Don's Jersey Birding: They paved paradise and put up solar panels
All that is left of a small woodland sight where wildlife once thrived.
Photos courtesy of Don Torino
It wasn't much as size goes; it wasn't Yellowstone or Yosemite. It wasn't as important as the rainforest or the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. There were no rare endangered species like the Spotted Owl or California Condor. It wasn't any of these things. It was a small stand of hardwood forest nestled in an industrial area of Moonachie - my home town.
The small woodland lot was there ever since I could remember. In the summer, us boys would make forts out of the fallen trees and branches. Remember making forts? Catching snakes was a great pastime for young boys. Garter and Brown Snakes were always abundant there and provided great fun for budding 12 year old naturalists.
As I got older and birding played a bigger part of my life, my little patch of wilderness became a spot close to home for me to view migrating Warblers and watch a Red-tailed Hawk nab a squirrel or two.
My little Eden was also a sanctuary of native plants; at least 5 species of oaks stood like stubborn statues defiant to the surrounding concrete and metal. In the spring, Wild Pink Azalea made the small woodland lot nestled between two warehouses into a magical sight. Later, Summersweet carpeted the forest floor and smelled as if a candle had been lit, from its fragrant white flowers. In fall, the red berries of the Spicebush provided an important food source for the migratory birds to rest and refuel for the long journey ahead.
Solar power sounds great until they begin to destroy wildlife habitat to do it.
Make no mistake that, despite its urban location, the woods on Caesars Place in Moonachie was wildlife habitat as much as any state forest or park; it was an oasis in the middle of industry. Maybe no one thought it was important enough, big enough, or cared enough, but either way it is gone.
Maybe the Warblers would find a new place to stop, the Red-bellied Woodpeckers a new place to nest, Red-tailed Hawks another place to find prey, and then again maybe they wouldn't.
And to add insult to injury, as if by some ironic environmental idea gone awry, this woodland habitat has been destroyed to make way for a field of solar panels. That's right, the alternative fuels, carbon footprint, and save the Earth idea of solar power has now been used to destroy the environment. Had no thought gone into this decision? Did the planners even give a second thought to what they might be doing? Or how it would affect the local environment ? Or is the same old mindset that big oil and coal used to destroy wildlife now being used by the advocates of solar power - the same folks we were naive enough to believe cared about the Earth.
One morning very soon I expect to pick up the newspaper and see a few smiling guys with suits, ties, and hard hats shaking hands with local politicians all congratulating themselves on how "GREEN" they all are, how much they saved the Earth, and struck a blow for global warming. But as they are patting themselves on the back, there will be a few people that will remember what really happened. The plants and animals were lost to the same greed that drives all our other adversaries of nature. Now we can add some of our solar power friends to our environmental watch list. Maybe we need to change the words from the old Joni Mitchell Song "Big Yellow Taxi" from "they paved paradise to put up a parking lot" to "they paved paradise to put up solar panels".
When natural places are lost, no matter how small or how seemingly unimportant, it is not only wildlife that loses out. A neighborhood can lose a part of its soul; no kind of solar power that I know of can replace that.
Don Torino is the President of Bergen County Audubon Society.
Categories: Don's Jersey Birding
Tags: solar panels wildlife forest Moonachie woods wildlife habitat
DON- GREAT ARTICLE. WE HAVE ALL STRUGGLED TO SAVE THE MEADOWLANDS BUT UNFORTUNATELY ITS THE LITTLE REMAINING HARDWOOD FOREST COMPONENT THAT IS MOST THREATENED. THE SOLAR PANELS COULD JUST AS EASILY BEEN PLACED ON INDUSTRIAL ROOFTOPS OR CANOPY TYPE STRUCTURES OVER PARKING LOTS AND SERVED THE SAME PURPOSE.NO CONSIDERATION WAS GIVEN TO THE VALUE LOST TO THE ENVIRONMENT.
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