From donniebird at yahoo.com Thu May 8 04:44:46 2008 From: donniebird at yahoo.com (Donnie R) Date: Thu May 8 04:44:44 2008 Subject: [BCNnet] Save Sabal Palm from the Border Wall Message-ID: <001001c8b0f0$272a1c90$6501a8c0@drdmacbook> Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 7205 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080508/f083b942/attachment-0001.jpe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 4469 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080508/f083b942/attachment-0001.gif From ejgins at gmail.com Thu May 8 17:54:42 2008 From: ejgins at gmail.com (e g) Date: Thu May 8 17:55:00 2008 Subject: [BCNnet] ABA Border Wall Resolution Message-ID: http://www.americanbirding.org/announcement042908.html Border Wall Resolution The following resolution was adopted unanimously by the ABA Board of Directors during a special meeting in April. Its adoption was the result of considerable deliberation. The resolution expresses the Association's deep concern with the currently announced plans to build a wall along much of our border with Mexico. Of specific interest to ABA is the manner in which significant habitat on some of North America's truly iconic birding sites will be negatively impacted in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Indeed, it would appear that the level of consideration normally considered minimal for projects of this size, regardless of the habitat in question, has not been approached. Our almost 17,000 members constitute the largest organized group of advanced field birders in North America. We are considered a leader in the broad recreation of birding. The vast majority of our membership is very familiar with both the wildlife and habitat in the Valley and the significant contribution made to the area's economy by a vibrant nature tourism sector. That contribution is dependent upon the existing and continually improved habitat. The degradation and loss of this important habitat will have a major negative impact on the economy and the lives of citizens in the Valley. Therefore, we urge you to be attentive to the concerns addressed in the resolution. Dick Payne President & CEO Full text of the resolution adopted by the ABA Board of Directors On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 4:48 AM, wrote: > Send bcnnet mailing list submissions to > bcnnet@ece.iit.edu > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://www.ece.iit.edu/mailman/listinfo/bcnnet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > bcnnet-request@ece.iit.edu > > You can reach the person managing the list at > bcnnet-owner@ece.iit.edu > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of bcnnet digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Great Texas/American birding areas & The Wall (s) > (Geoffrey Williamson) > 2. Save Sabal Palm from the Border Wall (Donnie R) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:08:20 -0500 > From: Geoffrey Williamson > Subject: [BCNnet] Great Texas/American birding areas & The Wall (s) > To: bcnnet@ece.iit.edu > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > The message below was sent by Steve Bailey > (sdbailey@mail.inhs.uiuc.edu) to BCNNet on 7 Apr 2008, but it didn't > manage to be posted to the list. > - G. Williamson > > > > Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:43:59 -0500 > To: BCN Net > From: Steve Bailey > Subject: Great Texas/American birding areas & The Wall (s) > > Hello all, > Hopefully this fits within the rules of BCN. After Sheryl DeVore > having just returned from a very enjoyable Rio Grande Valley birding > trip a > few weeks ago, I am extremely saddened, shocked and dismayed at many > of the plans for a wall (actually a double-wall), that apparently is > to be built through some of the United States best and most visited > birding locations, very soon. There may not be anything that we can do > at this > point, but letters, phone calls and/or e-mails are appropriate from > the many Illinois birders I know who bird this area. I check the sign- > in sheets at many of these places and there are always several > Illinois birders names when I do. I strongly encourage folks to at > least read several of the posts currently accessible on the Texas > birding listserve > ( http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/TEXS.html ) involving the > severe affects that will be had on places like Salineno, Sabal Palm > Grove, Santa Margarita Ranch, Santa Ana NWR and many other areas near > the Rio Grande River. To me it seems pretty amazing about the > destruction that will be wrought on some of these areas! > To me, especially from reading posts on the Texas birdlist, > this issue could really benefit from the input from folks from out of > the state of Texas speaking out about how important the Rio Grande > Valley birding areas are to them. I will likely dump my membership in > the ABA if I find no active role from them on this topic. After all, > if the birding community has no role in helping concerning this topic, > then who?! Although there are other issues concerning this topic, > other parties, not knowing all of the stakes involved in this project, > will likely opt for putting up the wall(s). > > Steve Bailey > Rantoul (Champaign Co) > sdbailey@mail.inhs.uiuc.edu > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Thu, 8 May 2008 04:44:46 -0500 > From: "Donnie R" > Subject: [BCNnet] Save Sabal Palm from the Border Wall > To: "'BCN'" > Message-ID: <001001c8b0f0$272a1c90$6501a8c0@drdmacbook> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part > -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: not available > Type: image/jpeg > Size: 7205 bytes > Desc: not available > Url : > http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080508/f083b942/attachment.jpe > -------------- next part -------------- > A non-text attachment was scrubbed... > Name: not available > Type: image/gif > Size: 4469 bytes > Desc: not available > Url : > http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080508/f083b942/attachment.gif > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > bcnnet mailing list > bcnnet@ece.iit.edu > http://www.ece.iit.edu/mailman/listinfo/bcnnet > > > End of bcnnet Digest, Vol 64, Issue 1 > ************************************* > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080508/f5c535e9/attachment.html From issuesman50 at yahoo.com Tue May 20 07:30:23 2008 From: issuesman50 at yahoo.com (Joe Suchecki) Date: Tue May 20 07:30:44 2008 Subject: [BCNnet] Springbrook Breeding Birds Sprint Saturday - You're Invited Message-ID: <19910.92135.qm@web38705.mail.mud.yahoo.com> The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County