Chaparral Wisdom
To celebrate the magic and beauty of Nature & the chaparral
Fighting Argentine Ants – killers of California natives and the scourge of the kitchen
If you live anywhere in a suburban area, you have encountered the plague of Argentine ants (Linepithema humile), those little brown irritants that crawl up your leg while reading a book outside, cover your kitchen counters with massive troop movements, wipe out native harvester ant colonies (which are the primary food of our native horned lizards), and have now been revealed as possibly one of the key predators of California native plants.
These little buggers appear do their dirty work by forming colonies near or around the base of their victim, collecting sucking insects like scales from the surface and placing them on the roots (they use these plant sucking creatures for the sweet “honeydew” fluids they excrete), and possibly spreading pathogens to the plant. How do you know if your native plant has been attacked? The lead symptom it typically death. Suddenly, the leaves start to look sick and limp. By the end of the week the leaves are drying out and beginning their journey to various shades of morbid brown.
The California State Legislature Burned Us
The consequences of the last California legislative session were astounding. From all the rhetoric, one would think our legislators would have implemented policy to help us adapt to wildfire and make us safe again. Unfortunately, with the exception of one bill, that was not the case.
The legislature and Governor Brown ignored where and why dozens of people died and thousands lost their homes to wildfire since October, 2017. Instead, at the urging of the timber and biomass industries, the legislature focused on forests where only 1 in 17 of the state’s most devastating wildfires have occurred. They completely ignored the main reason our wildfires have been so devastating – planning agencies have allowed the construction of flammable homes on flammable terrain. The legislature also reduced the liability of utilities for the fires they cause.
Addressing the flammability of communities themselves? Barely a word.
In case you missed them, our solutions are offered here.
Read MoreNature – The Cause Worth Fighting For
As I have listened to the unenlightened blame dead trees for all our fires, where there are no dead trees, have suffered under the barrage of ignorance from politicians and industrialists who talk of clearing forests to protect us from fires that occur nowhere near such forests, and fretted over the demonization of habitat under, between, and far from forests in the form of small plants and bushes, I have found myself embittered, saddened, remorseful, worried about our future as a species.
Have we really become so disconnected from Nature that we now make up stories to push her further away, to justify her domestication until all that is left is the occasional weed between the cracks of a sidewalk, or the random shrub that appears in the human-made, park-like forest? Do we really believe that logging companies, burners of smashed habitat, and Novocained bureaucrats who have barely left their desks in years to kiss an unfettered stream, have our best interests at heart? Do we honestly think such broken souls will fix Nature for us so that she will finally bend to our will? Do we really believe in our own hubris so much that we really think we can force Nature to reflect our fantasy of a bucolic place that has lost all manner of teeth and spirit? What kind of world do we think we are creating?