Sorry to contradict you here Wayne, but your argument is anecdotal and seems to be as straw-manly as GWPatton's - people who work in the Forest Service are likely to get injured by trees, (lethally or otherwise) from falling branches, trees etc. - there's a term for that - occupational hazard. That doesn't necessarily mean that the general populace has the same odds of facing such an injury.
2010 CDC data indicate 4.88% accidental deaths (at #5 reason), and ~80% of those were due to poisoning, accidental falling and motor vehicle related, that pushes other reasons to sub-1% levels. Wind related tree failures caused 31 deaths/year from 1995-2007. http://www.bama.ua.edu/~jcsenkbeil/gy4570/schmidlin%20tree%20fatalities.pdf. That's 407 people in 12 years, don't blame the trees here. Blame human carelessness, thoughtlessness and Nature's unmitigated fury (the last cannot be controlled). Trees would be the means here, not the cause. My point being, yes there are some activities which cause people to be injured - but this always begs the question of what the odds are. As for the irrational fear of urban people to dying from tree-related as related by GWPatton - in my anecdotal experience, yes such fears exist. And trees are easy to pin the blame on, they aren't vocal about it, and with urban areas heavily paved and a whole gamut of underground disturbances related to utility lines etc., it is expected trees don't really find the unfettered access to the soil to stabilize themselves as evolution and Nature intended. The solution lies in learning to think more holistically instead of knee-jerk reactions, which many tend to do. And talking to "victims" of tree-fall injuries or their family members to get your ideas about its dangers is not proper science, neither is hearing anecdotes from of the likes of you, both would be called biased sources. I am yet to hear families and victims of auto accidents stopping riding or driving cars (in significant numbers), post-accident. Or people stopping use of household poisons because some one they knew mistakenly drank rat poison. As scientists it behooves us to keep emotion out of science. NC On 19 January 2013 23:11, Wayne Tyson <[email protected]> wrote: > Ecolog: > > I know I won't convince "Me" that while public safety concerns about > falling trees (and dropping branches) might sometimes be exaggerated, the > truth is that trees do fall and break and people die from it, and it is > only prudent to get the dangerous ones down before they fall down. "Me's" > point is also irrational, on this basis, and using straw-man arguments does > not advance the issue, it only adds an emotional component. He knows damned > well I did not imply that every tree that falls is going to kill someone; > thankfully, even in heavily-used areas such deaths are somewhat rare, but > that does not mean that dangerous trees should not be removed. Talk to the > families of the victims and tell them you stopped the tree that killed > their loved one from being removed. In my area, a public protest prevented > a severely leaning large tree that showed clear signs of root failure > opposite the direction of the lean from being removed. Those people should > have to face the families of the victims, but "God" will be blamed, as > usual. What poppycock! > > WT > > PS: I have lost one friend to a falling tree, almost another, and several > people have been killed over the years in my community by falling trees and > branches. While running a tree survey strip when I was in the Forest > Service, I was narrowly missed by a big widowmaker, and I saw a logger's > body being carried out with his flattened hard hat where his head used to > be. A widowmaker. That's how frequently falling branches kill people in the > forest--there's even been a name for them for years. > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Me" <[email protected]> > To: "Wayne Tyson" <[email protected]> > Cc: <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 8:20 PM > Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Tree stump removal in sensitive area > > > > Omg. The moment it falls, someone is in the perfect position to be fatally > injured. That's the reason there is a war on trees in the Washington DC > area. There is this unreasonable perception that something that looms over > us is out to kill us. Parks here have trees near paths cut for the same > irrational fear. Yet you can go to other states like NY or ME and find > that there is no such rampant tree culling. There is a distorted perception > of risk to me versus averaged risk to populations. > > Geoff Patton > Wheaton, MD > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Jan 19, 2013, at 12:23 PM, Wayne Tyson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Good idea in the wild, but in a place where there are lots of people, one >> has to think of what it hits when it falls after the roots rot enough--it's >> just fine until that instant when the last bit of rot or burrowing rodent >> or whatever cuts the last bit of dead tissue--and BAM! Somebody's dead. >> Drawing birds and other creatures into the urban context is wonderful, but >> I worry about the populations of predators like domestic and feral cats and >> the lack of understory for laddering fledglings up off the ground when they >> make their first hard landing. Context is everything. >> >> WT >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "eann" <[email protected]> >> To: <[email protected]> >> Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2013 7:02 AM >> Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Tree stump removal in sensitive area >> >> >> Rather than worry about stump removal, why not cut the tree off higher up >>> and leave it for cavity birds? >>> >>> Ann >>> ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ >>> E. Ann Poole, NH-CWS >>> Poole Ecological Consultancy >>> PO Box 890, 741 Beard Rd >>> Hillsborough, NH 03244 >>> (603)478-1178 >>> [email protected] >>> www.eannpoole.com >>> ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ >>> >>> >>> ----- >>> No virus found in this message. >>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >>> Version: 10.0.1430 / Virus Database: 2639/5543 - Release Date: 01/19/13 >>> >> > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 10.0.1430 / Virus Database: 2639/5543 - Release Date: 01/19/13 >
