for a tourist like me and added to the | Thanksgiving/colonial vibe. | mcdonje wrote: | Habitat is the major factor for wildlife populations. | | In 1900, Vermont was 30% forested after settlers cut down the | forests for wood, farmland, and mining. Now, Vermont is over 70% | forested. Tax structure is a large factor, but certainly not the | only one. | | Unfortunately, the trend is reversing. Sprawl is a factor. Dense | cities matter. | | https://www.uvm.edu/news/story/report-vermont-losing-1500-ac... | helen___keller wrote: | In a perfect world, we would have dense cities, we would have | wild land that belongs to nature, and we would have farmland; | and most land would fall into one of these classifications. | While we might see "market share" fluctuate between these, a | relatively stable population guarantees that we would not see a | huge loss of wild land. | | In reality, every state, every city, and every town are in a de | facto competition for tax dollars, and there is no central | planning. So instead of adding dense housing to desirable | Burlington, we clearcut forests or replace farmland to add low | density housing 10 miles away in a subdivision near Shelburne. | That family that was charmed to move to Vermont by the shops on | Bank st will end up driving to the nearby big box store in | Shelburne instead. The traffic will get worse, local farmland | starts disappearing because suburban land is more valuable on a | square foot basis, and once all the farms are gone the process | begins again another 5-10 miles out. | | It's a vicious cycle, and it creates an ecosystem where most | people can't even enjoy the city they came to love in the first | place because they live miles and miles away (and good luck | with traffic and parking) | dahfizz wrote: | > That family that was charmed to move to Vermont by the | shops on Bank st will end up driving to the nearby big box | store in Shelburne instead. | | Frankly, I don't think this happens with any frequency. | | The thing that makes Burlington so nice is how quiet, clean, | and spacious it is. Nobody moves to Burlington expecting it | to be NYC. If you try to make Burlington into NYC, you will | ruin it. | | People move to VT to be in nature. To be spread out. And it's | a nice benefit that they can visit a cool, small city every | once in a while. | helen___keller wrote: | > People move to VT to be in nature. To be spread out. | | This describes the vast majority of Vermont, but not | Burlington. It's not NYC but it's also not Montpelier and | it's definitely not Stowe. | | Burlington is the "small city" for people who want | everything local - local brewers, local farms, co-ops and | farmer's markets, etc. | | I'm not suggesting that Burlington should build highrises | everywhere. I'm suggesting that the building forms that | already exist in downtown Burlington - tightly packed 2-4 | story buildings - should perhaps continue a little further | out. It's possible to have urbanism that isn't Manhattan. | | With unchecked suburban sprawl, Burlington is going to | become the opposite of what it represents now - generic big | box stores and chains. | dont__panic wrote: | Precisely. Just look at what's happening to the Front | Range in Colorado -- Boulder and Fort Collins | specifically -- for a peek at the future of Burlington. | m0llusk wrote: | Competition can't be it because sprawl is terribly | uncompetitive by almost any metric. It seems more like there | is a large skew between what people think will make them | happy and what actually does work out to produce happiness. | JaimeThompson wrote: | >between what people think will make them happy and what | actually does work out to produce happiness. | | People aren't all the same some like having a yard, a | garden, and no people living right next to their walls. | helen___keller wrote: | Right, there's a LOT of rural and semi-rural places in | Vermont already if you aren't a fan of cities. In | particular though, we're seeing subdivisions of housing | sprout up in municipalities neighboring Burlington, | typical suburban developments that prey off the desire to | live in/near the city but avoid the high city prices (And | the high city prices stem from the fact that the city | itself, already more or less "fully" developed, has no | incentives to upzone and plan for growth) | | For example, take this listing | https://www.zillow.com/community/kwiniaska- | ridge/29091765_pl... | | Look at the descriptions used to sell it: | | > Just minutes from the lake and downtown Burlington you | have everything you need and already do. | | This isn't aimed at people looking to escape the city. | This is aimed at people looking to buy into the city at a | lower price point. | nerdponx wrote: | That or it's aimed at people trying to have it both ways. | | I know a couple of people like this, they claim they want | to get out of the city, but also aren't willing to live | more than 5 minutes from a supermarket. The result is a | compromise: suburban sprawl. | mcdonje wrote: | Having it both ways is best serviced by cities that | reduce sprawl. If you want to be where things are | happening, it's right there. If you want nature, it's | just outside of the city. Sprawl creates miles and miles | of area that isn't nature and isn't the center of | activity. It's a huge amount of infrastructure for a | design pattern that has a lot of environmental downsides | and doesn't help most people. | helen___keller wrote: | It's a local optimum. Wealthy suburbs are better than small | farms for tax dollars. There's lots of demand for housing | due to a neighboring municipality's desirability | (Burlington, VT). Ergo, it's worth replacing small farms | with suburbs that supply this demand. