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Le Minh fishes in a pond behind Total Wine in the Central Park shopping center in Fredericksburg. The pond is sandwiched between Interstate 95 (right) and Cowan Boulevard. Minh works nearby at Star Nails and enjoys the natural area in the fast-developing region.
Female mallards have adapted to development and swim in a pond in the Central Park shopping center in Fredericksburg.
Ducks flock on the bank of a pond near Outback Steakhouse in Central Park in Fredericksburg.
Along State Route 205 near Colonial Beach, a sign warns motorists to watch out for deer crossing the highway. |
IT'S A SCENARIO familiar to anyone living in the Fredericksburg area:
Forests, fields and farmland are purchased by developers. The big timber comes off, then the bulldozers and graders show up. Not long after, houses, roads, schools and shopping centers follow.
For the most part, the developments are planned to avoid harming sensitive wetlands, and to provide parks and green space for people.
But wildlife--deer, songbirds, wood ducks, rabbits, squirrels, beavers, turkeys and a host of other animals--are an afterthought, left to fend for themselves.
Sprawl, according to biologists and state game officials, is taking a toll on wildlife populations. According to a recent report by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, more than 900 species, including the peregrine falcon and loggerhead turtle, are on the decline because of habitat loss and pollution.
While some animals, such as deer, raccoons and squirrels, are able to adapt, other species, such as some songbirds, have trouble relocating.
"Every time you build a road or a shopping center, you lose habitat," said Jerry Sims, regional wildlife biologist manager at the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' Fredericksburg office.
Lost wildernessIn the summer of 1608 when Capt. John Smith sailed up the Rappahannock River to the fall line where Fredericksburg was founded more than a century later, he found a vast, uninterrupted wilderness along the way.
He wouldn't recognize it today.
Some areas are still relatively pristine, but the forest is largely gone, and houses are going up all along the river's banks.
According to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, of the estimated 25.2 million acres in Virginia, only about 3 million acres, or 12 percent, is protected from development.
Urbanization creates gaps in the habitat, making it harder for wildlife to find safe places to rest, feed and raise their young.
Songbirds are particularly susceptible.
"Some of them are very severely impacted by fragmented habitat," Sims said. Bluebirds, which thrive in fields, suffer along with pileated woodpeckers, which prefer large stands of forest.
What's left are fewer, hardier species that tend to take over.
White-tailed deer, for example, thrive in suburban Virginia because predators are gone.
In Northern Virginia, for example, "The biggest predator is the automobile rather than a hunter's bullet," Sims said.
For local developers and land planners, the focus is people, not animals, for obvious reasons.
In general, "Wildlife is addressed only peripherally, as we seek to protect open space," said Erik Nelson, Fredericksburg's senior planner.
Good planning can accommodate growth, and still leave some breathing room for animals.
Developers do, indirectly, consider wildlife when planning projects, said Chris Hornung, vice president of planning and engineering for the Silver Cos.
Central Park, he said, is an example of what a developer can do, though he concedes that land clearing and building destroy habitat.
The company set aside several hundred acres on both sides of the river in conservation easements. Ponds in Central Park, in the shadow of stores and roads, he said, have birds and other animals living in them.
"There's a whole mess of blue herons. They may or may not be native to the property, but they're coming from the river. There are plenty of snakes, rabbits, muskrats, turtles and frogs--you name it."
The company, he said, has voluntarily proffered green areas for protection in some of its developments.
Another developer, K&M Properties of McLean, which owns Crow's Nest, the largest undeveloped tract of land in Stafford County, has said it is willing to cluster homes away from environmentally sensitive areas. Preservationists, however, want the county or the state to acquire the entire tract as a haven for wildlife.
Nowhere to goJeff Cooper, nongame-bird coordinator for the game department, says the interruption of contiguous forest and fields is a problem for certain neotropical birds, such as warblers, which stop over in Virginia for breeding.
"When you get roads, sprawl and subdivisions, what occurs is increased predation," Cooper said. As a result, cowbirds, which lay eggs in other birds' nests, proliferate while songbirds' abundance drops.
Both Cooper and Sims say many animals can't simply move to another less-developed spot, mainly because other animals already live there.
"They will try to move to the nearest habitat available, or make it in an area that is unsuitable," Cooper said. "Eventually, they'll disappear."
Crowding of some species is already occurring in large, protected areas--parks and federal and state preserves such as battlefields and military bases.
"It puts stress on animals already in the park," said Gregg Kneipp, natural-resources manager for Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. The four battlefields and historic sites encompass more than 8,000 acres of mostly forest and field, in Fredericksburg and the counties of Spotsylvania, Orange, Caroline and Stafford.
Even non-native animals sometimes take refuge in the parks--including an elusive emu last year.
An indication of what's happening is the growing presence of critter catchers--companies that specialize in catching and removing "nuisance" wildlife.
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