The good neighbors are disappearing

Interesting article.?ÿ There's no doubt in my mind that our fencing of the "wide open spaces" has had an impact on all the other ambulatory creatures we live with here on the earth.

I'm reminded of a telephone project I worked on in the late 70's.?ÿ The USFS was upgrading their communications capabilities in the Rio Grande National Forest.?ÿ Our portion of the project consisted of a number of miles of buried phone cable.?ÿ The contract also included the removal of all the older archaic physical plant.?ÿ This was mainly a mess of "open wire" circuits consisting of short utility poles with two conductors of (usually) 19 ga.?ÿ A layman might call it a "telegraph" line.

Most of it was either unused or used only for short-run to various FS equipment shacks or fire watch towers.?ÿ The removal was to be a pay item so we diligently cataloged it all.

The 70's was a time when the environmentalists obtained an official "say" over work that was to be done on federal lands.?ÿ This was the infancy of the environmental impact study.?ÿ It was noted that hundreds of these old telephone poles had become a favorite roosting and nesting spot for various raptors that inhabited the area.?ÿ The FS put the kibosh on the removal because the poles because, having been there since the '30s, they had become and integral part of the environment.?ÿ I bet some of those old poles are still there today.

So I'm wondering if the fences have also become intertwined with the local wildlife.?ÿ I guess it would depend on whether you asked the coyote that had to pause briefly to get under the fence...or whether you asked the the field mouse that escaped being dinner because of the coyote's brief pause.?ÿ ;)?ÿ

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Nearly 40 years ago I recall a co-worker assembling an Environmental Impact Statement for the continued use of a Government manufacturing line that was a series of buildings stretching out for nearly a mile with continuous chain link fence plus concertina wire above.?ÿ So, something like two and a half miles of fencing around the facility.?ÿ He was attempting to address how this continued use might negatively impact wildlife,?ÿ He focused on the potential extra amount of walking/running animals who could not pass through the chain link would need to do in order to reach the far side.?ÿ But, he added a note that the fencing had been installed about 40 years previously so it might be assumed that the smarter animals had learned to avoid this area in the first place.

All I know is that deer run through my horse fence like it's not even there.?ÿ Ask any vineyardist how easy it is to keep deer out of his grapes.

I have an almost never used railroad track that runs through my property down in a river bottom.?ÿ Naturally, deer cross the river at will.?ÿ A few years back the railroad operator brought in 1.2 miles of brand new tanker cars and stored them as an intact hitched train right smack dab in my property for months on end.?ÿ I thought that might impact deer movements.?ÿ One day while walking I headed across the railroad track by walking up and over one or the railroad cars.?ÿ I was then walking along the railroad track and I encountered a handful of deer so I stopped to watch them, they were unaware of my presence.?ÿ All of a sudden one of them decided it was time to be on the other side of the train so it just ducked under it and crossed the track like it wasn't even there.?ÿ Of course I had to try it too and it wasn't all that difficult.