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >and every town are in a de facto competition for tax | dollars, | | So (mostly) turn off the faucet and make everywhere pay | closer to their own way. | | Not getting $1-$1.10 back on the dollar isn't gonna bankrupt | rural areas. It just means you the yuppies will have to | suffer through the state highway to the u-pick orchard being | replaced every 12yr instead of 10. | | The whole "pay taxes and then let whoever you paid them to | give you them back with strings attached about exactly how | you use it" model and designing to qualify for funding that | said model incentivizes is exactly how you wind up with | boondoggle sprawl. If places were using their own money | things would look very different. | banannaise wrote: | Urban spending is disproportionately police. If each area | pays their own way, urban areas get basically nothing but a | ton of police. Then the cops, who live in the suburbs, take | that money (and its potential tax revenue) elsewhere. | | You will note that this is already a problem, because we | already have a partial pay-your-own-way system. | ejb999 wrote: | >>Urban spending is disproportionately police. | | I don't think that is even close to true, NYC latest | budget for example is $92.3B (2022), Police got $5.42B, | about accounts for ~6% of the total. | | Education, social services and 'other' account for almost | 70% of the total. | | https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp- | content/uploads/sites/54/2... | mechanical_bear wrote: | > Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the | community. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | > Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the | community. | | Since when is "the community" roughly analogous to | "yuppies" and since when is being a yuppie a bad thing? | mechanical_bear wrote: | At least some would identify with the lifestyle, etc you | deemed "yuppie". You understand what you are doing with | comments like that, it's divisive and not productive. | | Edit: I won't edit my comment to better address your | comment since you edited after I responded. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Surely _some_ identify as yuppies but I think that 's | immaterial here. Yuppie isn't a slur. It's a colloquial | expression for a set of demographics. | | You know what's divisive and not productive? Drive-by low | effort comments quoting the guidelines and projecting | offense on other's behalf. | mechanical_bear wrote: | You are intentionally being obtuse and abrasive, please | reconsider. | nerdponx wrote: | Are you kidding? It's been a slur for a long time and you | were clearly using it as one. | nerdponx wrote: | Dense areas generally subsidize sparse areas. | mcdonje wrote: | Yes. Cities should build up instead of out. That means | changing building codes and zoning laws to reduce | restrictions on building heights. It also means investing in | transportation that can move people around with less space, | like light rail. | | Refusing to build up will lead to sprawl. Car-centric | transportation infrastructure will lead to sprawl and traffic | jams. Sprawl a bad scenario for everyone, including car | lovers. | DocTomoe wrote: | Building up destroys the desirability of places. No-one | wants to live in cypherpunk environments. See | https://www.clemensgritl.com/video | SwetDrems wrote: | Building up doesn't mean building a cypherpunk | environment. | | Building 4/5 story buildings with units for families is | enough for healthy urbanization. | ericmay wrote: | I agree, but would probably place residential height | limit around 3 stories (jump out of the window rule), and | then for things like hospitals you can go a little taller | maybe up to 20 stories. | | We have a serious problem in talking past each other | though. When people talk about building density the | conversation starts around skyscrapers (bad) like Hong | Kong or something, but what we need is just medium- | density, mixed use development so lots of single family | homes, narrow streets, walking/biking, and of course town | houses and apartments so we can get variety _and_ mixed | income levels living in the same place. The rich family | has the giant house on the corner. The young couple fresh | out of school lives in an apartment down the street. They | see each other every day at the coffee shop or at the | park in the