Ruckus January 6, 2023

Tallamy on how to help nature return to your yard

RACHEL HERGETT for the Chronicle

Like many subdivisions before it, Oak Park in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, did not pay tribute to its namesake. “ e rst thing they did was cut down the oaks,” said Douglas Tallamy, an entomologist and author who cites his childhood home as inspiration for his widespread conservation e orts.

Tallamy’s home in Oak Park was next to the last empty lot in the neighborhood—a wondrous place for a young boy, complete with its own pond and various inhabitants.

“In the spring, the toads came and they sang and they laid eggs. And the eggs became pollywogs and I watched the pollywogs,” Tallamy said in a phone interview with the Chronicle on Monday. “I was there the day (the pollywogs) all hopped out on the shore, but that was the same day the bulldozer came and buried the whole thing.”

People replaced the toads as a house replaced a pond. “ at made an impression on me,” Tallamy continued.

Tallamy, the T.A. Baker Professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware and founder of nonpro t organization Homegrown National Park, will be in Bozeman on Friday, Jan. 6, to give a talk based on his 2020 book “Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation at Starts in Your Yard.”

“People in Montana actually have a great deal of power, because you have so much land and so much opportunity,” Tallamy said. “It doesn’t take much to turn things around a bit.”

PROVIDED PHOTO BY ROB CARDILLO

Entomologist Doug Tallamy will give a talk based on his 2020 book “Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard”, on Jan. 6 in Bozeman.

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Happy Hour Open Mic

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With close to a billion streams of his six albums to date, Chad Daniels is one of the most listened to comedians of all time He brings his date-night stand up to WMPAC for two shows on Sat, Jan. 7th. Warren Miller Perform‐ing Arts Center, 45465 Gallatin Road, Gallatin Gateway cara@ warrenmillerpac.org, 406-9956345

Notorious BOZ with Noah Mattes of Naked and Afraid

@ 7pm / $15

Catholic Community Center, 210 South Grand Avenue, Bozeman. amanda.albrecht@bozemanfolk lore.org

Mindfulness Workshop for Middle Schoolers

@ 4pm / $150

Jan 11th - Feb 15th Ring in the New Year by connect‐ing to your inner-superpower in this 6-week mindfulness series for middle-schoolers Course fee is $150 or pay-what-you-can! To‐gether we will learn tools to “ride the wa Bozeman, 612 W Maint Street. hello@mtmindfulness.org, 330-283-8460

OLLI at MSU

Art Reception: Tandy Riddle

@ 6pm

Join local artist Tandy Riddle for complimentary snacks, wine and socializing, celebrating the open‐ing of her art exhibit at Steep Mountain! The show features work in pastel, watercolor and oil paint Steep Mountain Teahouse, 402 East Main Street, Bozeman. man ager@steepmtntea.com, 406-5772740

Celtic Quintet

@ 6pm

Music from Ireland, Scotland and places beyond. Valhalla Meadery, 875 Bridger Drive, Bozeman. knealh49@gmail com

Kalyn Beasley: Songswap with Marcedes Carroll & Shawn Hess

@ 7pm

Tune Up, 24 W Mendenhall St, Bozeman

Nature's Best Hope

@ 7pm

Learn how planting native plants in your garden can make a huge dif‐ference for insects, birds, and other wildlife. New York Times bestselling author Doug Tallamy will explain how you can help!

Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture, 111 South Grand Avenue, Bozeman. gallatinvalleyearthday@ gmail.com, 406-595-5976

Notorious BOZ is a long-form im‐prov show that celebrates the city of Bozeman, its history and its in‐credible citizens This week's mo‐nologist is Noah Mattes! Last Best Comedy, 321 East Main Street, Bozeman. info@lastbest comedy com, 406-570-7766

Dirtwire @ 8pm The Elm, 506 S 7th Ave, Bozeman

Whiz BANG! Intoxicating Comedy @ 9pm / $15

Whiz BANG! is an explosion of in‐toxicating comedy! Exciting, high-energy, short-form improv that is so funny it's criminal An hour long show with lots of audi‐ence interaction Last Best Com‐edy, 321 East Main Street, Boze‐man info@lastbestcomedy com, 406-570-7766

Spring 2023 Re‐ception @ 4pm

OLLI at MSU will host its annual spring semester reception from 4 to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 10, at Pilgrim Congregational United Church. The event is free and open to the public. Pilgrim United Church of Christ Boze‐man, 2118 South 3rd Av‐enue, Bozeman olli@mon tana.edu, 406-994-6550

