Hidden away in the heart of the Deep South, one of the nation’s greatest wildernesses is being destroyed, bit by bit, in a silent massacre.
There are more species of oaks on a single hillside on the banks of the Alabama River than you can find anywhere else in the world. The Mobile River Basin makes Alabama home to more species of freshwater fish, mussels, snails, turtles and crawfish than any other state. The contest isn’t even close.For instance, Alabama is home to 97 crawfish species, while California, three times the size of Alabama, has but nine.
In Alabama, there are more species of flesh-eating pitcher plants than can be found anywhere else on Earth. Nine new species of bottle flies were discovered in a single day in 2012. There are 54 species of orchid, from the tiny green fly orchid — an arboreal species living in the tops of ancient live oaks — to the white fringed orchid, whose delicate flowers glow like Chinese lanterns in the crepuscular hours before dawn.
The decline is already beginning to show. Mobile Bay, the catch basin for this river system, now has annual dead zones, like the well-publicized ones in the Gulf of Mexico, due to excess nitrogen and other nutrients flowing from fertilization of farms and suburban lawns. Despite having more miles of rivers and creeks than any other state, Alabama has no official rules governing the amount of water that industries may draw from them. Instead, companies along riverbanks are guaranteed rights to the water no matter what environmental havoc may occur.The ecological risk of this regulatory failure is inescapable. During the drought, the Cahaba River dried up upstream of the city of Trussville, with fish rotting in fetid pools.
We can already witness the effects of these governmental failures on Alabama’s incredible natural heritage. The rate of aquatic and terrestrial species extinctions in Alabama is roughly double that seen anywhere else in the continental United States.Alabama has lost 90 species, followed by California at 53 species. On top of the 90 species confirmed as extinct in Alabama, scientists think an additional 90 species may have slipped into extinction, and the U.S.
BenHRaines The GOP could care less. We need our new decent and reasonable leadership to address such issues. =
BenHRaines 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
opinion Tragic to see, but not too late to save. Maybe the new administration can turn it into a national park? Although not widely known, it's apparently already an international treasure. JoeBiden KamalaHarris DrBiden DouglasEmhoff
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