The rapid conversion of American open space and farmland into
subdivisions, shopping centers, roads and parking lots has emerged
as a leading threat to the nation's biodiversity and animals,
environmentalists say.
A new study finds runaway sprawl in many metropolitan areas is
wiping out essential wildlife habitat for some 1,200 imperiled
species and could doom some to extinction.
Suburban sprawl has been shown to cause health problems for
humans - now environmentalists say it poses survival problems for
some wildlife. (Photo courtesy University of
California-Berkeley)
"The bottom line is, we
live where the wild things are," said report co-author Reid Ewing,
an urban studies professor at the University of Maryland. "We need
to do a better job accommodating the natural environment along with
the human environment."
The study calls on policymakers to stem the tide of habitat loss
by changing local land use patterns and improving state and federal
natural resource and transportation policies.
"Better planning must play in both protecting threatened wildlife
and improving our cities and towns," said Don Chen, executive
director of Smart Growth America, which collaborated on the report
with NatureServe and the National Wildlife Federation.
The organizations contend the study is the first ever to quantify
the impact of sprawling development on wildlife nationally - it
relates sprawl to the loss of open space and natural habitat.
The report integrates common measures of development density and
projections of population growth with a new analysis of data on
4,173 rare and endangered species in the lower 48 states.
The primary threat to the Florida panther is habitat loss and
fragmentation - a problem that has worsened as development in
Southwest Florida has boomed in recent decades. (Photo by
D.W. Pfitzer courtesy Fish and Wildlife
Service)
The findings show that imperiled
wildlife are very much a part of urban and suburban America - some
60 percent of the species studied inhabit metropolitan areas.
The nation's fastest growing metropolitan areas, each with more
than a million residents, are home to some 1,200 imperiled species -
29 percent those studied in the report.
If current rates of sprawl continue, these metropolitan areas
will have developed some 22,000 square miles of natural habitat -
roughly the size of West Virginia - by 2025.
The concern is even greater for 553 of the imperiled species that
are found only in the fast growing large metropolitan areas, which
are concentrated in the western and southern regions of the country.
Florida's official state mammal, the West Indian Manatee, is
declining as a result of human sprawl. (Photo courtesy Florida Wildlife
Extension)
The study authors took their
analysis another step - to the county level - and found "an even
more alarming story."
"In at least three dozen rapidly growing counties found mostly in
the South and West, open space on non-federal lands is being lost so
quickly that essential wildlife habitat will be mostly gone within
the next two decades, unless development patterns are altered," the
report finds.
A total of 287 imperiled species are found in counties that will
likely lose half or more of their available non-federal open space
by 2025, according to the study.
Those at risk from sprawl include Florida's West Indian manatee,
the arroyo toad in California, the mountain plover and alkali
mariposa lily in Nevada, and the Hine's emerald dragonfly in
Illinois.
The collision course between suburban sprawl and wildlife is a
particular concern in California - the state is home to 16 of the
top 20 fastest-growing metropolitan counties for imperiled species.
The Hine's emerald buttefly is classed as federally endanagered.
(Photo by Illinois Natural History
Survey)
California's San Diego County leads with 99
species followed by Los Angeles County with 94 species, and San
Bernardino County with 85.
Nevada's Clark County - home to Las Vegas - is another hotspot,
with 97 imperiled species, as is Florida's Miami-Dade County with 58
vanishing species.
The report recommends federal, state and local lawmakers provide
incentives for development in existing urban and suburban areas,
build new development at higher densities, and set aside natural
areas as off limits to new development.
"With proper planning, it does not have to be a question of us
versus them or development for people versus habitat for wildlife,"
Ewing said.
The study can be found here
