Since 1970, the bird populations of North America have experienced a net loss of nearly 3 billion birds, and biologists say we are approaching "tipping points" that could fundamentally alter our ecosystems.
Since 1900, wading bird populations in the Everglades have declined by approximately 90%.
More than one-fifth of native North American pollinators are at risk of extinction due to climate change, habitat loss, and pesticide use, including key species like monarch butterflies and various bumble bees that are declining even faster.
While these large-scale problems might seem beyond the scope of what an individual can do in their own lives to help, a new campaign from Audubon Western Everglades called “Nature Where We Live” seeks to help people understand that the kinds of plants we use around our homes can make a real difference.
The campaign is also encouraging growers and garden centers to lean into stocking plants that are native to our region to make it easier for people to plant in such a way as to benefit biodiversity in their own backyard. Click here to learn more and get planting and gardening tips.
Guests:
Bridget Washburn, Executive Director of Audubon Western Everglades
Brad Cornell, Southwest Florida Policy Director with Audubon Western Everglades
Ellin Goetz, President of Goetz+Strope Landscape Architects in Naples and a longtime conservationist
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mike Kiniry
From WGCU News, this is Gulf Coast Life. I'm Mike Kiniry. Thanks for joining us. The numbers are disheartening, if not startling. Since 1970, the bird populations of North America have experienced a net loss of nearly 3 billion birds, and biologists say we're approaching A tipping point that could fundamentally alter our ecosystems. Since 1900, wading bird populations in the Everglades have declined by approximately 90%. More than one-fifth of native North American pollinators are at risk of extinction due to climate change, habitat loss, and pesticide use, including key species like monarch butterflies and various bumblebees that are declining even faster. While these large-scale problems might seem beyond the scope of what an individual can do in their own life to help, a new campaign from Audubon Western Everglades called Nature Where We Live seeks to help people understand that the kinds of plants we use around our homes can make a real difference. The campaign is also encouraging garden centers to lean into stocking plants that are native to our region to make it easier for people to plant in such a way as to benefit biodiversity in their own backyard, literally. I spoke on March 19th with three people who were involved in the Nature Where We Live campaign to learn more. Let's hear that now. Brad Cornell is Southwest Florida Policy Director with Audubon Western Everglades. Welcome back to the show, Brad. It's been a while.
Brad Cornell
Thanks, Mike. It's good to be here.
Mike Kiniry
Bridget Washburn is executive director of Audubon Western Everglades. Welcome to the show, Bridget.
Bridget Washburn
Thank you. Good morning.
Mike Kiniry
And Ellen Getz is president of Getz and Strope Landscape Architects in Naples and a longtime conservationist. Thanks for coming in, Ellen. It's very cool to be here. Awesome. So I'd like for each of you, for starters, tell us just a little bit about yourself. I know for sure that you two have been around these parts for a long time. Let's start with you, Bridget. How long have you been in Southwest Florida? And then tell us a little bit about the work you do.
Bridget Washburn
I came down as an intern to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in 2001.
Mike Kiniry
So that was just as long at least.
Bridget Washburn
Yes, but then I left to get a graduate degree. I did the Peace Corps and returned to work at the Conservancy and their policy department in 2006. So I've been here since and actually met Ellen and Brad that year I started at the Conservancy.
Mike Kiniry
How long have you been Executive Director of Audubon Western Everglades?
Bridget Washburn
Just over a year.
Mike Kiniry
Just over a year. Brad, what about yourself?
Brad Cornell
I've been here since 1992, came down here with my wife and all the Georgia Power Company trucks that were coming to take care of the Hurricane Andrew victims. And been here ever since, only intended to be here a little while and raised two kids and they're gone and I'm still here.
Mike Kiniry
And you've been with Audubon Western Everglades for 20 plus years now.
Brad Cornell
25 years, yep.
Mike Kiniry
25 years.
Brad Cornell
Yep.
Mike Kiniry
What about you, Ellin?
Ellin Goetz
So I came in the mid-80s as fresh out of graduate school and as a landscape architect. I knew what a coconut palm was and zero else about the landscape down here, but it's been quite a ride.
Mike Kiniry
Give us an overview of Audubon Western Everglades, Bridget.
