Tan movement among tall brown grasses along the freeway edge. Head down, she hunts for dinner. Bright red and yellow vine maple leaves are her backdrop. I honk- she looks. A scraggly skinny coyote brightening my day. Unfortunately, the next thought is- Will her crumpled and mangled body lie at the edges of the asphalt? Fortunately, that has not occurred, so far. When I drove through tonight no coyote body was evident. I noticed a ravine carrying a fork of the Quilceda Creek running through here. She is safe if she stays in there.

I’m so tired of all the dead wildlife along our roads. And how many die when there’s no place to come back to? When their forest, grassland, wetland, or beaches are gone? As part of my job I do environmental reviews and permitting of roads projects (ironic?). Today we checked out a project from a couple of years ago next to an urbanized lake. It was a small wetland and open grassy area with non-native shrubs and native shrubs along the lake. To our disgust and surprise several huge houses had been built on this 1 or 2-acre piece of land. And they was no buffer between the houses and the lake. All the vegetation was gone- replaced with lawn, ornamental vegetation, and house. Another area we were looking at that is going to have a sidewalk constructed has a couple of small woodlands left. One of them was signed- soon to become a 10-lot subdivision. Does anyone think about what happens to the resident birds that depend upon the food and shelter of this lot? And what happens when the migratory birds come back to nest again? Do people realize they die? We’ve already chased out any semblance of true wildlife. Now the birds disappear one by one.

I remember a year or so ago when they cut down the forest I played in as a child, across from my parents house. My mom told me that birds were flying around in circles and calling. She’d never seen anything like it. It wasn’t a pristine old growth forest but it was 14 acres of forest, small wetlands, and grassy areas- a haven for birds and critters.

Who’s buying this behavior? Who’s buying these houses and supporting this behavior? The apathy and greed overwhelm my senses. I see very few standing up and no one really shouting- stop killing our wildlife, polluting our air and waters, destroying our soil. Environmental regulations have so many loopholes that rural areas will soon be clustered with common species and very few lees adaptive species will be left.

If you don’t support this behavior then do something!