It’s about 15 minutes before sunrise, and we’re standing in the middle of a marsh listening for a bird call that sounds like TV static. The call belongs to the endangered California Ridgway’s rail, a plucky but shy marsh-dwelling bird. The rails are both the heroes and antagonists of a conservation paradox that’s unfolding here in the San Francisco Bay.
The ecologists we’re shadowing are trying to save the birds, but they’re also trying to eradicate the invasive grass that the birds have come to rely on. And that forces a tricky question: what if, in order to save an endangered species, we actually have to preserve an invasive one?
No one really wants the grass, called hybrid Spartina, anywhere near the bay. Our interview subjects...
from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2OPLk56
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please let me know