neighborhood, or maybe even a local church, | gym, or office. | | And in building this way we can weave in healthy natural | aspects, trees, flowers, gardens, etc. and animals that | are better adapted for these environments can live or | "visit" these areas. Then as you get further away from | this town/city you just get more and more hills and | countryside and independent farms. | | We know how to do this. We choose not to. It's not | profitable for Mercedes if we all walk to work. It's not | profitable for Conagra if we grow our produce or buy from | an independent farmer. Not that these companies are | necessarily (although sometimes they are) evil or | anything, it's just an incentives alignment. And | unfortunately government officials literally just do not | understand what we need to do, so they're like empty | vessels chasing things like Sidewalk Labs in Toronto or | the Smart Cities Challenge in Columbus where all it | amounts to is a corporate handout because the only way to | solve a lot of the problems we have is just to build | correctly. No amount of EVs fixes our problems (I have an | EV btw). What does fix our problems is when families have | 1 car per family instead of 2-4, and 90% of their day-to- | day activities are within a short walking distance. We | need a lot less of this giant SUV to Costco 30 miles away | because you're cosplaying living in nature attitude. | | This is what an appropriately dense city looks like: | | https://twitter.com/trad_arch_bdays/status/15171411856676 | 003... | | This is what a correct neighborhood looks like: | | https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/9b/26/379b266652e0a2013 | c0c... | | This is an anti-pattern. It's devoid of life. | | https://facts.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/edward-he- | uKyzX... | | This is also absolutely dead. There is no nature here. | | http://media.beam.usnews.com/70/0d/89b92a674c3b894107a036 | 41e... | | Idk what it looks like yet but I'm going to figure out a | way to fix this. | helen___keller wrote: | Also, FWIW, the anti-pattern (shanghai skyline) is the | central business district of one of the most populated | cities on earth (30+ million people). It wouldn't make | sense to propose buildings anywhere that scale anywhere | but a handful of very rich cities. | | Even in Shanghai there's plenty of neighborhoods full of | life at a human-appropriate scale. Just not at city | center. | ericmay wrote: | Right - but I think when we have these conversations | people envision being "forced" to live in something that | resembles that central business district, and I want to | make it clear to others that at least in the interest | circles I run in, this would be considered a bad idea | too. | | I question whether we should even have cities with 30 | million people. That's probably a problem too. People | like to point to what appears to be lower c02 emissions, | but that's not the only metric that matters. Metrics that | I care about would be something like independent farmers | per-capita, bikes per-capita, distance of travel for | produce, etc. | helen___keller wrote: | Right on | | > People like to point to what appears to be lower c02 | emissions, but that's not the only metric that matters. | | On that note, central business districts & skyscrapers | aren't actually that great environmentally, although the | city model as a whole is much better environmentally than | their suburban counterparts. | | And it's certainly possible to build a dense, urban city | housing even millions of people without a massive central | business district. I think, more than anything, the | central business district is an artifact of how we | organize ourselves economically (IE the economy is | dominated by relatively few massive corporations). This | is harder to change but certainly not impossible. | ericmay wrote: | Yes! I think it's a historical anomaly, product of nation | states which we are just now (or perhaps we just were) | winding down from. WW1 and WW2 begot General Electric, | The European Union, IBM, the Chinese Communist Party, and | the Central Business District which were needed to create | the organizational scale and ability to conduct war on | the nation state level. | | When people left the military they went to familiar | environments. You "paid your dues" just like a private | did. You stayed with the same company. Etc. But that's | all changing. Historically that was not the case (well | historically we didn't really have companies for that | long, but you get the point). So I think we will revert | to a more natural flow, which is more decentralization | and fragmentation. I think this is inevitable, but I | wish/hope/want to avoid the waste of resources in | creating these things in the first place. | DocTomoe wrote: | You paint a very inviting image, that makes a lot of | sense - until you realise that low-income, three-story | living units often looks more like | | https://www.fotocommunity.de/photo/plattenbau-dessau- | tobias-... | | ... which clearly is not what encourages building a | community