I need to rant!!! Re: "Development" and wildlife habitat destruction

I live near both the Illinois and Fox Rivers. There is great birding around here--water fowl, songbirds, raptors. Really, it's wonderful! The Illinois and Michigan Canal goes through town, and its old "tow path" is a hiking trail that goes through and between several towns around here. I like to walk the tow path, but get off at places where the birding is especially good.

One place where I like to wander off trail was this mix of woods, farmland and wetland along the Illinois, just upstream from where the Fox meets it. The birding was phenomenal! Herons and egrets, ducks, geese and loons,all kinds of songbirds, redtail and Cooper's Hawks, Bald Eagles. Just amazing.

I knew there was "development" going on there, and haven't gotten there yet this spring. This afternoon, I was to meet with a family to plan a funeral. They live near this area, and when I went to their home and found they weren't back yet from the funeral home, I took a few minutes to see this new development.

I'm so angry I can't see straight!! There's NO habitat left for the birds!! All the trees have been cut down, the wetlands drained, even the shoreline is covered in cement!! I walked around a bit, and some asshole came over and asked if I was "interested in some property". I told him that I used to bird there and that I'm deeply upset at the habitat destruction I was seeing. He told me "We still see wildlife. In fact, we can't keep the raccoons out of our garbage." And, then, of course, he chuckled. :grr:

So, that wonderful land that was home to so many interesting birds, and God knows how many mammals, is now http://www.heritageharborottawa.com/

I think I understand what drives ELF to do what it does. If I had the balls!!

Thank you.

:rant:

Same thing is happening here. And everywhere, probably. The good news is that hopefully high gas prices will make people stop and not want to live so far from their jobs so maybe some of these developments just won't happen.

Here (Corpus Christi, TX) they are trying to make our undeveloped, relatively unspoiled barrier island look like Florida. Not a smart idea when global warming may make hurricanes more frequent. Seriously, I secretly wish for a hurricane to come and tear down all the t-shirt shops and crappy condos.

This is a vacation development, so I really think it may be affected by high gas prices. I'm kinda hoping the guy behind this loses his shirt on it. He's already wealthy, so he'll survive. But I can't help but think he's got a little karma coming his way.

And yeah, I think this is going on everywhere. We'll all be sorry some day.

People NEED to rape pristine wildlife areas so they can build overpriced cardboard cutouts.

And, hell, as long as they rebuild the wetlands somewhere else, no harm no fowl. (Yes, fowl.)

I'm an atheist. But if I believed the crap about humans being stewards of the planet I gotta say we suck.

I think karma is gonna bite us in the ass some day.