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OPS Membership: Winter

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Canoe Dealers

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Business Lunches: Pros‐pera Business Network

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International Folk Dancing @ 7pm

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Forum: Pedes‐trian and Bicycle Safety in Bozeman @ 12pm / Free OLLI at MSU will present “Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety in Bozeman” at a January 13 Friday Forum. The event will be deliv‐ered online on Zoom from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. and is free and open to the pub‐lic. Academic Technology and Outreach, 128 Barnard Hall, Bozeman olli@montana.edu, 406994-6550

Celtic Quintet @ 6pm

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Frid Night Sta d-Up wi @ T an ca make you do any math. Last Best Comedy, 321 East Main Street,

Bozeman. info@lastbestcom edy com, 406-570-7766

son Auditorium, 404 West Main Street, Bozeman of �ce@bridgerskifounda tion.org, 406-587-2445

Chanel Ali Live in Bozeman

@ 8pm / $20

She's been seen on Comedy Cen‐tral, MTV's "Girl Code" and opened for Marc Maron! Chanel Ali is coming to Bozeman from New York City for one night only! Rad Bikes, 512 North Broadway Avenue, Bozeman info@ bonedrycomedy com, 325-6682248

Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour

Jacob Rountree & The Somethings w/ salt and shadow @ 8pm

Filling Station Vfw, 2005 N Rouse Ave, Bozeman

@ 7pm / $20 Jan 13th - Jan 14th The best in mountain cul‐ture �lms arrive in Boze‐man. Featuring 24 awardwinning �lms over three different showings. Will‐son Auditorium, 404 West Main Street, Bozeman. of �ce@bridgerskifounda tion.org, 406-587-2445

Chanel Ali Live in Bozeman

@ 8pm / $20

She's been seen on Comedy Cen‐tral, MTV's "Girl Code" and opened for Marc Maron! Chanel Ali is coming to Bozeman from New York City for one night only! Rad Bikes, 512 North Broadway Avenue, Bozeman. info@ bonedrycomedy com, 325-6682248

Jacob Rountree & The Somethings w/ salt and shadow @ 8pm

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Get fit for the new year with healthy recipes

It’s the second week of January – how are your New Year’s resolutions doing?

If eating healthier is one of them, Cooking Channel online has you covered, offering up ideas for meal makeovers and low-calorie desserts that are imaginative and look delicious.

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The free event, a collaboration between Gallatin Valley Earth Day 2023, Sacajawea Audubon Society and the Montana Native Plant Society-Valley of the Flowers Chapter, will start at 6 p.m. with a reception at the Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture in Bozeman featuring a book signing with Tallamy, exhibits by Great Bear Native Plants, Wild Birds Unlimited and the city of Bozeman’s Water Division, and free food and drinks. Tallamy will speak at 7 p.m. to both live and virtual audiences. For more information on this and other Earth Day events, and to register for the online talk, visit www.gallatinvalleyearthday.org.

Tallamy’s thesis is that every person with a yard can make a difference in restoring landscapes, lending the “hope” to his book title. As a boy, he could have made a difference.

“It did not occur to me that I could have dug a pond on our property, right next door,” he said. “I could have saved that toad population. But I was of the same mindset as most people and that is we have to save the places that aren’t destroyed yet. We’re not thinking about putting them back together again.”

In the United States, what wild areas there are to be saved have been saved. Now they exist as polka dots over a vast landscape of privately owned land. Now, Tallamy advocates restoration, reclaiming landscapes with fauna native to the area to help connect these isolated wilderness areas and provide means for animals to roam and the plants and insects that support them to flourish.

It took Tallamy 50 years from the destruction of the pond to begin thinking about how he could have helped save some of the animals and plants that thrived there. When Tallamy and his wife purchased a property in Oxford, Pennsylvania, they were determined to restore as much of the plant life to what had been

there before human interference. What was once a farm had been broken into 10-acre lots and those lots had been invaded by plants from Asia—plants that competed with native plants and provided little nutrition for animals and insects.

“We got rid of the invasives, we put native plants back and we watched nature return,” Tallamy said.

In “Nature’s Best Hope,” Tallamy lays out the folly of human error in the destruction of the natural world.

“We humans are not going to survive on planet Earth if we destroy the ecosystems that support us,” he said. “Everybody requires healthy ecosystems.”

He’s buoyed by other research, and the headlines that come out of it. When the United Nationsbacked Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released its 2019 report, Tallamy cheered headlines that said a million species were at risk of extinction. These lead more people to want to make a positive impact on the environment.

