Greets Tweets --
As I drive home from work along the Merrill-Ring Creek Road every morning
I find myself angrily muttering vile invectives at the habitat destruction I
see. Daily I curse construction (destruction) machinery and the people who
work for the companies that operate it. (I know I am not being fair. I know
I am a hypocrite for basking in the 'healthy economy' created by high
employment.) In the seven years I have been driving the six miles to work
along this route I have known that the Merrill-Ring Creek Road and Seaway
Blvd. have been designated for a business park -- I think it is called
Seaway Park -- but it hurts to see it happen.
When I first started driving to Fluke from Everett, the whole of the
Merrill-Ring Creek Road was wooded. I drive this route because, in the past,
I have always seen coyotes, owls, ring-neck pheasant, deer, raccoons,
rabbits, and 'possums on my way to work. I hear the wide variety of birds
singing on my way home in the mornings. Now the road is almost entirely
occupied by buildings. I can't help but think of all the insects, spiders,
amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals that were displaced and killed the
day before as more and more companies buy up land, and rearrange it to be
only fit for human, starling, and robin habitation.
Every day, as I drive this road, I curse, cry at the destruction of the
earth, and am aware of my own guilty hypocrisy -- I work in a building in the
area, are my hands less bloody than the owners or the construction
(destruction) companies?
This morning as I drove home my mind flipped back through the recent
Tweeters postings about the person who wanted to get rid of a swallow's home
that had been built under her eaves. As I recall, several Tweeters responded
by waving the 'Migratory Bird Act' flag over Tweeterdom. I have never read
the Act but I know the woods that abut the Merrill-Ring Creek Road are filled
with a host of migratory birds. Most of the 'destruction' is done in the
spring, when birds and mammals are raising young. How many non-human homes
are destroyed in the name of development!
My question is: Aren't 'destruction' companies subject to following the
Act too (like the person with the swallow nest)? Has anyone (or everyone
except me) in Tweeterdom read the Migratory Bird Act, and does it say
anything in it about 'new construction (destruction)'? If so, how is the Act
policed?
Jo Waldron
Everett, WA
joaw9 at aol.com
<A HREF="http://rainforest.care2.com/">Race for the Rain Forest</A>