Meeting Minutes
Properties
Wetlands
Conservation
and More
Your Back Yard
Maps
How to Help

Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #136, March, 2003
Small Things and the Ballot Box

How many small things does it take to make a big thing? Or, asking it another way, when is something too small to count?

Believe it or not, spring rains and meltwater are on the way. Under the snow woodland depressions are beginning to fill. Water is covering the leaves that fell last fall on what then was dry land. Now these depressions are becoming what are called vernal pools. Some will last only a few weeks, others, depending on rainfall, will hold water into early summer. Size isn’t a factor in identifying these features. And pools of all sizes are factors in some critter’s life cycle.

Take the woods along Baboosic Lake Road for example. What happens here on a spring evening is by no means unique. With the first spring rain the spotted salamanders get the urge and travel from winter hiding places towards the vernal pools. In a salamander’s case, a cold shower is encouragement, not deterrent. Dozens of salamanders move across the road to the pools in the woods south of the road. Elsewhere the ritual is being repeated as hundreds and hundreds of the animals are on the move.

Spring peepers are not far behind in seeking a vernal breeding spot. Small places for small animals are immeasurably important. Another factor in the vitality and value of a vernal pool is the wetland buffer around it. Buffers (a strip of undisturbed natural land) and wetlands go together with one enhancing the environmental value of the other. Unfortunately, too often as land that marginally meets zoning requirements becomes ripe for development, these small places get in the way.

This writer believes a small woodland pool of any size is much more an asset to the critters and to the town than another house lot and 2 point whatever additional small young folk to find room for in the schoolhouse. After all, it is easier on the wallet to keep the woods wooded than to find the tax dollars for another classroom.

Last Update: