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development have destroyed or degraded habitats. Farmers and
ranchers who participate in habitat exchanges to help save the
greater sage grouse can take a number of steps. For instance,
they can protect the best sagebrush habitats from development
and can control the expansion of fast-spreading pinyon-juniper
trees and invasive plants that encroach on sagebrush habitats.
They can also restore sagebrush on degraded lands and more
carefully manage livestock grazing to protect habitats.
FEAR VERSUS SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE
In recent years some of America’s biggest growers of vegetables and
salad greens have been concerned about their crops being contaminated
by disease-causing bacteria. Due to what investigators reported after a
deadly 2006 outbreak of E. coli bacteria in bagged spinach, wild animals
were assumed to be the culprits. Because of that, farmers began taking
steps to keep their fields completely separate from wildlife habitats. They
cut down forest areas adjacent to farm fields, cleared stream banks of
grasses and other vegetation, and surrounded their fields with wide strips
of bare ground. Environmentalists criticized these practices, saying that
the habitat destruction was rooted in fear rather than scientific evidence.
In 2015 Nature Conservancy scientist Daniel Karp set out to conduct his
own investigation.
Karp and some of his colleagues analyzed thousands of test results from
dozens of farms that grew produce. They found that vegetables grown near
wildlife habitats were no more likely to be contaminated than produce grown
in farms that separated fields from habitats. “In fact, you see no relation-
ship,” says Karp. “You do not see that farms that are near habitat have any
elevated levels of these pathogens.” He and his colleagues also found that
in some farms that cleared away wildlife habitat, contamination with E. coli
became even more common. So not only was keeping the habitats separate
from farm fields not helping, says Karp, “it in fact looked like it was making
food less safe.”
Quoted in Dan Charles, “Don’t Fear the Wild Animals, Researchers Tell Salad-Makers,” NPR, August 11,
2015.
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