Connectivity Poem by gershon hepner

Since we lack connectivity
of habitat how can we satisfy
our mutual proclivity
to give each others a great high?
Relationships, when they are sizzly,
are barred by highways when they bar
all passage to a lonely grizzly
who wishes to be near, not far.
But trty to let us be more brilliant
than grizzlies, in our cyberspace
receptive and resilient,
and virtually face to face,
with poetry the cybercrossing
where we meet like Pyramus
and Thisbe. Next time, while I’m flossing,
I won’t think about teeth, but us.

Jim Robbins writes about roads as migratory marries for speices (“Thinking Anew About a Migratory Barrier” Roads, ” NYT, Octber 14,2008) :
Dr. Chris Servheen spends a lot of time mulling a serious scientific question: why didn’t the grizzly bear cross the road? The future of the bear may depend on the answer. The mountains in and around Glacier National Park teem with bears. A recently concluded five-year census found 765 grizzlies in northwestern Montana, more than three times the number of bears as when it was listed as a threatened species in 1975. To the south lies a swath of federally protected wilderness much larger than Yellowstone, where the habitat is good, and there are no known grizzlies. They were wiped out 50 years ago to protect sheep. One of the main reasons they have not returned is Interstate 90. To arrive from the north, a bear would have to climb over a nearly three-foot high concrete Jersey barrier, cross two lanes of road, braving 75- to 80-mile-an hour traffic, climb a higher Jersey barrier, cross two more lanes of traffic and climb yet another barrier. “It’s the most critical wildlife corridor in the country, ” said Dr. Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, of the linkage between the two habitats. As traffic grows beyond 3,000 vehicles a day, crossing a road becomes extremely difficult. The 13 miles of Interstate 90 here, where grizzly bears would most likely cross, has 8,000 to 10,000 vehicles a day, and so is impermeable much of the time. And it is not just bears — wolves, wolverine and a host of other species roam here. In recent years scientists have come to understand the marked changes brought by the roads that crisscross the landscape. Some experts believe that habitat fragmentation, the slicing and dicing of large landscapes into small pieces with roads, homes and other development, is the biggest of all environmental problems. “By far, ” said Dr. Michael Soulé, a retired biologist and founder of the Society for Conservation Biology. “It’s bigger than climate change. While the serious effects from climate change are 30 years away, there’s nothing left to save then if we don’t deal with fragmentation. And the spearhead of fragmentation are roads.”Fragmentation cuts off wildlife from critical habitat, including food, security or others of their species for reproduction and genetic diversity. Eventually they disappear.


10/16/08