Bridget Washburn
So Audubon Western Everglades goes back to 1961. when Lila Below, who's an avid bird watcher, saw development picking up and she saw it reshaping Naples. So she gathered up some other folks who were concerned about losing some of this old Florida habitat and the wildlife that was living in it. And the small group became a strong voice for conservation in the area. And that was first called Collier County Audubon, though, which can be confusing. So for 65 years then, we've continued their efforts, and we've been working to protect and restore Southwest Florida's land and biodiversity with science, policy, and community engagement.
Mike Kiniry
And you are part of National Audubon Society, but you are an independent nonprofit, is that right?
Bridget Washburn
That is correct. National is an umbrella organization, so it oversees lots of different places throughout the United States, I think 400 chapters, and yes, we all have our own independent funding, and our mission to line, but usually our on-the-ground projects are different.
Mike Kiniry
So we are here today to talk about the Nature Where We Live campaign, which launched on February 28th. What's the why behind doing this now? Who would like to answer that?
Brad Cornell
Well, I'll take a stab at that. So Nature Where We Live is inspired by the work of Dr. Doug Tallamy, who is an entomologist from the University of Delaware. He's written half a dozen books. Including Nature's Best Hope, and he was just here on the 28th of February, giving a talk to a full room that included landowners and developers, as well as citizens and our members, and... His message was pretty inspirational. It was basically the message that we have some significant challenges to what sustains us. The environment is our economy. The environment sustains us, gives us food and water and beauty. And we are seeing significant threats to that important set of resources. And people think of the environment or nature being out there in a national park somewhere like the Everglades. And it is, for sure. The Everglades is our backyard, and so is Big Cypress and the crew system, the corkscrew system. But it's also right where we live. And that revelation was what Doug Tallamy brought to the room and has inspired this whole campaign of Nature Where We Live.
Mike Kiniry
And by where we live, you literally mean the green spaces around our living spaces.
Brad Cornell
Exactly, yeah. The world is a much smaller place than we realize when there are 8.4 billion of us living in it. And frankly, there are significant threats that scientists have documented in the last couple of years Birds have declined in North America, almost 30%. Three billion birds are gone in the last 50 years, which is alarming. And then there has been a documented decrease in insects. And 40% of the insects of the world, the species, are threatened with extinction. 45% of their numbers are down in biomass. And people think, well, I don't really like cockroaches, so I don't really care. But when you realize that 35% of our food depends on pollinators like bees and butterflies and moths, now this makes a difference. And so it's also related to the loss of birds. So all those birds that scientists have documented declining, They're insectivorous. They depend on insects for their life history. And so both of those declines are a big threat to our sustainability right here in Southwest Florida and across the nation. So Doug Ptolemy said, well, look, you know, we actually can move the needle on this. Of course, these things are global and national kinds of crises, and we do need to act in those arenas. But probably the most important way we can help fix this problem is right in our own yards, our own neighborhoods, right where we live, because 80% of the United States, for instance, is privately owned, is in private hands. People don't realize that. So the national parks that are way out there That's not enough to save birds and pollinators. It's got to be right in our own yards. And the other revelation that Doug Ptolemy brought was the biggest irrigated crop in the United States is turf grass lawns. 44 million acres of turf grass lawns. And that is where restoration could happen at a huge scale, if we could just convert half of that to native plants.
Mike Kiniry
And I know from past shows that half of the water that we treat gets put on that grass. So we're using all that effort to treat water to make it drinkable, and then it gets put on grass.
Brad Cornell
And that's another big problem that we've got. These extreme weather events, including droughts, are a concern for the sustainability of our communities here in Florida. And so we're in a severe drought right now, despite having some rain this week, which was very welcome. We had 35,000 acres of big cypress burned to a crisp just over the last couple of weeks. And that's because of the severity of the drought. Cape Coral, Northeast Cape Coral is in a never before declared by the Water Management District modified phase four water shortage emergency. So they are coming really close to destroying their aquifer from which they get the water. And what are they doing with that water? They've been watering grass. And that's a big conflict with what, the sustainability of our communities.
Mike Kiniry
Bridget, could Southwest Florida be seen as a sort of testing ground as to whether growth can coexist with a diverse ecosystem? Absolutely. Because we are a growth, I mean, I moved here when I was a kid and there was only 160,000 people in Lee County and now there's 950,000.
