NVBA NEWS BLOG
Welcome to the blog for Northern Virginia Bird Alliance, a wealth of resources about northern Virginia birds, wildlife, habitat conservation and restoration, native plants, wildlife-friendly gardening, advocacy and more.
Trails Can Harm Natural Resources
Trails through natural areas have undeniable benefits, including improving our mental well-being, providing access for outdoor education programs, and reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions if people use them instead of driving cars.
Photo: Tomwsulcer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Tom Blackburn
Trails through natural areas have undeniable benefits, including improving our mental well-being, providing access for outdoor education programs, and reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions if people use them instead of driving cars. However, the environmental impacts of trails get minimal if any consideration when local, state and federal officials are planning and considering building or modifying trails.
In planning development projects like trails, the first question should be, “What’s there?” The federal National Environmental Policy Act is designed to answer that question and to evaluate environmental impacts, good and bad. That law could be a model for local and state governments for trails and other development projects.
Trails Can Have Adverse Impacts
The environmental harm caused by trails that are not properly designed or managed is not always obvious, but it can be substantial, particularly for paved and lighted trails. Trails through natural areas, including our urban forests and wetlands, can cause irreparable damage to delicate ecosystems. Construction often involves cutting down mature trees. Construction equipment damages the root systems of trees in the construction area and compacts soil, which can permanently alter the hydrology, the plant communities, and the wildlife that depends on them.
Trails also serve as a vector for the introduction of invasive species, further damaging habitat and resulting in loss of more native species. Lighted trails attract some wildlife to the lights, where they are preyed upon; they repel other wildlife, reducing the size of their habitat; and they disturb the daily rhythms of animals, resulting in loss of sleep, additional stress, and harm to their reproductive cycles.
Trails often fragment forests and other habitats. Many species need large, intact expanses of habitat. Edge habitats are “invitations” to invasive species and predators. Trail users through forests can mean more disturbance, noise and trash.
More pavement can mean more polluted runoff. A Clifton Institute Study found that if more than 30 percent of an area within 250 meters of the spotted salamander’s breeding pool is impervious, these salamanders are less likely to breed.
The lack of adequate evaluation of the environmental impact of trails through parks and natural areas before an alignment is selected has resulted in proposals to construct trails throughout northern Virginia that would cause significant environmental damage. Sometimes natural resource advocates have been able to deter construction. For instance, advocates succeeded in having Fairfax County remove from its plans a proposed bike trail through wetlands at Huntley Meadows Park that would have harmed critically important habitats and ecosystems. Some proposed trails in Arlington County would have damaged rare ecosystems. Other potentially damaging trails are still in the planning stages. A proposed segment of the Cinder Bed Road Bikeway in Fairfax County could harm rare habitat, and lights on the trail would disturb area wildlife. W&OD Trail expansions in Arlington County, still on the drawing board, threaten to destroy more habitat and potentially add lighting that can harm wildlife. Proposed trails through the remaining urban forest in Fairfax City would result in clearing 1,200 trees and cause other harm to the forest. Widening the paved trail that goes through the Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve could disrupt habitat, impair water quality, damage root systems, disturb nesting birds and migrating fish, and harm trees and other vegetation. ASNV has opposed each of these proposed paths as well as others whose environmental impact was not adequately evaluated.
Trails Need Stronger Environmental Requirements
A recent article in the Virginia Mercury, an independent nonprofit online news organization covering state government and policy, highlighted the need for more effective environmental oversight of recreational trails. The article, by Wally Smith, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, pointed out that trails are often assumed to be exempt from environmental laws, and that Virginia has no requirements on how trails should be designed and managed to benefit the environment.
Virginia law and Federal regulations require environmental review of proposed bike paths that may cause significant environmental harm. The Virginia Administrative Code, 9VAC25-830-140, provides that development in Resource Protection Areas is exempt from environmental review only if it does not affect water quality, and it gives local governments authority to review exemptions from environmental review. However, the Virginia Department of Transportation appears to give bike trails a categorical exclusion from environmental oversight, even in the face of local opposition. VDOT’s policy is inconsistent with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Highway Administration regulations on which VDOT apparently bases its policy. The FHWA’s regulations provide that actions that normally would qualify for exemption from environmental review but that would cause significant environmental impacts or result in substantial controversy on environmental grounds must be subjected to environmental review.
Virginia’s Wildlife Action Plan lists 883 species that are critically imperiled or in decline. “Habitat loss is the single greatest challenge impacting these species,” the plan states. More trails and fragmentation of habitat could mean more habitat loss.
ASNV will continue to weigh the benefits and environmental harms of proposed trails through natural areas, and we will oppose them if we conclude that the harms outweigh the benefits, or that redesign of the paths will reduce environmental harm. If you are aware of a proposed trail that would harm the environment, let us know.
Conservation Counts
Join Jim Waggener in his ongoing natural resource surveys at two of Northern Virginia's best birding spots.
