Save the trail; Orioles may depend on it

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Save the trail; Orioles may depend on it

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Have you ever seen a pair of Baltimore Orioles — the Maryland state bird — in the spring? I saw them for the first time, on Mother’s Day, on a local trail I never previously knew existed, though I have lived in the area for decades.

This mile-long forested Capital Crescent Trail, connecting, Bethesda and Silver Spring, is slated for destruction for an aboveground Purple Line transit route.

The Baltimore Orioles were an almost neon orange and yellow, with touches of black and white, and they flew high above in the forest canopy, calling flute-like notes, as bicyclists and pedestrians went by below. Here were some of the largest wild black cheery and black locust trees I had ever seen, the size of the tulip poplars. The trees have grown undisturbed because they were along a railroad track. Most of these trees have numbered metal tags on their trunks, indicating they are to be cut down. The tags number to the thousands. Baltimore Orioles prefer high forest canopy in which to dwell.

Gov. Martin O’Malley recently called for the Purple Line to be a tunnel here sparing the trees. And the Maryland Alliance for Greenway Improvement and Conservation has a forward-look to what cities should plan, that indicates that in the years ahead, building a train route by cutting forests would be counterproductive: Those advocating the Purple Line to fight climate change should know that keeping urban trees and other green areas is on of the key ways to fight global warming.

I wonder what Rachel Carson, who wrote her ‘‘Silent Spring” here about lost birdsong, would have advocated.

I know my view and that of many others I have talked with who need and use the outdoors. Please contact public officials to save the forested Capital Crescent Trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring.

Caleb Kriesberg, Silver Spring