like you imagine. | | Before someone comes and says that I picked the worst | image I could find ... nope. This is the standard for | "affordable multi-story apartment housing" in my rather | affluent country. In many parts we actively demolish them | because no-one wants to live there (location is often | semi-suburban) and because they are breed a social- | problem-area. | ericmay wrote: | Couldn't agree more. We should stop building bullshit | like that (i.e. modern style that is soulless and devoid | of humanity) and instead just build great looking | apartments. Typically people will say "oh but that's so | expensive look at how much these cost" but they're | expensive because we don't build them, and they are | highly desirable. | | These are just some random examples in Paris. We should | build more like this. We can. There are no barriers. | None. | | https://bonjourparis.com/wp- | content/uploads/2016/03/Montmart... | | https://www.girlsguidetoparis.com/wp- | content/uploads/2014/08... | lovich wrote: | I kinda want to live in a cyberpunk environment but I | also don't have kids which makes that an easier choice. | My spouse and I take our vacations in dense urban centers | instead of tropical or rural destinations precisely | because we like the culture and energy of super high | density environments | L_Rahman wrote: | If this is true, why do the cities with the tallest | buildings have the highest cost per unit area of housing | and commercial real estate, population density and GDP | per capita? | DocTomoe wrote: | These "tallest buildings" usually are not mass-available | apartment buildings - they are mostly office buildings | and house few, exclusive apartments. Once you pack | thousands of people into flats in such buildings, the | appeal shrinks, quickly. | giantg2 wrote: | "Cities should build up instead of out. That means changing | building codes and zoning laws to reduce restrictions on | building heights." | | I'll probably be hated for this, as usual... You also have | to have people who _want_ to live there. Personal | preferences and overall population seem to be important | factors overlooked (or conveniently ignored) by many during | these conversations. It 's more convenient to focus solely | on zoning. | whatshisface wrote: | The great thing about libertarian arguments is that the | liberty is a built-in safety valve. We can say all we | want about how dense cities are better, but as long as | we're saying "quit zoning for suburban development and | let people decide for themselves how high of a floor they | want to live on," and not, "drive humanity by threat of | force into towering Warhammer-40k-esque hive cities," | there's very little chance of accidentally walking into a | nightmare. If we're accomplishing it with liberty, we | retain the ability to walk out. | giantg2 wrote: | I'm not talking about forcing people. I'm saying even if | zoning is changed to higher density, demand will still | see more sprawling sfh development because that is what | many people want. So the higher density zoning isn't | going to prevent additional development of natural areas | (in the context of the article). | whatshisface wrote: | If anyone wants to live in the high rises, each one of | them is one less house in the sprawl. I'm not saying that | everyone will decide they like city life better, only | that some people will and it will help the situation. | That _may_ even be enough to stop the extinctions. | giantg2 wrote: | "each one of them is one less house in the sprawl." | | Sure, maybe it slows it. But that's also less | competition, which means the supply-demand equilibrium | will shift so that when people who want to live in low | density areas can have larger lots and houses. Pretty | much offsetting the choices of the others. | | Not to mention any increase in population will lead to | increase in resource utilization, thus increase in | natural resource exploitation. | helen___keller wrote: | > Sure, maybe it slows it. | | correct. You can't stop sprawl just by upzoning, but | maybe you can slow it. It takes a suite of urban planning | effort to really combat sprawl, and allowing people to | construct and live in dense neighborhoods of their own | free will is just the first baby step in that direction. | | > the supply-demand equilibrium will shift [..] Pretty | much offsetting the choices of the others. | | There's no basis for this statement. It sounds like | you're suggesting that farmland and woods already don't | exist, so if people move into dense regions, then we're | just shuffling the remaining land zero-sum among those | who would prefer not to live in the city. | | There are, in fact, plenty of places that haven't yet | been taken over by humans. And when people looking to | move to a city can move _to the city_ , companies are | less incentivized to develop and subdivide 20 miles from | the city. | | So, it's not zero sum. Allowing more people to live in | the city decreases the demand for development out of the | city. | whatshisface wrote: | > _You can 't stop sprawl just by