Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat News
The Newsletter of the Great Lakes
Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund
Volume 10, Number 1 • January-February 2002
Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat NewsThe Newsletter of the Great Lakes
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Maria Maybee
Great Lakes United
While Buffalo received 7 feet of snow in December, most of the Lake Ontario and Lake Erie basin counties are experiencing a rare winter drought. Sparse rainfall since last spring and paltry snowfall this winter have dried up reservoirs and forced conservation in a season when water is usually plentiful. The jet stream that directs cold air and precipitation to the Northeast in winter has remained farther north than usual, keeping the snowfall above the Great Lakes. The lack of normal precipitation has depleted groundwater, rivers, and lakes. New York has issued drought warnings or drought watches to 38 counties, and sixteen counties were named primary disaster areas.
What does New York’s winter drought mean for wetlands? Long-term drought, like summer drying, is not a problem for most wetland species that inhabit temporary wetlands. Animal species that breed in small, temporary wetlands are “programmed” to breed at the time of year when rainfall is most likely. This assures an aquatic habitat for egg laying. Some wetlands are actually dry for longer periods than they are wet, because several types of genuine wetlands go through extended dry spells. These temporary wetland habitats are some of the most productive areas in the Great Lakes Basin. Some animal inhabitants actually depend on the wetland habitat drying up to assure that predatory fish are not present.
Time will tell the impact of this winter drought, but as voices for these important wetland resources we must maintain that protective umbrella of advocacy in any weather.
by Ann Baker, Friends and Neighbors of Seneca Park
The Friends and Neighbors of Seneca Park (FNSP) in Rochester, NY are struggling to protect a park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted that is currently threatened by expansion of the Seneca Park Zoo. Members of the volunteer group, part of an Alliance which includes the Landmark Society of Western New York and seven other organizations, have persistently lobbied county legislators, raised funds for public education, and written to editorial pages to keep their cause in the public eye. Protecting the park has become a high profile community debate with outspoken adherents arguing each side.
FNSP believes Monroe County can build adequately spacious and attractively landscaped exhibits for captive animals without putting the park’s indigenous animals, including aquatic populations, at risk. To this end, the group and others have offered alternatives for zoo expansion, some outside and others partially within the current park footprint.
As an unexpected dividend to the expansion debate, FNSP has developed a closer working relationship with the Monroe County Parks Department on issues unrelated to zoo expansion. The county’s stewardship of the park has improved. And finally, Monroe County citizens who were previously unaware of this historic landscape, or even of what an historic landscape might be, are now pleased to claim Seneca Park as part of their irreplaceable heritage.