Killing Habitats -Jennie Pahl

After reading "Grassland species loss resulting from reduced niche dimension" I began to think about our impact on habitats around the world. Driving home this weekend I saw four new neighborhoods beginning to go up in areas that were once heavily wooded. That is four areas of animal homes being destroyed, and these four neighborhoods that are being constructed are all within a mile of getting off the interstate between my dads house and chippenham. Its amazing how little we pay attention to things like this happening around us. If we take away the homes of the birds, squirrels, insects, and various other animals where are they to go? I feel like they are all just being pushed into closer proximity with one another. Thats like the idea of someone demolishing our house and then five families having to live in one house. Just because we are the dominant species does that give us the right to steal others houses? While driving through New Kent county on the way to meet my boyfriend's parents he pointed out how they had started to level out a whole side of route 60 that is very rural. He informed me that they are building a huge neighborhood of single family homes. As he continued on he get more and more upset. He loves living in the country and stated at the rate that everyone is building he might a well move out to montanna where there are more cows than people because in the next ten to twenty years nothing around here will be rural anymore. Its true though, with the demolition of all this wildlife area there is no where for the animals to go. Later that night we ended up at our friend Dexter's house. As I got to talking to his mom she explained the reason it is so noisy in her front yard. The neighbors next to her decided to knock down trees, fill in a pond, and build there only son's house on part of their property (she lives in a neighborhood where the lots range from 2-4 acres). After construction was complete the floor of her pool began to crack and as the house settle it actually broke in half. Since the pool is now broke and the frog's old home (the little pond on her neighbors land) is now filled in her poole has becom their substitute home. She displayed her desires to fix the pool but doesn't feel right about killing all the frogs. Its a sad situation the further and further in to the country and wilderness areas we move the more we force the poor animals to find new homes. Not only are the animals suffering but also home owners. New Kent happens to be one of the only counties arounf that doesn't have a law protecting adjacent properties to aftermath damages that may accumulate from changing topography. She now looks at spending thousands to fix the bottom of her pool and hire an exterminator or someone to catch and rerelease the frogs into the wild. (She didn't take us up on our offer to throw m-80's in to the pool for a little froggie explosion or to let us go frog giggin for free but..) Regardless the situation in my eyes is becoming out of hand. We need to begin to look at what we are doing to other creatures habitats.