To the editor: 

“Nature has introduced great variety into the landscape, but man has displayed a passion for simplifying it. Thus he undoes the built-in checks and balances by which nature holds the species within bounds. One important natural check is a limit on the amount of suitable habitat for each species.” So wrote Rachel Carson in “Silent Spring.” The southern coast of Maine has fallen victim to habitat “simplification” as a result of decades of residential development homogenizing once diverse ecosystems and degrading remaining ecological functions. 

 Now coastal York County holds the unenviable record of the greatest number of rare, threatened, and endangered species anywhere in the state. As our towns continue to grow, pressure on the remaining habitats that support these species will only increase. Our sandy beaches and supporting dune systems have borne, more than any other habitat type, the blunt of our “simplification” efforts. A century of cement sea walls, manicured lawns, and well-watered shrubberies have replaced much of the specialized plant and animal life that evolved over millenia to thrive at the edge of the sea. This new human “habitat” has allowed once in-check species to prosper. Racoons, skunks, and foxes occur at human subsidized levels, and our roads and causeways provide improved access to barrier beaches for once land-locked predators. 

 Non-consumptive wildlife recreation such as birding provides a $1.6 billion boost to Maine`s economy according to Maine`s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. 

Recently most of Maine`s remaining piping plover beaches were included in Maine`s Birding Trail, published with support from the Maine Office of Tourism. Birdwatchers from around the world visit Maine annually; and while they search our shores for target birds, they stay in our hotels and eat in our restaurants.

To protest attempts by professional biologists to conserve the last remnants of our coastal natural heritage harms wildlife conservation, our regional economy, and certainly does not honor the memory of Maine`s great wildlife advocate, Rachel Carson. 

Sue Walker

Kennebunk