Bridget Washburn
Right, it's really rapid development. We're seeing on Marco Island, actually, the burrowing owls there are one of our sort of focus areas. We have a program called Owl Watch, but in the last... decades, those owls have lost over 300 parcels of land to development. And that means they had a burrow on this land that was developed, so they need to find another place to live. So we started a program with FWC and the city of Marco where property owners can actually host an owl or put a starter burrow on their turf grass, which is usually taken over by an owl, and they often fledge chicks. So we found that after 10 years to be very successful. It shows how an engaged community can really support a threatened species and it can help it recover and stabilize. So we really look forward to moving that program forward and we have the data to prove it. So that's a really great success. Also, you know, we do, Brad was talking about what we as individuals can do, but at a larger scale with the nature where we live as policy folks, we are looking at regional developments and connection through wildlife corridors.
Brad Cornell
Land acquisition.
Bridget Washburn
Land acquisition, Western Everglades restoration. So that's a lot of what Brad focuses on. And I help him out with what I can, because what we need to be doing now is thoughtfully managing our growth, developing these plans so that the decisions we're making today are going to make us sustainable tomorrow. But we really do have to be careful with that.
Mike Kiniry
I have to follow up on the hosting of burrowing owl. How does that work and what geographic ranges can you be a host of a burrowing owl?
Bridget Washburn
Right. So we can't locate them to you. So you sort of need some display.
Mike Kiniry
I thought you meant I could have a burrowing owl in my side lot.
Bridget Washburn
Only if they're around your home to start with. But yes, no, that's great. And people are really engaged with it. they walk by, they see our volunteers.
Mike Kiniry
I see. So it's kind of like turtle watch, but you get to just have a burrowing owl nest that is yours to keep an eye on.
Bridget Washburn
That is right. And it draws people in and they get really engaged with what we're doing. So it's great.
Brad Cornell
And these burrowing owls are kind of our ambassadors. They're the two largest, they're a threatened species, state threatened species. The 2 largest populations are in cities. The biggest one is in Cape Coral. And the next biggest one is in the city of Marco Island. Holy cow. So these are birds living right amongst people's neighborhoods in their yards. And so the starter borough, if you live in those communities, and they're spreading out, they're coming into Naples and Fiddler's Creek and other places like that. If you don't have one in your yard and you want one, that's kind of our strategy for stabilizing this population. Our biologist, Brittany Piersma, will come and dig a little starter burrow in your yard and Often, not always, but often, the mated pair will come and say, this looks like a good place to keep digging. And they do, and then lay eggs for some of those burrows.
Ellin Goetz
And Gulfview Middle School in downtown Naples has a burrowing owl nest right in the middle of the track infield.
Mike Kiniry
That is amazing, because they're so cool to look at. That must be a great experience for kids.
Brad Cornell
A distraction. And actually, we, Audubon Western Everglades, about five years ago, got a desperate call from the principal of Gulfview Middle School saying, oh my gosh, we have burrowing owls nesting right underneath the goalposts on their soccer field.
Mike Kiniry
That's not that suboptimal.
Brad Cornell
It was. It was. And they didn't want to harm the birds, but they also wanted to have PE. So our biologists came out there and dug several starter burrows, and lo and behold, the birds moved to one of them, and everybody had PE and got to watch that pair raise 5 chicks that year.
Mike Kiniry
Wow. Ellen, you're a landscape architect. You've been here since the 80s. We've seen a lot of growth when new developments are made or new homes are built, decisions are made about what kinds of plants to put around them. Can you just talk about how or whether the mindset has shifted toward what we're talking about over the course of your career?
Ellin Goetz
It has definitely shifted. The legislation mandates that big developments have a certain amount of native plants. That's been in effect for a long, time. But individual homeowners don't have that type of code to meet. So it's more them wanting, what do I want to do with my yard? And I think the Climatic things that we've been experiencing over the last 10 years have really changed the conversation. Notably the surges that the coast has had was a big factor. These sort of climate, hotter, drier winters and wetter summers affect how the landscape survives down here. And I think there is just no more openness to using native plants.
