COLUMBIA, N.C.
A woman on the telephone was afraid to go to her mailbox.
She'd just counted seven black bears in her yard. Nearby, a huge wildfire was raging.
Bears sometimes show up in populated areas, but these most likely lost their home to the fire, said Wendy Stanton, biologist for Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, where much of the nearly 40,000-acre fire is burning. "A lot of smoke is confusing. They're very stressed. They've been displaced."
So have thousands of creatures that call this part of northeastern North Carolina home. Others have perished in the fire, which has been burning since June 1.
"It would be unrealistic to say there is no mortality," Stanton said. But "very few will be lost."
"There were fires before there were people," said Bonnie Strawser, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. "This is a big, hot devastating fire. But they had big, hot devastating fires hundreds of years ago."
In the long run, Stanton said, the fire will actually be good for the refuge and its habitat.
Animals instinctively flee the flames. Refuge workers won't rescue those that don't, unless it is a threatened or endangered species. That hasn't happened so far, even among the red wolves that are banded and regularly tracked, Stanton said.
"We manage populations, not individuals," Strawser said.
There are more black bears per acre in the refuge than any other place documented in the world, Stanton said.
They wander along roadsides all the time; highway signs in this part of the state warn drivers to watch for them.
Some critters will have a harder time of it in the short run, such as the salamanders and mud turtles and Eastern spadefoot frogs that burrow in the soil, since the fire is burning underground. Birds that didn't fledge before the wildfire - wood ducks, prairie warblers and barn swallows, among others - also may perish.
Even species that can flee could lose a few; Stanton said she heard a report of some deer that ran into the flames rather than away from them.
Still, she said she expects the deer population to actually increase in the following seasons as new, lush vegetation replaces what is lost. Bears may return in stronger numbers, too, although it could take longer because they reproduce only every two years.
"This whole ecosystem is fire-adapted," Stanton said. "It requires fire to perpetuate itself."
No major blaze has burned here since 1985, when 100,000 acres went up in flames, Stanton said. Vegetation is impenetrable in some places, providing plenty of fuel for this wildfire.
At the refuge's headquarters in Columbia, a dozen miles from the blaze, fire is part of visitor education. Fire, reads one sign, "is essential for survival of many plant species," which require heat from flames to open up and release seeds.
It also could clear the way for the planting of Atlantic white cedar, an ecosystem threatened worldwide, Stanton said.
But most people don't know that, said administrative officer Debbie McGowan, who has answered dozens of phone calls from people worried about the wildlife.
She listens to their concerns. She tells them that most of the animals are getting away and that they've got plenty of habitat left. Thousands of acres on the roughly 110,000-acre refuge are not on fire, and this part of the state is largely rural.
That may mean more animal sightings, like the woman who saw all the bears in her yard. Folks should just use their common sense - don't put food out, don't go near them, and they'll move on.
"By October, November, December," McGowan said, "things will be fairly back to normal. The animals are gonna get real happy. You need a fire like you need to clean out your refrigerator every so often."
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
re: Everyone Remember...
Skoops88 wrote:
Orion = God... He/she/it knows all!!!!
No, I don't know it all, just more than most.
Fire is natural
Fire is a natural occurance. The animals will survive as best they can. The land will be renewed after the fire and the animals will return. What the animals don't understand is the encroachment on their lands. The fire drives the animals into contact with humans and we have bad episodes between animal and man - and the animals lose. Respect them because they got burned out of their homes and they did the natural thing that even any human would do when our homes catch fire: they flee. If one of these creatures ends up in your backyard, stay away from it and call animal control to take care of it.
Everyone Remember...
Orion = God... He/she/it knows all!!!!
Off topic
It never ceases to amaze me just how many off topic replies/post appear on these boards. Any comments about the bear in her yard? I think I saw one...anything about the fire and those fighting it? None so far. I hope the fire fighters can contain the blaze. Hope all the homeless animals can get back soon. Ooops, did I just commit a gramatical error?
re: norml
freethinker wrote:
I am not a reporter whose grammar is held to high standards by the public every day.
That much is obvious in your post.
I do accounting, so it doesn't really matter that I put two nouns back to back in a sentence.
I do accounting? If I called on you for your skills and you told me "I do accounting," I'd get up and walk out (you guys are a dime a dozen). I'm an accountant is not only grammatically correct, it's more professional. You are judged by how you speak and write. If you write like you calculate, I wouldn't give you a job as a cashier at McDonalds.
