On Saturday, May 15th, we held our Spring 2004 Dinner with the
Westmoreland Conservancy at Tivoli’s on Rodi Road. The food was
great and the turn out was good and about the same as last year. Our
spring photo display made its way from the Murrysville Community
Center for a special appearance at the dinner. There were also aerial
views of Murrysville's Kellman Nature Reserve, and a mystery photo
which still has not been identified. Everyone in attendance received
a potted pansy as a departing gift.
Our new president, Mount
Fitzpatrick, welcomed visitors, then announced Dr Carson. Shelly Tichy, our secretary and newsletter editor,
presented four awards, the last to Mount, a teddy bear.
His award was ostensibly for being like Teddy Roosevelt,
speaking softly and carrying a big stick.
Next Dr. Carson's gave an excellent presentation (see below), followed
by the announcement of the winner of the floral display
raffle by Shelly (donated by Buttercup Florist).
Dr. Carson is an Associate
Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University
of Pittsburgh. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 1993 and was subsequently a
Postdoctoral Associate at Princeton University prior to coming to the
University of Pittsburgh in 1994. He is a plant ecologist with active
and extensive research underway in tall grass prairie in Minnesota,
the Allegheny National Forest, the Monongahela National Forest, and
tropical forests in Panama and Costa Rica. He has served on numerous
scientific panels in Washington DC for the EPA, the National Science
Foundation, and the US Forest Service.
His work, and that of many of
his colleagues, demonstrates that over browsing by large populations of
deer is the single greatest threat to the health, sustainability, and
biodiversity of forests throughout much of Pennsylvania and West
Virginia. Dinner guests heard a very good and detailed speech about
his scientific trials underway in these forests. He detailed the
ability of a forest to redevelop in a much more diverse fashion with
clear cutting. Much less than one percent of Pennsylvania's forests are
actual old-growth forests, and of course he would never advocate
touching those. He wanted to be clear that as a scientist, he is
conducting science, and that he himself is not an active advocate of
an agenda. But he did stress that the science indicates that wild
flowers in particular, and the health of diverse woods in general are
already suffering because of the 1.2 million deer heard, which is four
times the estimated pre-European settlement size. Note that along with
the flora impact goes insects, small mammals, reptiles and
amphibians which depend on that flora. The circle of life is truly
interdependent.