Photo: Common Buckeye, Rusty Moran
Join Jim Waggener in his ongoing natural resource surveys at two of Northern Virginia's best birding spots. Surveys alternate between Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge and Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area on Mason Neck. From April through October, surveys are conducted primarily for butterflies and dragonflies at those two locations and two others—Occoquan Regional Park and Julie J. Metz Memorial Wetlands Preserve. Participation is limited. Email us to make a reservation here. More information is available here.
A Year in Photos from Wildlife Surveys
Even though COVID disrupted regular wildlife surveys this year, individual survey members still took to the field. Here’s a stunning set of photographs that represents a small sample of what they saw in 2020.
By Judy Gallagher
In normal years, Jim Waggener leads regularly scheduled general Wildlife and Butterfly/Dragonfly surveys. Because of COVID, official surveys are not being conducted. However, individual survey members have still been viewing wildlife, collecting data and taking pictures. Here is a sample of what they saw in 2020.
Click on any image for a larger view.
Pictures in this article are protected by copyright. If you'd like to use an image, please contact ASNV and we’ll connect you with the photographer for permission.
January
This Leconte's Sparrow was photographed by Ed Eder at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge on the regularly scheduled wildlife survey in January.
February
Su Kim's picture of Ring-necked Ducks at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge was taken in February, just prior to the cancellation of the rest of the year's surveys.
March
March's picture is an Eastern Fence Lizard, resplendent in breeding colors, seen at Meadowood by Gary Myers.
April
The Garter Snake was seen in intimate detail by Judy Gallagher at Meadowood in April.
May
Rusty Moran captured this Golden-backed Snipe Fly at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge in May.
June
June's picture is of Jim Waggener's favorite damselfly, the Ebony Jewelwing, taken by Michael Ready at Occoquan Regional Park.
July
Ana Arguelles provided this ethereal picture Eastern Tailed-blue butterflies on Short-toothed Mountain Mint at Meadowood's Pollinator Garden in July.
August
In August Margaret Fisher contributed a Least Skipper at Julie Metz Wetlands.
September
Ken Larson took an action shot of Blue Dashers at Meadowood in September.
October
October's picture is a fabulous dew-covered Wandering Glider at Mason Neck West, taken by Fred Siskind.
November
Gary Myers took this amazing close-up of a Carolina Wren at Veteran's Park in November.
December
We round out the year with Bob Blakney's excellent Hooded Merganser picture from Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
Want to get involved? Learn more about Butterfly and Dragonfly Surveys and Natural Resource Surveys that normally take place throughout the year.
Citizen Science at ASNV
On September 22, ASNV awarded James (Jim) Waggener National Audubon Society’s prestigious Great Egret Award in recognition of his outstanding citizen science contribution. Jim is only the second person from ASNV to receive this award. He is a naturalist, who began the Occoquan Monitoring Program 30 years ago after retiring from foreign service.
Photo: Great Egret, Gregory Seitz, Audubon Photography Awards
By Lisa Mackem
On September 22, ASNV awarded James (Jim) Waggener National Audubon Society’s prestigious Great Egret Award in recognition of his outstanding citizen science contribution. Jim is only the second person from ASNV to receive this award. He is a naturalist, who began the Occoquan Monitoring Program 30 years ago after retiring from foreign service. His survey draws volunteers from across the region who help document the presence and abundance of birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and first bloom dates of plants in the Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Julie Metz Memorial - Neabsco Creek Wetlands Preserve, and Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area.
Jim Waggener and ASNV President Tom Blackburn, photo by Laura McDonald
The September 22 Audubon Afternoon focused on citizen science. Speakers, Leslie Ries and Elise Larsen, from the Georgetown University Ries Laboratory of Butterfly Informatics, summarized the history of citizen science. Leslie started with Frank Chapman, who began Christmas bird counts in 1900. In those early days, Chapman had to promote the idea of counting birds rather than shooting them. In the 1950’s, Fred Urquhart became interested in monarch migration and engaged the public to tag them. Chip Taylor took over this program in 1992. Both speakers cited Ernie Pollard, who developed a method for surveying butterflies in England in the 1970’s. His surveys accounted for fluctuating abundances throughout the season and for weather sensitivity. Pollard developed the most common survey protocol for butterflies and Pollard Walks and counts continue today.
Jim Waggener has also developed survey protocols. His Occoquan Monitoring Program was one of the first general butterfly monitoring programs, and anticipated a trend toward multi-species surveys. Leslie Ries learned about Jim’s surveys through Laura McDonald, ASNV Program Manager, and has begun to digitize the surveys’ data.
Occoquan data has been added to eBird, Cornell Ornithology Lab’s online data base for bird observations. Leslie Ries noted promising trends in suburbs – when people planted native plants and stopped using pesticides they saw butterflies return.
Jim Waggener credited digitization, application of INaturalist, the daily work of volunteers in the field, and resources of the Northern Virginia Audubon Society for his survey’s success.
Occoquan Monitoring Program, the Christmas Bird Count, Birdathon, and other wildlife counts continue regularly and always need volunteers.