On Tue, 2 Jul 1996, Dennis Paulson wrote:
> [...] All we can do at this point, I think, is shake our
> heads with the realization of the extent of some of the ramifications of
> our changes in the landscape (including, for example, the garbage available
> everywhere for crows). I'm afraid that--exactly as David Wright said--the
> "Pacific Northwest Native Wildlife Gardening" that Allyn espouses and that
> I follow vigorously won't really exacerbate the problems of urbanization
> vis-a-vis wildlife, or at least vis-a-vis migratory birds and many other
> elements of our wildlife.

Like Dennis (and Allyn as well, I believe) I am cynical enough to
believe that packing our yards with native plants is not going to
transform them them into microcosms of healthy Puget Sound lowland
habitat, as long as they remain tiny islands in a sea of lawns, and
as long as they continue to have unnaturally high levels of predator
pressure. I think that cats are a bigger problem than crows and
cowbirds in many places, including suburban Seattle, and that removing
cats from the picture would yield positive results even if crows and
cowbirds remain (hey, it's a testable hypothesis).

But I am also starry-eyed enough (and evidently Dennis is, too) to
believe that it is worth trying to overcome these obstacles, and I
admire people who are working toward that end. If yards in suburbs
were dominated by native plants (it's only natural that folks would
want to have a few magnolias and rhodies), and the back of each yard
was heavily planted and merged with that of neighboring yards to form
a continuous strip down the center of each block, and these strips lined
up to connect small wooded islands throughout the 'burbs, that would be
a lot of potential foraging and nesting habitat for many species. Yes,
edge and scaling effects would prevent restoration of a complete
representation of Puget lowland fauna, but the result would be much
better than the present situation. [Which species might be expected to
live in our yards? It might be possible to model this at least roughly
via methods that Heaney and Patterson have been using to account for
area/fauna relationships for mammals in the Phillipine Islands and
montane New Mexico.] And if cats weren't covering every square inch of
turf they can reach, every day, ground- and low shrub-nesting species
might even have a chance.

All this would require is major changes in what a threshold number
of people view as desirable in their yards, and in responsibility of
cat owners...

David Wright
Seattle, WA
dwright at u.washington.edu