Can’t Get a Nut
By Nick Sifuentes - Dec 1st, 2008 at 2:29 pmPity the squirrel. As a recent Washington Post article points out , several species of oaks are failing to produce acorns this year, leaving residents of the East Coast perplexed and herbivorous animals at risk of starvation. According to the article, oak trees up and down the East Coast have just stopped producing acorns, and some of the people quoted in the article take a vaguely apocalyptic look at the whole affair:
[Louise] Garris started calling nurseries. “I was worried they’d think I was crazy. But they said I wasn’t the only one calling who was concerned about it,” she said. “This is the first time I can remember in my lifetime not seeing any acorns drop in the fall and I’m 53. You have to wonder, is it global warming? Is it environmental? It makes you wonder what’s going on.”
Someone should notify this Boston Globe blogger, then, who is reporting a bumper crop out of Massachusetts this year:
But this year, it’s hard to miss the massive number of acorns raining down on the New England landscape. From backyards in Northampton to city streets in Providence, many oak trees appear to be producing a healthy – if not record-breaking – crop of the nut.
The problem with these sorts of articles is that there’s a distinct tendency toward anecdotal evidence–a few people notice a dearth of acorns in some areas and reporters describe it as a sweeping trend, while a little digging produces contradicting anecdotal evidence. While the acorn drought in some places in the east is certainly interesting, it’s important to recall that an oak’s acorn-producing patterns are cyclical; some trees produce acorns only once every 18 months, so it may not be too noteworthy that production in the East Coast seems to have ceased for one year. Oaks live for a long time, too, so there’s no fear of oaks dying en masse as a result of one acorn-free fall. In short, the acorn situation bears watching, but certainly no cause for alarm.
Post a Comment