upzoning, but maybe you | can slow it._ | | Population growth appears to be leveling off globally, | which implies that if sprawl was slowed enough it could | be stopped completely. | giantg2 wrote: | "There's no basis for this statement." | | Basic economics, really. | | "There are, in fact, plenty of places that haven't yet | been taken over by humans." | | That's shrinking rapidly. You could watch A Life On This | Planet for some insight on the scope of | development/utilization. | wing-_-nuts wrote: | I'd have no problem living in dense housing if codes | mandated _GOOD_ noise insulation. So many apartment walls | seem to be made out of cardboard, it 's ridiculous. | helen___keller wrote: | I think most places with this sort of zoning discussion | (cities) have no shortage of demand for housing | giantg2 wrote: | It can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. It depends | on what type of demand there is too (sfh vs apt, etc). | | If the majority of people had a preference for condos, | then we wouldn't see large single family homes being | developed. Even in areas where zoning is more lax (many | suburbs). | tomtheelder wrote: | Suburbs have some of the strictest zoning, frequently | mandating SFH, often with even more extreme requirements | stacked on top of that (lot sizes, height restrictions, | etc). Our R1 housing supply is artificially high because | of zoning restrictions. Suburbs with lax zoning tend to | see a lot of condo development. | | But in a general sense you don't actually see massive SFH | sprawl when you don't have R1 zoning. You tend to get | denser areas, often with a belt of SFH around them. | Realistically that's fine, and is a model that works | around the world. | | Also, housing trends just have a lot of inertia. It takes | decades of policy change to alter the landscape. Much of | the US was either zoned R1 or build up that way because | of social and political forces that aren't necessarily | relevant any more, but moving away from that is a glacial | process. | helen___keller wrote: | > If the majority of people had a preference for condos, | then we wouldn't see large single family homes being | developed | | I'm saying that these sort of zoning discussions are most | common in areas that are (a) very high demand broadly | across the entire housing stock, and (b) very restrictive | on what can be built where | | For example, I live in Cambridge, MA. There is a critical | housing shortage. There is very little choice in what | gets developed; development generally only happens if you | have a large team to push the development through the | necessary approvals and reviews, such as telling the | zoning board that if they allow your non-compliant | building then you'll sponsor a park and set aside 10% of | your units as income restricted. Even the existing | structures tend to be "illegal" because they were | grandfathered in from the 1920s or earlier, when zoning | did not exist. The only new developments that meet this | bar are ultra expensive condo buildings and offices. | | Whether the demand exists is not in question. Whatever | gets built, people will live in it. But there is very | much a question of what is allowed to be built. Some | people want more condo buildings. Some people say it | ruins the neighborhood character. But whether a condo | building can find residents isn't really in question. | giantg2 wrote: | "But whether a condo building can find residents isn't | really in question." | | That wasn't questioned. It was questioned if zoning will | actually prevent development of natural lands. Unless | _everyone_ want to live in high density housing, there | would be a point where additional condos would not find | willing tenants (much higher than current levels for some | localities). | | The point is there are a significant portion of the | population that want low density housing and the sprawl | will continue. | | And on the overall population side, increasing resource | demand will continue to tax the natural world. We will | need more land for feeding/clothing/etc the increasing | population. | lovich wrote: | You've got a point on there being a demand for low | density housing but wouldn't zoning be able to prevent | the sprawl the same way it's currently encouraging it? | They could easily(for certain values of easy, it's | probably politically infeasible) zone land as not | developable | giantg2 wrote: | There are places that zone for conservation. There are | also organizations that buy land and place deed | restrictions against developing it, then resell it. | | There are areas around me that do these as well as allow | for high density housing. These areas are suburbs, small | towns, and small cities in the Philly region. We still | have sprawl, and prices are relatively high. Even though | it's possible to build high density housing in many | areas, most people don't. They can get more for large sfh | since there's a lot of demand for that. There are some | apartments and condos being built, but it seems most of | them are pretty expensive or upscale. So even