Environmental news is not all bad

Big cats, bald eagles and wild turkeys make a comeback

Sometimes it's not enough to just stop and smell the roses.

Sometimes it's important to remember that roses — like ducks, bald eagles and clean air — flourish because human beings care for them.

Even salmon and butterflies, whose recent population declines have made headlines, are not endangered species.

Not long ago our friend and colleague Pete Ottesen, The Record's outdoors columnist, reminded us that not all environmental news is bad news. When the state bans commercial fishing for salmon or the Audobon Society reports a dip in the numbers of butterflies, we look for causes like global warming.

This misunderstood environmental bogyman, as threatening as it is to our way of life, gets blamed for way more than it should.

Ottesen, an avid hunter with an affinity for science and conservation, notes that the nosedive in the salmon population can be explained by a lack of "up-welling" in the Pacific Ocean — a weatherinduced cyclical phenomenon that happens regularly. The salmon die off and then bounce back.

Kathy Schick, a Delta and UOP science instructor who directs the Audobon Society's local butterfly count, attributes the decline of butterflies last year not to global warming, but an unusually heavy winter frost and a dry spring. These things happen.

A graph of annual population declines and surges of most species in nature looks like a roller coaster.

But those who want to see beyond the scare tactics should stand back from the statistical confusion and observe the good that people do.

When we figured out that the insecticide DDT was a toxin that remained in nature for decades — that it was decimating the bald eagle and many other birds — it was outlawed. That happened in 1972, when there were fewer than 500 nesting pairs south of the Canadian border.

In 2007, over 10,000 pairs were observed and America's national bird was taken off the list of threatened species.

The early '70s was really the beginning of the modern environmental movement. And for all the disruption caused by regulations and governmental interference — to say nothing of the harm caused by rising populations of mosquitoes — it's useful to recall what's been accomplished.

An article by Environmental Science and Technology online magazine notes that passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 led to the building of $100 billion worth of sewage treatment plants. Also in 1972, Canada and the U.S. created the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The changes in the Great Lakes are dramatic. The infamous Cuyahoga River, which was so polluted it caught fire in 1969, is much improved today. And the area around the once "dead" Lake Erie is seeing increases in bald eagles and great blue herons.

The Clean Air Act of 1970 has vastly improved the air in the Los Angeles Basin, the industrial Midwest and elsewhere. Those old enough to have traveled to L.A. in the '50s and '60s will recall their burning eyes and the city's smoggy skyline. With the right conditions today, the breathtaking San Gabriel Mountains can be seen from downtown.

Ottesen points to the local practice of flooding agricultural land in the Delta during the winter. It has had a magnificent impact on the population of ducks, geese, cranes and other species.

Further south, the Central Valley Improvement Act of 1992 has helped restore the white-faced Ibis and Sandhill Crane. Before 1992, said Ottesen, there were no breeding pairs of Sandhills in the area west of Merced; today there about 2,600.

Wild turkeys are "romping all over the Mokelumne and Cosumnes river courses," said Ottesen. And hunting restrictions have helped mountain lion populations increase to where the big cats now scare the wits out of Southern California suburban dwellers.

But none of this is an accident of nature.

It is the work of people, often using the tool of government, to make improvements often when hope seemed lost.

Sometimes, if you stop to look for it, environmental news is good news.

Lodi News-Sentinel