“Nature’s Best Hope” also builds upon work by other conservationists, like Aldo Leopold, E.O.Wilson, and Rachel Carson, whose “Silent Spring” showed how DDT was impacting birds like bald eagles and peregrine falcons.

“Perhaps its greatest contribution was in recognizing that the things we do where we live, work and farm—that is, in locales outside of protected areas—are critical to conservation efforts everywhere,” Tallamy writes of “Silent Spring.”

Tallamy followed “Nature’s Best Hope” with “The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees” in 2021, touting the tree’s place as a keystone species in landscapes from coast to coast. But that’s not the case in Montana. In his Bozeman talk, Tallamy will advocate for plants like willow and chokecherry.

“To think that you, personally, can help bring back declining species and species on the verge of extinction by what you plant in your yard is very empowering,” Anne Ready, chair of Gallatin Valley Earth Day, stated in a release. If you’re wondering where to start, Tallamy says to start with a tree, one of the keystone species laid out in his research, (found here: https://www.nwf.org/Garden-for-Wildlife/About/NativePlants/keystone-plants-by-ecoregion).

“You can see the life come back to that single tree,” Tallamy said. “It works, it works demonstrably, it works fast and that’s what keeps me optimistic. If I just convince more people to do that, it will work more and more.”

PrOVidEd PHOTOS

When native plants like the wild blue phlox seen above are reintroduced to yards, Tallamy says, animal and insect species may return.

Solution on page 12

BY GEORGE DICKIE

BY GEORGE DICKIE

Kings winning again with Sabonis in the post

One of the NBA’s pleasant surprises of the 2022-23 season has been the Sacramento Kings. And at the front of the team’s push toward its first postseason appearance in 17 years is Domantas Sabonis.

Indeed, in its 6-foot-11-inch power forward, the Kings have an inside presence who can do it all – score, rebound, play defense and pass. And teamed with young point guard De’Aaron Fox, the 26-year-old Lithuanian gives the team a solid nucleus around which to build for years to come.

As of early December, the son of Basketball Hall of Famer Arvydas Sabonis was posting very solid numbers – 17 points per game on 60.9 percent shooting to go with 11 rebounds (sixth in the league) and 6.6 assists. But beyond that, he does a lot of other things that don’t show up in box scores.

Questions:

Answers:

1) What distinction does the Boston Celtics have in NBA annals?

2) In what year did the Celtics begin play?

3) What player – and future TV Western star –delayed the franchise’s first home game with a backboard-splintering slam dunk?

4) For what team did point guard Bob Cousy play prior to coming to the Celtics?

5) In 1956, the Celtics drafted center Bill Russell with a pick they acquired from the St. Louis Hawks. What two players did they trade for that pick?

6) In what year did the Celtics win their first NBA championship?

7) That same year, the Celtics began a record run of championships. How many did they consecutively win? 1) Along with the Los Angeles Lakers, they have the most championships (17) in league history 2) In 1946, as charter members of the Basketball Association of America, which later became the NBA 3) Center Chuck Connors, future star of “The Rifleman” 4) The Chicago Stags, which was disbanded in 1950 in a league reorganization 5) Center Ed Macauley and forward Cliff Hagan 6) In 1958, when the Celts defeated the Hawks, four games to three 7) Eight (1958-66)

His dribble handoffs have become a main feature of the Sacramento offense, and the team scores more points on the dribble handoff than any other in the league. He’s also a smart enough decision maker to know when not to deploy that play. And he’s one of the best post scorers in the NBA, one that almost always requires a double team, which often leads to wide open shots for the Kings.

Best of all, his unselfish play has made his teammates better, which is a hallmark of a playoff team. That’s what the Kings appear to be, something they haven’t been able to say since 2005-06.

Sabonis and the Kings can be seen in action Wednesday, Jan. 11, when they play host to the Houston Rockets in the late game of an ESPN doubleheader.

NAME: Domantas Sabonis

BIRTH DATE: May 3, 1996

BIRTHPLACE: Portland, Ore. (raised in Malaga, Spain)

HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 7 feet, 1 inch/240 pounds

TEAMS: Oklahoma City Thunder (2016-17);

Indiana Pacers (201722); Sacramento Kings (2022-present)

COLLEGE: Gonzaga

DRAFT: Taken in the first round (11th overall) by the Orlando Magic in 2016, then was dealt to Oklahoma City in a draft night trade

POSITION: Power forward

NO.: 10 HONORS AND ACHIEVEMENTS: NBA All-Star (2020, 2021); AP Honorable Mention All-American (2016); First-team All-WCC (2016); won a silver medal with the Lithuanian national team at the 2015 EuroBasket tournament