Mike Kiniry
I'm talking with Ellen Getz. She's a landscape architect and longtime conservationist, including as vice chair of the Everglades Foundation and past chairperson of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Bridget Washburn is executive director of Audubon Western Everglades. and Brad Cornell is Southwest Florida Policy Advisor with Audubon Western Everglades. We're learning about their new Nature Where We Live biodiversity campaign that launched on February 28th. The goal is to help people understand the risks we face from increasing biodiversity loss and the things people can do in their own lives to help. If you'd like to engage with the show about today's topic or any of our episodes, just find WGCU Public Media on Instagram and Facebook. Are there communities that would disallow having a front yard that was filled with native plants instead of a certain kind of grass?
Ellin Goetz
There are codes all around that do not want yards to look unmaintained. My daughter had got a call from the city of Naples because she was growing more wild-looking things in the yard, and it didn't meet the criteria of the city. So that is an issue. If it's fully landscaped, then it's not going to be a problem. But if you're trying to do a wildflower meadow or something like that, sometimes you can run into problems with a neighborhood. Certainly in these gated communities, they have very severe restrictions on that. So it is a challenge.
Mike Kiniry
Every yard I've ever had, I call it mowing the weeds. I know that's a nomenclature that Floridians will be familiar with. But it's also probably in the long run better. I'm not putting any additional water or fertilizer on it. and maybe there's a plant there that a critter would want. Let's talk about what people can do. Give us some examples. Who wants to give us some examples of like the actual hands-on things that people can be thinking about to help with biodiversity strength?
Brad Cornell
Well, I'd like to pitch this back to Ellen because there's this sense that native plants are just, it's just gonna look weedy and scruffy and I really don't want that for my yard. And one, We're not saying get rid of all your grass. We're saying get, how about half of your lawn converted to some native plants? And isn't it possible that native plants can look pretty darn nice?
Ellin Goetz
Yeah, any plant can look pretty darn nice if it's happy where it's living. And we have plenty of managed landscapes that don't look great, but people are used to them and they have to trim it back and turn into, you know, it looks like little meatballs around their yard instead of natural plants. Yes, I think there's a couple of things that are in the way. One is sometimes you can't find native plants in great variety at a retail operation like Lowe's or Home Depot. So we have to get those entities thinking more about native plants. California and other parts of the country have much more robust approaches to that, probably because they've been experiencing water shortages a lot longer than we have. So I think that's one of the things that the customer has to go into these places and say, okay, show me your natives. And then Audubon is trying to get a dialogue with some of these retail operations to see why don't you offer more of the natives that grow in our part of the world.
Bridget Washburn
Right, so we're working with some large-scale growers who actually supply some of the natives for state restoration projects, and they seem very willing to contract grow for developers and to grow for retailers like, Home Depot or Lowe's. So we're working on conversations. to move that forward and perhaps have a table with natives and our nature where you live sort of logo here along with it. So people know that when they're buying these plants, they're doing something that can help the environment, help wildlife and the pollinators. And so we do have resources available for the community and that's on our website, which is Audubon, W-E dot O-R-G under nature where you live. And so There, we have a list of native nurseries. We have some suggestions for native plants that grow in shade and sun that are salt tolerant. So we hope you'll check that out.
Brad Cornell
Mike, I want to point out also, we have started, this happened actually right after Doug Ptolemy's talk on the 28th of February. We sat down to meet with some of the biggest landowners in Southwest Florida and some of the biggest developers and their consultants. including Ellen, and to try and figure out, well, can we design and landscape communities that are new, that are just being built from the get-go to have more native plants and less grass and less irrigation and less pesticides? And that, lo and behold, they were very interested in that conversation. And so they have committed to continuing to meet with us and with With Ellen and some of the allies we have in the growers community We're we're opening up this dialogue to see if we can't Create more communities that have those attributes that that are sustainable that will bring back Pollinators butterflies and bees and that brings back the birds to our yards.
Mike Kiniry
Ellen are there any communities in you know? Collier Collier County or Southwest Florida that you're aware of that really lean into that the.
