Speaking of Rivers.....

an evening shot of the South Fork Rivanna River from my deck

I must bring your attention to the May-June issue of Audubon Magazine. A special issue entitled, AMERICA'S RIVER, it is jampacked with articles, photos, bad news and good news about our country's greatest river, the Mississippi. The information covers it all, from what has happened over the years as we have kept growing as a nation, our attempts at trying to tame this magnificent river and what we are left with today. The good news is that there are ways of fixing the many problems but unless we heed this call to action now, things will only get worse.

Below are some qotes from the magazine:

"We write poetry about the Mississippi, paint pictures of it, use it to irrigate our crops and remove our waste. It enabled our manifest destiny, connected us in commerce, seperated us in war. It is America's River, and its condition reflects our own."
Ted Williams

"Last summer few people outside of Louisiana, or even in it, knew that every year the state loses more than 15,000 acres of protective coastal wetlands or that a Dead Zone as big as New Jersey forms in the Gulf of Mexico. Then Katrina and Rita struck, bringing devastation, and a new commitment to tackle the Mississippi River's many problems. Still, any grand fix must take into account the whole river, from top to bottom, while balancing the competing interests pulling it apart."
Christopher Hallowell

"Most of America doesn't get what's happening. After all, how can wetlands that produce about a quarter of the nation's seafood be disappearing? With all the shorebirds one sees, it's hard to imagine that populations of nine Gulf species dropped by half in one decade."
Ted Williams

The magazine also has a information about what you can do to help in the effort. You can visit the Audubon website at www. audubon.org. For simple ways that you can protect birds and waterways in your neighborhood, visit Audubon At Home at www.audubonathome.org.