"Village of Hamburg shouldn’t sell parkland" 

August 20, 2001

Editor, The Sun:

We are faced with a situation in which our green areas in Hamburg are being systematically destroyed to make way for housing, businesses and parking lots.

Now, the village officials have their sights on selling the parkland behind Forestal and Foxcroft.

Whenever a tree or other plant life is destroyed and replaced by brick, concrete, or asphalt, there is a change to nature’s balance. Drainage patterns change, and can lead to localized flooding and erosion.
Fewer trees and plants mean less oxygen going into the air, less shade, loss of wildlife and creates a heat sink that affects the local micro climate.

Green plants are the only means of replenishing and cleaning the air we breath and sustaining the wildlife we are lucky enough to still have. We cannot afford to lose any more of it. People must take responsibility for preserving wildlife.
The Sunset area on Camp Road has plenty of vacant blacktop land that could be developed for 300 plus housing units that village officials should consider directing builders to first, before destroying more green areas.

There are many kinds of bird sightings in the area behind Forestal and Foxcroft (Goshawk, Baltimore Orioles, Redtail Hawks, a good many Cardinals, and many others), some of which may be seen on the web (www.oocities.org/hamburgpark17/). 

There is an abundance of other wildlife; deer, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, opossum, chipmunks and other wildlife that our children should not have to visit the zoo to see.
If people keep taking away the habitat from the animals so they don’t have a large enough territory to forage, they will be forced to look for food elsewhere, including people’s backyards, food put out for pets, or garbage and eventually they will disappear.

In some cases animals have to adapt their natural food to another animal’s food source.  The point is that animals, man, and every other part of the environment are constantly adjusting to change. When there is a change in the balance of nature, every part is affected. As the territory for the animals decreases, it creates stress. Each animal needs sufficient space to forage, hunt, and live.  Just like humans, if you put too large a population in too small a space, there are many problems.  The stress that is created has a deleterious effect on the animals and plants initially, and later affects people detrimentally in a domino effect. The rare and fragile plants and animals would be the first to go until eventually only weeds, rats, and cockroaches would survive.

Dorothy Seville,
Hamburg