I’m not a journalist (I am a technical writer), but I could pound out a story, spellcheck it, proofread it several times, have someone else proofread it and have it posted in under 15 minutes. Don’t give me this isn’t a newspaper; that’s a poor excuse for sloppy writing.
norml
I am not a reporter whose grammar is held to high standards by the public every day. I do accounting, so it doesn't really matter that I put two nouns back to back in a sentence. (I'm so glad you pointed it out though, because now my weekend is RUINED! boo hoo hoo) It matters that I get my numbers right, and I do. A reporter for a newspaper should be able to construct a decent story...which is the point that you obviously missed. I am going back up on my porch (which is attached to my glass house) and I am going to throw stones all day long, and not think twice when you complain about it. Those darn Vurjinya Beech Publik Skools didnt teech mee anee lurnin'.
Skoops88
Thanks for the backup, and for explaining to MTMSR the concept of the timely posting of online articles, as opposed to the hard copy edition. I'm sure if MTMSR was driven to articulate his/her response in a third of the time that he took, the text would have been suspect for grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors. I also need to thank MTMSR for the unnecessary re-statement of the revitalizing nature of wildfires. I quite adequately deciphered as much from my original reading of the article.
It's "grammar Nazi"
The official term is "grammar Nazi" and they have been trolling the Internet and adding irrelevant and boring posts since the beginning.
Writing 101
Come on, not come one..... I am beginning to think your grammatical mistakes are actual mistakes, not a purposeful 'mix-up.'
Um
"wavy 10 news here I come."
I think TV10 and the Pilot are owned by the same company.
On the censorship, don't worry. Give them enough rope.
Skoops...I cannot get over "grammatical elitist." That is funny. Dumb people thinking insulting tags for those smarter than them. Man, what a sign of the times.
Jim...
Good point...
Don't forget...
Ha-ha, I did that on purpose to let the grammar police pick it up and sure enough you did... I by no means am a grammatical genus, and frankly I could care less. To the point of "newspaper article", what we are reading is not a "newspaper article” I am sure the pilot "newspaper" has a separate editor-in-chief. The point of the pilot.com is to get you news fast; they don’t have the leisure of a 24 hour window for proof reading. With the volume of news on the website, some of which will not make the paper, if they did the level of proofreading they do with the paper news the news would not be as timely as it is. Come one people use that lump that sits on your neck a little before you comment.
Dude!
You are never again allowed to criticize the grammar of others until you learn the difference between there and their.
Hey Pilot...
You keep taking down comments on stories just because you do not like them, all that will be left to comment on is animal stories...like this one...talk about sensorship. I thought freedom of speech was a good thing, but not obviously so when the stories comments are deemed "distasteful, rule violating, or racial". wavy 10 news here I come.
Picky for a reason
You ask,” Why can't folks just read the articles, rather than critiquing them? “
Seriously? When you read a newspaper article, written by someone who is expected to have a college degree in journalism, and is a paid professional in the art of word crafting, one would expect not to see the plethora of errors routinely found in the Pilot's online articles. To dismiss the expectation of soundly written professional pieces based on a desensitivity due to poorly worded e-mails that permeate our culture is simply ludicrous and lazy. Quite simply, if you’re going to write for a living, write properly, or not at all.
To get back to the subject of the article, periodic fires in these regions are both cleansing and revitalizing to the affected areas. They have occurred for as long as their has been vegetation to burn, and will continue as long as this planet exists. It's simply part of the natural cycle of life and death.
MTMSR
LOL! I was actually thinking the same thing and when I saw your comment - got quite the chuckle myself! Thanks for the Friday morning laugh! I know it was meant all in good fun!
Picky, Picky
Why can't folks just read the articles, rather than critiquing them? If you live by email, like most of us do these days, you should be desensitized to grammatical errors by now (a sad note, I admit). I will say that the article goes to such extent to downplay the effects of the fire, to the point of making it sound like it's needed, that it almost encourages the treehuggers and animal activists to start more fires for the long-term benefit to the wildlife and environment.
Snickering as I type this.....
Uh, Skoops, that would be "...just as well..."
Norm...
That is too funny... I hate grammatical elitists. I understood the article just as good as I would have if it used perfect English.
scionetic - are you Confucius?
Regarding your comment here, you say...
"I find grammar errors every single..."
Since you obviously hold a Doctorate in English grammar, you should know that "grammar" and "errors" are both nouns. To modify a noun, one would use an adjective. Since "errors" is the noun, the proper adjective would be "grammatical".
Ergo, your sentence should read "I find grammatical errors every single..."
As Confucius once said, "Men who live in glass houses should not throw stones."
Have a great day!