Ellin Goetz
Most a lot of the newer ones for example owls of Collier's Reserve, which is where actually where Tallamy spoke, that has from the get-go been involving the use of a lot of native plants. And one of the drivers is, well, they're very attractive if they're used in the right way, but it also reduces the developers' costs of maintenance. You know, they don't necessarily need to be watered as much. Yes, you deal with pests on any plant in a managed landscape, but less, typically less with the native. And one thing I have to say with Doug's talk, I sat in the back of the room and I was amazed at how many people in the audience, when he would put a slide up talking about this new way of looking at the landscape, how many of them would have held up their little phones and took snaps of that slide. And there was, I was just stunned by the interest that the average person had in this new way of doing it. It's really an old way of doing it, but it's new to us. It's the way we should have been doing it for many years, I think.
Mike Kiniry
And I would presume that a lot of the people in the audience were people who are already kind of in this world. Were they?
Ellin Goetz
No, a lot of them were residents of that community that had just been invited to it and they came out of interest. That also was very intriguing to me to see, like, okay, there's an appetite for this. There's a sort of a yearning for it almost. which I think we can communicate to some of these vendors and say, hey, if you had it, the people will, if you build it, they will come.
Mike Kiniry
Yeah, absolutely. Because I think, people who haven't given much thought might imagine, I'm going to move Florida, my house, my neighborhood's going to look like this. But if they are made aware of the additional cost and the broader ecological damage they can do. Maybe if you can make it cool, that could just become the thing.
Ellin Goetz
And the other thing is that we're not saying everything should be native. That's naive. I think when you come to Florida, you want to have a little fun. Maybe you want a gardenia or maybe you want a banana or whatever. You know, there's that fun stuff. But But to do it a little more intelligently and not just put in things that are always going to have to be hedged and maintained and this and that, I think that's a new way of looking at it.
Mike Kiniry
You were going to say something, Brad.
Brad Cornell
I was just going to say that the... this gets back at this sort of misperception that nature is out there somewhere and not where we live. And that's kind of the name of our campaign, is Nature Where We Live, because it's about the biology of this biodiversity. So birds and pollinators, butterflies, moths, bees, they depend on the native plants because they have evolved for eons with these native plants in this place. And so where we live needs to meet the needs of us, but also those pollinators if we want them to be there. If we want the cardinals and the... the painted buntings and the brown thrashers in our yard, then we've got to have the landscape that meets their needs as well as ours. And the important and fun thing is that we can serve both of our needs, all of our needs, by having landscaping that's native. Those creatures will be able to lake their eggs and caterpillars will eat the native plants like milkweeds or they'll get nectar from the tropical sage, the salvia, there's red and pink and white salvia that's just, right now it's blooming in my yard like crazy and some dune sunflowers and everybody's happy with that kind of outcome. And then you get to see the butterflies and the birds come into your yard and you think, they're not at my neighbor's yard. They're just coming to my yard. And it's because, you've got.
Mike Kiniry
There is a cause and effect that will unfold.
Brad Cornell
Absolutely. That was the revelation, I think, to the people in the room that were holding their cameras up and taking pictures. Doug showed so many kinds of caterpillars and he made the point, this is what birds, you know, feed to their babies because there's lots of calories, there's lots of nutrients, there's lots of fat. I loved it.
Ellin Goetz
He compared the caterpillar to a sausage. And he said, you know, you've seen those pictures of the baby birds with their mouths open. The parent shoves the sausage down its throat because it has the highest food value. And that's what caterpillars, I mean, it was like the light bulb moment, wasn't it?
Brad Cornell
When he's talked about that. And those are moths and butterflies. You know, that's where those come from. And so Now in my yard, I've got corky stem passion vine growing up a trellis right by my front door, and that attracts the zebra longwings and the golf fritillary butterfly caterpillars, which are orange and white and black, respectively. It's so much fun to watch. And the cardinals then know that. So there's a pair of cardinals that come and pick those off as soon as those caterpillars, not all of them, but most of them.
Mike Kiniry
I mentioned I moved down here in 1980s when I was a kid, and I wish I could go back in time and just walk around my neighborhood Because there would be a discernible difference in the number of birds that were around. I mean, there just would have to be. We've lost so many birds. And same thing with insects. When I was first driving, you know, we would go, if you drove through South Lee County into Collier, your wind deal would be covered with insects. That's certainly a discernible difference now.
Ellin Goetz
Think of it, we talk about food deserts. We have done pretty well at creating a food desert in our landscape.
