Quote:
Originally Posted by huntervonmanley
Please do some real research before just typing stuff! Gophers(what us Floridians call them) Do Not live in shady oak tree forests. They live in open areas of sage grass, and pines and loose sandy soil. Never in my life seen a gopher hole in a shady area. Also, as someone else mentioned, many other animals use their holes for housing.
And the comment that there are more forests now than in the time of Columbus. Really? Maybe a higher number of planted trees, that's because we have obliterated lots of the natural forests. Planted pines does not constitute a forest. Here are the stats on forestation from the U.S. Forest Service...
In 1997, 302 million hectares— or 33 percent of the total land area of the United States— was in forest land. Today's forest land area amounts to about 70 percent of the area that was forested in 1630. Since 1630, about 120 million hectares of forest land have been converted to other uses—mainly agricultural.
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The discussion concerns gopher TORTOISES, not gophers.
Gopher tortoise - Wikipedia
If you skip down a few pages, you will discover that their natural is, and I quote: "...the most suitable habitats for gopher tortoise is the longleaf pine ecosystem..."
As far as arguments over the size of the forests 500 years ago vs. now, we could post competing sources all day to argue over one minor sentence, but I would rather discuss the point of the post, which is that the gopher tortoise "preserves" preserve nothing, and merely torment the inmates, while adding little value to The Villages, regardless of who "owns" them or why they were created.
If they are truly intended as nature preserves, then they should be treated as such. Instead of terrorizing the inmates with frequent mowing, the "preserves" should be improved to resemble the natural habitat of the animals they claim to preserve, which would have the side benefit of removing these ugly eyesores. They should be made into beautiful wild spaces, rather than just ugly enclosed fields where the inmates are tormented by mowing, poor diet, and overcrowding.
And if they are not truly nature preserves, then they should be made available for use by the Villagers whose home purchases paid for them.