[Tweeters] Grieve or protest if you can muster the spirit, but don't plant Conifers

[Ed Newbold]

Dear Connie and Tweeters,
Thanks Connie for the early warning of this unfortunate decision to remove Cottonwoods from Union Bay.
Connie Sidles you are a great hero and I have witnessed the effects of your dynamic leadership of course around Union Bay but also at Cheasty Greenbelt where there is now a birder-presence on an organized monthly basis. Thank you Connie!
As for the grove, this is terribly sad--yet another injury to the Natural World that has taken so many. It turns upside down the trope of kids loving Nature and protecting it from the old folks--Although I doubt the kids have been polled as to whether they really want this.
But I have one quibble. I think the restoration movement has gone berserk over-planting conifers and seemingly attempting to turn natural areas into monocultures resembling a Weyerhaeuser tree farm. You can see this in Three Forks, Chinook Bend, all over the place and even dare I say Capehart. I believe that all the Native NW deciduous trees including, Ash, Alder, Maple and Cottonwood and Birch as well as non-deciduous Madronas are more valuable for the wildlife that is most in the crosshairs, such as neotropical insectivorous birds, than are the Conifers.  I am not credentialed in the least in Botany, Wildlife Biology or Ecology, so take this as an opinion. However, although  I'm not sure it's fair to drag someone in here, I believe Doc (Dennis) Paulson has expressed this view or something similar and that may be where my conviction originated.
That said, thanks Connie for all you have done for the Montlake Fill, oops, I mean Union Bay and thanks for this latest heads-up.
Cheers,
Ed Newbold















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