Ooh some good news! Thanks for posting.

It really is such a pleasant surprise when something positive happens.

Low key there are a lot of people working really hard across the state on trying to make all kinds of positive things happen in their communities and beyond. They’re generally not on the news or getting major party endorsements, but they’re out there. Fighting the good fight.

I don’t understand how habitat fragmentation is increasing when it seems like people are moving out of rural areas into more densely populated areas

That's why this whole crop of small, online news sources are so great for local communities. I mean, some of them are partisan af, but Patch seems pretty earnest.

It sucks that the mainstream press around here never covers anything like this. I guess blood and guts and doom and gloom are probably more profitable.

Yeah, that says a lot. It's one of the issues with the last governor's race. There was zero press on Shapiro, and all of the press on Mastriano was negative. I mean, there's no way I was voting for Mastriano, but it really showed how the press has degenerated since the Fairness Act was repealed.

Do you subscribe to any regional/local papers of record? They tend to have a decent amount of these types of articles, but rarely get much play on aggregators and social media channels generally for several reasons. I’m a Philadelphia Inquirer subscriber, and they routinely call attention to these kinds of beneficial efforts by good people.

As you mentioned, you’re less likely to see much of that on the local TV news, where the “if it bleeds it leads” moniker is a real thing to drive ratings.

I’ve gone on rants about how reporting costs money, and the pay per click ad model broke that understanding in the public, and how that’s harmed our democracy immensely, but yeah.

Btw the people that report for patch and similar outlets make horrible wages and should be celebrated their sacrifices and passion.

Given hotter and wetter weather, existing animal populations face fragmented habitats as those habitats migrate due to those factors. Essentially animal populations are being pushed towards existing man-made obstacles.

You also have to remember that as people migrate from rural to urban areas, the suburbs expand outward into rural land as development to accommodate those new people takes place. This presents a huge issue regarding the cost to preserve open space as developers gobble up parcels.

It’s not like rural development is a non-issue, either, as warehousing and distribution centers have exploded in recent years in rural PA due to cheap land and relatively easy access to highways.

I unfortunately am in the Pittsburgh media market, where the Post-Gazette is run by a bunch of Trump nuts. It’s a shame, it used to be a great paper. Even if there’s stuff like this buried somewhere in there I just don’t want to support the owners. I would honestly love to be able to subscribe to a short (no more than 10-15 pages per issue), maybe bi-weekly + sunday issue type of physical paper, if there were one reliably covering events that I’m interested around here. Other than Reddit I’m not on social media anymore so I end up not consuming nearly as much news as I used to, and the stories that end up getting my attention tend to be higher quality.

Just don't look at the comment section.

I never do! Was it really bad?

Lived next to a lovely field for 25 years. 3 years ago, a McMansion development started building. 40+ houses now. There's a strip of scrub between our properties, and we put two cameras in it. Fox, deer, and even a coyote one night, using that scrub to move through the neighborhood. Love to see them, but it's really sad how many developments there are here.

My biggest worry is I'll wake up one morning and there will be a dead deer in front of my house, traffic is terrible.

These folks have been working on wildlife corridors for years. You'd be surprised at some of the partnerships. Audobon and Ducks Unlimited, for instance.

This is a prime example of why donating to non-profit conservation organizations is key to preserving productive farmland. Conservation Districts do some protection of ag lands but their requirements are really strict. For instance, you can have a handful of applicants that are nearly identical but if one is adjacent to an already preserved farm, then that applicant is the most likely to get the preservation dollars. The farm located next to an existing development is least likely to be preserved, even tho its preservation is most likely to keep it from being developed. At the same time, that big paycheck from the developer is hard to turn down. For older farmers, that paycheck funds their retirement.

Suburban sprawl continues unabated... look at Lancaster or Cumberland Counties as examples.

I completely understand the dynamics, and I do not, for one minute, begrudge farmers for selling. Just hate to see it happen, like everyone else. It is what it is. Very grateful to have lived next to that field all those years.