is documenting the nesting birds at several of its preserves this year including Springbrook Prairie in Naperville. This is essentially a mini-atlas project. I am helping by organizing a Springbrook Breeding Bird Sprint this Saturday, May 24th and a couple other dates in June. Essentially I would like to get a group of birders together to cover the entire site in spring-count type fashion and to also search and document evidence of breeding. If you are interested in helping, we are meeting Saturday morning at the main parking lot for Springbrook on 83rd Street west of Book Road in Naperville at 7:00am. Meet at the picnic shelter. From there, we will organize and fan out across the 1800 acre site. - Information,maps, and instructions will be provided. We will return to the shelter between 10 and 10:30 to hear results. Should be fun. Let me know if you will attend so that I can plan accordingly. Information is also available on the DuPage Birding Club website. Joe Suchecki Naperville 630-369-5570 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080520/0a041a31/attachment.html From rbdoeker at yahoo.com Thu May 29 08:48:21 2008 From: rbdoeker at yahoo.com (Randi Doeker - Chicago) Date: Thu May 29 08:48:46 2008 Subject: [BCNnet] Trib article on restoration at LaBagh Woods Message-ID: <005e01c8c192$a8cc33c0$4001a8c0@rbde5348707dc8> FYI - Randi Doeker Future of Northwest Side woods divides environmentalists into 2 camps Restoration of preserve near Sauganash divides concerned By Ron Grossman Tribune reporter 11:56 PM CDT, May 28, 2008 Inside LaBagh Woods on Chicago's Northwest Side, it seems like the distance to a big-city neighborhood would have to be measured not in blocks but centuries. Oak trees' wrinkled bark gives them the look of craggy sentinels. Thick stands of buckthorn screen off the outside world. Deer foraging along the Chicago River casually look up at the sound of human footsteps. Certainly this is the primeval landscape that greeted the first European settlers to arrive here. Or is it? That question is being hotly debated in Sauganash, the neighborhood of stately homes and manicured lawns adjoining the woods. It's an argument that divides environmentalists into warring camps-each armed with mental maps of what they are convinced this 150-acre section of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County looked like before there was a Cook County. Those who worry that Illinois' Prairie State heritage is endangered argue that growing room must be provided for the wildflowers that dotted the prairies before being plowed into cornfields and subdivisions-even if it means clear-cutting bushes and trees, a process known as restoration. Others are just as adamant about preserving northern Illinois' remaining islands of trees-like those that were beacons to pioneers from woodlands further east. For a while, all those arguments were moot, as former Cook County Board President John Stroger placed a moratorium on restoration efforts in 1996. That round went to anti-burn activists. But in 2001, Stroger lifted the ban for some of the county's woods, and in 2006 interim board President Bobbie Steele ended it for LaBagh Woods as well. This spring the hostilities resumed in earnest, with one side arguing that Mother Nature needs an occasional helping hand and the other saying: Don't interfere. Forester John McCabe scoffs at the hands-off-the-woods faction. "That's not what they're doing with their own lawns," he said. "All we're doing is managing our lawns, so to speak." McCabe, who works for the Forest Preserve District, is in charge of a woodland-management program that uses chain saws and fire to clear underbrush and what it dubs undesirable plant species from forest preserve lands. To opponents, that's a contradiction in terms: If you cut down or burn something, where's the restoring? "Remember the movie 'How Green Was My Valley'?" said Paula Fitzgerald, a partisan of the anti-restoration movement and a Sauganash resident. "This is 'How Burned Was My Valley.' " As is often the case when passions run high, each side claims the rational high ground, accusing the other of being blinded by emotion. "The vast body of science favors restoration," said Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, whose 10th District includes Sauganash. "It didn't take me long to find out that restoration is not good science," countered Mary Lee Paoletti, who lives next to LaBagh Woods. A retired science teacher, she used to volunteer for forest preserve cleanup projects but said the experience caused her to switch sides. Some people with similar tales to tell bill themselves as "recovering restorationists." In the battle of endorsements, those on the side of restoration have the green-movement biggies. The Sierra Club and Audubon Society support controlled burns as a forest management method. But the naysayers have support too: Trees for Life, Urban Wildlife Coalition, Natural Forest Advocates. Quigley said LaBagh has to be cleaned of buckthorn and other invasive species that elbow out other plants, such as the prairie wildflowers he would like to see bloom again. Paoletti is unconvinced. "Didn't they ever hear of Darwin?" she said. Some species win, others lose; that's evolution, she said. This spring, aldermen started hearing from constituents, among them Ald. Brian Doherty, whose 41st Ward is to the west of LaBagh Woods. He took a look and didn't like what he saw: Not just saplings but mature trees had been cut down, he said. To him, it seemed someone wanted to get the job done before political winds turned again. Doherty tried bringing neighborhood activists and forest preserve officials together, but it's hard to find a compromise when both parties see themselves in the right. The alderman holds forest preserve officials especially responsible for the impasse. "I got the feeling they weren't being truthful with us, that they had an agenda," Doherty said. "They want to transform a forest into a savanna," or a grassy landscape with widely spaced trees. Doherty also said he disliked the attitude expressed in the literature of the restoration movement, which he said called for stealth. "They talked about secrecy," he said. "They said elected officials aren't smart enough to get it." However the battle of LaBagh Woods comes out, Doherty noted, there is nothing like a neighborhood dust-up to provide politicians with continuing-education credits. "Before this thing started," Doherty said, "I didn't know a dandelion from a daisy." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://screamer.ece.iit.edu/pipermail/bcnnet/attachments/20080529/6366f6f0/attachment-0001.html