though the | zoning is permissive, sfh are the primary construction | due to preferences. The conservation can also inflate | prices by restricting supply and introducing regulations | to deal with. | | Just an aside on the regulations... some of them can be | extremely stupid, like a prohibition on impermeable | surfaces being interpreted to include stuff like | _gravel_. If gravel is an impermeable surface, then maybe | we can take the regulator to the desert and pour their | water on some gravel and come back in a few days... | 7952 wrote: | In addition to dense cities suburban areas could have more | natural planting instead of dead lawns. | dhairya wrote: | Cambridge and Boston are fantastic for spring migration birding | and fall migration birding, especially Mount Auburn Cemetery in | Cambridge. There's a resident barred owl and red tail that swoops | in quite close when walking about. | https://ebird.org/hotspot/L207391 | | If you are taking a day hike in the Blue Hills, take main road | before the hill summit to right for about a mile to the trailside | museum. I discovered by accident and it's super cool as it has a | public wildlife sanctuary attached with foxes, otters, eagles, | snowy owls and other cool animals. | abakker wrote: | Yes...but, the deer population is out of control and demand | greater reintroduction of predators. | | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03781... | | The issue is that deer effect forest regeneration, and there | needs to be an increase in seedlings to keep the habitat healthy. | Deer definitely effect oak trees, and so the forest makeup in | places like CT is shifting to more maple and less oak. As a | result it makes it harder for other species that depend on mast | trees for food. | | The solution isn't for us to just exterminate deer, but we need | to be careful about that population growing out of control. | mcdonje wrote: | Deer like the edges of forests. Lots of wildlife departments | purposely shape forests to have more edge areas in order to | increase the deer population so they can sell more hunting | licenses. | fryz wrote: | It's cool to see some commentary regarding how hunters and | federal policy helped (and hurt). | | The National Wild Turkey Foundation is solely responsible for the | reintroduction of the turkey across most of the entire US. The | entire purpose of the mission was to bring wild turkey | populations up for hunting, and that hunters would be the best | way to conserve and manage the population. | | An excellent podcast done by Steve Rinella (another | hunter/conservationist, famous for his Meat Eater TV Show) about | the topic: | https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-104-turks. | | From the episode: the way the NWTF and DOW people captured Wild | Turkeys was to design a gun that could shoot webs, capture the | turkeys, throw them into a van, and drive them out and drop them | off in the woods in another state. | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: | Piggybacking off this. | | If anyone reading this has the gut reaction that hunting and | conservation don't go hand in hand, please listen to Steve | Rinella and Shane Mahoney's podcast episodes about the North | American Model of Wildlife Conservation.[0][1] | | As an American, it is a huge source of pride. | | [0] https://www.themeateater.com/listen/the-hunting- | collective-2... | | [1] https://www.themeateater.com/listen/the-hunting- | collective-2... | rupi wrote: | Second this one. Absolutely amazing listen, especially if you | grew up thinking hunters just go around shooting anything | that moves, which admittedly, I did. | burntoutfire wrote: | > gun that could shoot webs, capture the turkeys, throw them | into a van, and drive them out and drop them off in the woods | in another state | | Sounds like one hell of a gun. | larrik wrote: | Hunters were the bulk of the original conversation/nature | pushes historically, since they want lots of outdoor space and | large animal populations. They bumped heads a bit with | preservationists, but at the time most people felt nature was | something to be conquered or done away with in the pursuit of | progress (up until shockingly recently, frankly). | meroes wrote: | Conservation of what and for whom? In England the hunting | land was for the royalty. Anyone caught in royal hunting | grounds was severely punished and probably executed for | hunting. | nerdponx wrote: | Judging by the flat green lawns and lack of trees in most | suburbs in New England, I get the impression that a lot of | people still feel that way. | larrik wrote: | This sounds more like new developments (where they level | the land before building anything). Most older | neighborhoods are much more diverse. | AbrahamParangi wrote: | Flat lawns and few trees doesn't sound like any New England | I'm familiar with. | nerdponx wrote: | Certainly not in rural Maine or Vermont, but huge tracts | of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are like | this. | bee_rider wrote: | Where? I grew up in the coastal area of MA, most of the | yards had trees as far as I remember. Is this a Middle | Mass thing? | | I'd believe they clear cut their yards in Connecticut, | but that's just because Connecticut is devoted to doing | things as wrong as possible while still being part of New | England. | ericmay wrote: | Yea but it's also because people aren't able to connect the | dots. Like I live in the suburbs in Ohio, I want to | preserve nature, but I'm kind of trapped in my environment. | We've planted trees, we do gardening, and we're adding | plants that attract pollinators, but there's only so much | we can do. | foobarian wrote: | I don't know which part of New England you live in but the | part I see is the most tree-lined residential area on the | globe. | flyingfences wrote: | > funding the recovery of the game species through the sale of | licenses, tags, and stamps, as well as a 1937 federal law that | placed an 11 percent excise tax on hunting weapons, including | guns, ammunition, and archery equipment. | | The Pittman-Robertson tax raises nearly a billion dollars a year | for conservation and wildlife management. | Finnucane wrote: | This is us: | | https://xkcd.com/1871/ | jmclnx wrote: | Where I am, there were lots of buns, plus song birds. But 3 | neighbors got cats and they let them out all the time, after 6 | months the bunnies and song birds are now all gone. | | I wish NE would do what I heard New Zealand is now doing, | forcing people to keep their cats indoors. | | But nice cartoon, I do not know how I missed it, I read xkcd | daily. | rory wrote: | Conversely, my neighborhood on Cape Cod is absolutely overrun | by bunnies, to the point where we could probably use a few | cats to keep things in balance. | | Things used to be more reasonable, but as more people started | living here full time, it seems the foxes were pushed back | out of the immediate neighborhood. | | Disturbingly, our dogs have a knack for finding nests and | tossing around the baby bunnies, apparently without any | intention to kill and eat them. They sound EXACTLY like | squeak toys. | oneoff786 wrote: | Boston does have a lot of good buns | | Randall also lives in MA I believe so yeah it's also him | nerdponx wrote: | The Boston North Shore suburbs seem to have so many more | bunnies than other similar areas in the northeast. Different | climate? Lack of predators? Better food? | 1970-01-01 wrote: | They're not supposed to be there. They were introduced a | hundred years ago and are competing with the native cotton | tail. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_cottontail | nerdponx wrote: | Interesting, I assumed they _were_ the native cottontail! | Is there a reliable way to tell them apart? | | Edit: Wikipedia says that they are morphologically almost | identical. Is the species distinction just a matter of | genetics at this point? Normally I am bothered by | invasive species, but somehow this doesn't seem to be | such a problem, if you literally can't tell them apart | without molecular analysis or looking at minor | differences in their skulls. | | I am aware that similar situations have happened with | house sparrows and starlings, where they have so | successfully outcompeted the natives that you would think | they were the native dominant species. At least starlings | are easy to identify and can't be confused with anything | native, but I don't think I could tell apart the | different sparrows. | sdenton4 wrote: | Sparrows are easier to differentiate by their | vocalizations (mostly). Many have a species-distinct | opening to their song. | | Different species of sparrow also occupy different | habitat, and fill somewhat different ecological niches. | | I'm less familiar with rabbit vocalizations. :) | oneoff786 wrote: | They can honk a bit when excited or growl. Probably won't | see a wild rabbit doing any of that. | Finnucane wrote: | ehh, what's up, doc. | lovich wrote: | Rat extermination efforts have also removed a predator. | When rats are abundant they will wipe out rabbits as they | will enter their warrens and prey on the rabbit kits. I | was in Somerville when they broke ground on the green | line expansion which drove the rats that had been nesting | in untouched government land for years into the | neighborhood. Over the course of ~2 months we went from | rabbits everywhere to them becoming locally extinct and | having been replaced by rats | gwbas1c wrote: | I live a little south of Boston. In the spring I often get large | rafters (herds) of turkeys on my lawn. Sometimes there are 30 or | more going through my neighborhood. | | My 1-year-old loves staring at the window and pointing at the | toms (males) with their giant plumes. They look like peacocks | when they spread their tail feathers out to attract a hen. I have | to sit my daughter at the window while we eat breakfast because | she just has to stare at them. | | Apparently turkeys prefer to mate in fields, so they like doing | their thing on lawns. Good to know that at least something wile | benefits from mine. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-04-21 23:01 UTC)