“I had witnessed the local extinction of a thriving community of animals, sacrificed so that my neighbors-to-be could have an expansive lawn” (22).

Tallamy in this passage is noting his time growing up in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, which happens to border my hometown of Chatham. I am all too familiar with this phenomena of bulldozing lawns with new homeownership, leveling lawns, and installing irrigation systems that are totally blind towards local fauna, plantings, animals, and habitats. But, what I find curious of the author is that Tallamy does not mention what also borders both of our towns, the Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge. This massive expanse of land was supposed to be the site of Newark Airport before local lobbying efforts stopped this from occurring, but the land has incredible biodiversity and expansive ecosystems and is about 5 minutes from Tallamy’s home. Perhaps it simply did not fit his argument to include this in his piece, but I do want to give where I am from some credit in the environmental sustainability fight.

“We did not systematically start at one end of the continent and wipe out everything as we proceeded. Instead, we left islands of suitable habitat in which most of the plants and animals that survive today found refuge. At first, these habitat patches were relatively large, but today there are miniscule, far too small to sustain populations of most living things for very long” (25).

This passage strikes me in two different capacities because I feel as if the concept of manifest destiny would not see settlers leaving pockets of land alone for nature to maintain all by itself. I was always led to believe that manifest destiny was a tidal wave, all-encompassing, taking up everything in its path and leaving nothing for those who were late to the party. Although, as I read on in this quote, I understood how these small islands were swept up after the gaze of manifest destiny missed them on the first pass. It is almost like man is making up for lost time by chiseling away at these small islands, taking more and more from the already tiny parcels of land that were left unmolested. Checking for gaps it seems like, almost as if humankind was saying “Did we miss a spot?”