Mike Kiniry
Food desert for critters.
Brad Cornell
For critters, right. So we need to change that, and we can. And that's, you know, it's these native plants and the landscaping strategy that brings that stuff back. It's not hard, and it's certainly not rocket science.
Bridget Washburn
Like Ellen said, there's a real appetite for it because we put the Doug Ptolemy tickets online and 150 got swept up in 24 hours. So we had a wait list for, you know, this guy coming in to talk about insects and habitat. He came in from Delaware. So it was a great program. And I think people are, they want to be part of the solution. And we really need everyone to act on this together because it does seem like if you're just going to do it to your yard, it doesn't seem like enough. But what we want is this collective effort. So everyone is doing something, right? And I like one thing Doug said was, let's not think of our turf grass as wall-to-wall carpeting, but let's do it like a throw rug. So, you know, people like their turf too. You have kids, you want them to run around, but have just reduced that.
Mike Kiniry
So what's next for the campaign?
Bridget Washburn
Well, we'll continue our nature where we're at, nature Ford community roundtables with the developers and builders, landscape architects, like Brad was mentioning, and we really would like to get these natives out to the public. So we'll continue working with those larger scale growers to bring these natives to public facing nurseries where people can buy them. Brad and I have been going around doing lots of presentations, which is always really exciting because almost after every one, someone comes up and says, my HOA wants to do this. Now, so to follow up with those HOAs and make it happen, that is another next step.
Mike Kiniry
Well, we're pretty much out of time. Any final thoughts you'd like to leave us with, Brad?
Brad Cornell
I just wanted to note that there are some other things that complement this. In nature where we live, one of the important aspects is to reduce the amount of pesticides in our yard, including rodenticide, which has been a poison that goes up the food chain through rodents to owls, like these burrowing owls. We've lost dozens of burrowing owls to rodenticide. So there are alternative ways to do that. Managing our trash, excluding the rodents from your house, and using anti-fertility feeds. And also the bird-safe glass. Birds can hit glass because they see the reflections.
Mike Kiniry
Is that like a sticker you put on it or something?
Brad Cornell
Yep, you can put some stickers. There's this company called Feather Friendly that sells these. I unfortunately killed a male painted bunting two years ago. I felt so bad. It hit my window in the back of my house. So a couple weeks later, we got some Feather Friendly stickers. And my wife and I spent a whole day, we put them up on all our windows. We hardly notice them now, but no more birds hitting the glass. And so those kind of strategies are really important. Lights out, lights are a big conflict with insects and birds, and really for us too. So turning out your lights, you know, when you don't need them at night, that really helps nature and all this wildlife and biodiversity.
Mike Kiniry
Ellin, I'm going to give you the final word.
Ellin Goetz
Go green, baby.
Mike Kiniry
Go green, baby. Where can people, is it the website, the AudubonWE.org?
Bridget Washburn
AudubonWE.org, that's it.
Mike Kiniry
And that's the best place to get a roundup of the things we've been talking about.
Bridget Washburn
Under nature where we live.
Brad Cornell
Yep.
Mike Kiniry
All right. Bridget Washburn is executive director of Audubon Western Everglades. Thank you, Bridget.
Bridget Washburn
Thanks so much.
Mike Kiniry
Brad Cornell is Southwest Florida Policy Director with Audubon Western Everglades. Thank you, Brad.
Brad Cornell
Great to be here. Thanks.
Mike Kiniry
And Ellen Getz is a longtime landscape architect and country. Reservationist here in Southwest Florida, thanks to you as well, Ellen.
Ellin Goetz
It's been real.
Mike Kiniry
This conversation was recorded on March 19th, so the drought information Brad shared earlier isn't completely up to date. And just to fact check myself, when I moved here in 1980, Lee County's population was just over 200,000, and right now we're approaching 900,000, so the numbers I quoted earlier were off by a bit. If you missed any of the show, you can always hear all of our episodes on our website, wgcu.org slash GCL, or you can subscribe to the show as a podcast. Our show today was produced by yours truly. For now, thanks for listening. I'm Mike Kiniry. This is WGCU FM Fort Myers 90.1, WMKO Marco Island, 91.7 FM, NPR for Southwest Florida.