Bone Dry (Blanco County Mysteries) Read Free

the countryside, the buzz of chainsaws became as persistent as the droning of summertime cicadas. Huge mounds of cut cedar waited to be burned on every ranch, deer lease, and rural homesite in the county. To date, officials estimated that ten percent of the cedar had been removed. To John Marlin and other wildlife officials, this was cause for alarm. They knew that a drastic change to the ecosystem—like clearing every cedar in the county—could have less visible long-term implications.
     
    Susannah removed a small tape recorder from her satchel. “You mind if I tape this?” she asked. “Helps me get all the quotes right.”
     
    “Sure. No problem.”
     
    “Well, Mr. Marlin,” Susannah said with false formality—something she herself found rather charming—“tell me what you think about all this cedar-clearing.”
     
    Marlin paused for a moment and took a sip of coffee. “Let me start by saying that it’s not necessarily a bad idea. But it might not be a good idea, either. We obviously have a water problem, as we’ve all known for some time. Seems like every year we hear about how it’s getting worse. Wells run dry, springs and creeks quit flowing, and Pedernales Reservoir is at a record low, even though we haven’t opened a floodgate since the dam was built. And just looking at the face of it, clearing cedar seems like a good way to attack the problem.”
     
    “But...” Susannah prompted him.
     
    Marlin shrugged. “I think we’re all kind of rushing things. We need to step back, take a look at the bigger picture, and think about how our actions could affect the wildlife. Animals have four basic biological requirements—food, water, space, and cover. Whenever man interferes with any one of those, it can have major consequences. For instance, white-tailed deer need brush cover to survive.”
     
    “But the deer don’t eat cedar trees, do they?”
     
    “No, but they usually bed down in thick brush. And they use it to move around without being seen. Without all the cedars, they’d be a lot more vulnerable to predators like coyotes, cougars, and bobcats. Especially the fawns.”
     
    “I never thought about that.”
     
    Marlin shook his head. “Most people don’t. But for all the ranch owners who are making good money with deer leases, it’s something they should consider. They should be wondering what the deer population will be like in five or ten years.
     
    “It’s not just the deer,” Marlin continued, speaking with obvious heartfelt intensity. “Wild turkey, rabbits, raccoons—they all need a fair amount of brushy habitat. And people should keep in mind that if you fool around with one link in the food chain, it can cause a domino effect. Let’s say—just as an example—we remove all the brush, and rabbits become easy prey. Coyotes will have a field day for a while and their population will explode. Pretty soon, we’ve got coyotes all over the place, but they’ve eaten all the rabbits. So what do they go after next? Livestock. Goats, sheep, calves. I know the ranchers don’t want that.
     
    “Or here’s another good example: the beaver. Five hundred years ago, before the Europeans came over, there were maybe three hundred million beavers in North America. Place was crawling with them, from Mexico all the way up to Alaska. But then one of the English kings ruled that only beaver fur could be used to make hats. So beaver fur became big business, and it almost wiped ’em out. Fewer beavers meant fewer beaver dams, and that had a horrible impact on the natural habitat. Suddenly, all the ponds and watering holes the beavers created were disappearing, which had an effect on waterfowl, songbirds, deer and elk, raccoons—the list goes on. Hell, those dams even helped keep the aquifers full back then by slowing down runoff. They limited soil erosion, even helped ease flooding.”
     
    Marlin shook his head and smiled thinly. “I know I’m rambling on a little. We’re here to talk