6 minute read
OPPORTUNITY
By Greg Lowell Redstone Review
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LYONS – There’s worry these days (rightfully) over the threat of invasive species. Emerald ash borers from Asia are death for Colorado’s ash trees and cheatgrass has taken over huge swathes of formerly native western grasslands since the 1890s when the seeds arrived in packing material and bedding from Europe.
Who wasn’t alarmed at the news of recently discovered giant “murder hornets” that had found their way in shipping containers from the Western Pacific and which prey on the honeybees we depend on for pollination of our crops?
Honeybees themselves are not native and are an introduced species as well here in North America. Honeybees were among the many species Europeans brought with them. While there were four thousand native bee species in North America when Europeans first arrived, none of them produced honey.
Michael Pollan in The Botany of Desire points out that Europeans brought with them to the New World a “portable ecosystem” that let them recreate their accustomed way of life. They brought the grass their livestock fed on, medicinal herbs and fruits and flowers. They also inadvertently brought with them seeds on the soles of their boots and grass and weed seeds in the feed for their animals.
Invasive and introduced species have an advantage over native species. Their natural predators and the diseases that keep them in check are absent and there’s little to dampen their proliferation.
The definition of an invasive species is “an alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.” Here in North America, thousands of invasive species of plants and animals are thriving. The rapid movement of plants and animals around the globe has increased dramatically the number of new species finding comfortable niches in places that as little as fifty years ago they never could’ve reached.
But there are also those non-native (and harmful) species brought here with good intentions but with little foresight. The common carp that destroys bottom plants needed by native fish as cover for eggs and fry was imported from Eurasia as a food source. The feral pigs now decimating wildlife in southern states are imported European and pigs gone wild. And the ubiquitous kudzu vine in the South was imported for erosion control.
For these species and many more North America provided a fertile environment. Unwittingly, we’ve created an ecology here in North America that does not resemble life on this continent as little as 500 years ago. And that ecology has both good and bad aspects and other consequences that remain unknown.
Some good ones
Few Colorado anglers object to the rainbow and brown trout swimming in Colorado rivers, but the artificial breeding
and stocking of these salmonids have also meant the decline of Colorado native trout like the greenback cutthroat. Likewise, the thrill of catching largemouth bass at nearby Pella Ponds (themselves artificially created from gravel pits) is tempered by the fact that the bass have decimated native species and become apex predators in Colorado warmwater ponds. Few of us would trade local orchard apples like Honeycrisp and other tasty varieties for crabapples, but a couple hundred years ago crabapples were the only pomologically native trees in North American. European immigrants Lowell brought with them saplings of the current apple trees. And earthworms, who had once existed here but were wiped clean by the glaciers that swept south during the Ice Age, were only reestablished when they hitchhiked on the root balls of those same apple trees and others brought to the New World. Always bad? Are invasive species always bad? Most ecologists and resource managers see invasive species as harmful and needing to be eliminated. But elimination of an already established species is expensive and may often cause harm to native
Honeybees and largemouth bass are charter members of the “Welcome to America Club.
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Good Old Days returns to Lyons
By Monique SawyerLang Redstone Review
LYONS – It’s back. A streamlined Good Old Days is planned for the weekend of June 24 and 25. Good Old Days weekend has always been a time for family and friends to gather to celebrate living in Lyons. In addition to family reunions, alumni use it as an opportunity to hold their Lyons High School Reunions.
Four events will take place over these two days in June including: the dedication of a sandstone bench in memory of Mickey Hawkins (Class of 1969); a brief history presentation and open house at the Redstone Museum for the community and alumni; Lyons High School alumni reunions for the Classes of 1970, 71, and 72; and, capping off the weekend activities, an evening concert in Sandstone Park. The schedule of events is as follows:
On Friday, June 24, at 6 p.m. the alumni of the Class of 1969 will dedicate a sandstone bench, located at the front of the Lyons Redstone Museum building, in memory of classmate Mickey Hawkins. This is the first Vietnam Memorial Dedication in Lyons. USMC Private First Class Mickey Hawkins, age 19, was killed in a firefight on January 6, 1970 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam.
Of the 22 men from Boulder County that died while serving in Vietnam, he was the only Lyons resident to give his life. The Class of 1969 and other friends of Mickey contributed funds to build the sandstone bench in his honor. Raul Vasquez, of Blue Mountain Stone, generously donated the stone, delivered the stone to and from the Landmark Monuments Company in Loveland, and installed the finished bench in front of the Lyons Redstone Museum.
The program, hosted by Gary Secrest and Rhonda French, will include several guest speakers, Bill Ward, Larry Edwards, and Bryce Monaco, who were friends or classmates of Mickey. Members of Amer-
ican Legion Post 32 will open the program with the Presentation of the Flags and will also participate in the salute, the playing of Taps, and the placing of the wreath by Mickey’s cousin Nancy Nicoletti. Pastor Cris Crisfield will perform the Invocation and Benediction. Please join the Class of 1969 and Lyons Redstone Museum for this Vietnam War Memorial dedication ceremony. Sawyer-Lang On Saturday afternoon, the 25th, there will be a program and open house at the Lyons Redstone Museum. Beginning at 1 p.m. Jerry Johnson will present the history of how his mother LaVern Johnson and the Lyons Historical Society saved the 1881 school building from demolition and created the Redstone Museum. In addition, there will be remarks by past Mayor Nick Angelo; recognition of Lyons High School graduates Zachary Heil, Milton Meyers, and Anthony Thomlison, whose families have been in town over 50 years; and a presentation by Dr. Karen Gregg about her grandmother Franziska Stein who originally opened The Black Bear Inn in Lyons in 1966. Following the presentations there will be an open house
USMC Private First Class Mickey Hawkins was killed in a firefight on January 6, 1970 in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. A graduate of Lyons High School, Class of 1969, a sandstone bench will be dedicated in his memory by classmates and friends on Friday, June 24, at 6 p.m.
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