Habitat destruction is a very serious threat to the survival of many species

What local habitats have you seen destroyed? 

If, like me, you are very concerned about the vanishing wildlife around the world and the increasing threats to so many species of flora and fauna, you will know that habitat destruction is one of the main threats that plants and animals face.  I expect there are places you can remember that have been destroyed by housing developments, urban expansion, new roads, and other forms of 'progress'. What local wildlife habitats can you recall that are no longer there? 

Common Lizard (Photo: S Rae)

One location in Fairwater, Cardiff, I spent a lot of time in as boy I used to call the “Coal Yard.” It was actually an abandoned railway siding on the other side of the railway line that ran parallel to the lane that backed onto the house where I lived with my family.  High steel railings blocked access to it from a field that was on one side and a road with another fence of metal railings was at its bottom. The only easy way in was going over the railway bank and railway line. This left the Coal Yard like a mini nature reserve where few people ever went.

Female Wall Brown (Photo: Jorg Hempel)

I used to cross the railway to get there and would discover all sorts of flowers and creatures living in the Coal Yard, including common lizards (Zootoca vivipara), small heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), common blue (Polyommatus icarus) and wall brown (Lasiommata megera) butterflies, and rest harrow (Ononis spinosa) and bird’s foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) wild flowers. All were common enough species then, though the wall brown is one of the British butterflies that has suffered an alarming decline.

Rest Harrow (Photo: Public Domain)

For many people, the Coal Yard was just some waste ground at the side of a railway line but for me it was a wildlife habitat that has been destroyed. To the creatures and plants that were there it was home. To a property developer it was somewhere houses could be built and money to be made. Nowadays it is the site of blocks of flats and neatly tended lawns.

Ponds at Llandaff Weir

A pair of Common Toads (Photo: Public Domain)

There were two ponds on the banks of Llandaff Weir that were once home to many forms of aquatic wildlife, including common frogs (Rana temporia), common toads (Bufo bufo) and the common newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) and palmate newt (Lissotriton helveticus). The frogs and toads bred in the larger of the ponds, which was also home to various dragonfly and damselflies, water snails, water beetles, and the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus).

Sticklebacks (Photo Public Domain)

I use the past tense because these ponds were destroyed when the bank of the river was bulldozed flat. I cannot be sure of the reason given in the local press for this but I seem to remember it was supposedly to improve the bank with a view to a new pathway or road that was planned. All I knew for sure was that these two pools were where I used to find all the creatures mentioned. It was there home. It had been destroyed and it saddened me. I remember wondering where all the amphibians would go when they returned in spring to their breeding places to find they had gone. There was no freshwater suitable left, only the river which was too fast and polluted for the frogs, toads and newts. I have often wondered where do amphibians go when they find a place they have known is no longer there? What goes through their little minds?

Now, it can be said, that all the species I have mentioned were common species, but that is not the point. The problem is, and it is a big problem, is that the more habitats like these, that get destroyed, the less places the wildlife can live.

Both these locations, the Coal Yard and Llandaff Weir, were within a short distance of each other, probably about a mile. I point this out to show how wildlife habitat destruction is cumulative. That is just two examples of what has gone from where I lived as a boy. Multiply this sort of destruction all over the country and you have a main reason that many types of wildlife are endangered.

This is why it is so important that nature reserves are set up and maintained and that, if we have gardens, that we leave plenty of room for wildlife. A garden pond can be just what a toad, frog or newt needs for its survival.

Here is a good example of a threatened wildlife habitat so please sign the petition!

Pineapples and Kiwi Fruit from Ely, Cardiff

My pineapple

Years ago when I lived in the Ely council estate in Cardiff, I made the news a few times because of the exotic fruit I had managed to cultivate in my house and garden. The most memorable occasion was when I grew a pineapple in my living room and the story got reported on HTV News at Christmas.

Home-grown Pineapples

It had taken me a few years to get the plant big enough to produce a flower and then a fruit, but I proved it was possible. Amazingly my house had no central heating at the time too so it was growing in a room that was unheated a lot of the time.

I started the pineapple off by taking the green spiky rosette off a pineapple I bought in a local shop, and after tearing off the bottom leaves, planting it in a pot full of garden soil. It soon took root and started to get bigger and I re-potted it into larger pots as it continued to grow larger.  I remember how exciting it was seeing the flower developing in the centre.

Pineapple flower

I let it develop into a small pineapple fruit before I sent my proposal in to the local television station.  I wrote a script too saying that in the cold and dark days on winter a Cardiff man was dreaming of a much warmer climate and holidays abroad. To help him get that tropical touch to his home in Ely he had grown his own pineapple.

They obviously liked my idea and soon got back to me and arranged to send a reporter called Victoria Pearce and a cameraman around to see me.  I was shown pouring some water into the pineapple’s pot out of a milk bottle and I explained that I just used earth from the garden and water that came out of the tap. There were no secrets to my success but the report said that I had "green fingers". The news story ended with me saying that I hoped the pineapple would be big enough and ripe enough to eat for Christmas.

HTV added some footage of a tropical beach with palm trees and appropriate music for the introduction to the report. An expert from the Welsh National Botanical Centre explained that it was most unusual for anyone to grow a pineapple at home like this. A caption read: “Welsh pineapple grower Steve Andrews”.

Welsh Pineapple Grower Steve Andrews

South Wales Echo

I also sent the story into the South Wales Echo and grew a second pineapple a couple of years later.

My next horticultural success at growing exotic fruit was when I succeeded in growing several kiwi fruit on vines in my back garden. I had grown the plants from seed and had them twining up and around my washing-line pole.

I had a great story for the media about this too. My friend Ayla the Witch had been visiting and we had been sitting on the grass out the back garden on an early summer’s day. I had told my friend about how although I was really pleased with my kiwi fruit vines and the lovely flowers they produced each year, for some reason they never produced any fruit. She said she thought that this summer my luck would change and I would get a crop on my vines. I told Ayla that I hoped she was right and didn’t think any more about it.

But then just a few weeks later, after it had been flowering I noticed a fruit forming, and then another and another. What was really magical about this was that the kiwi fruit were growing on the part of the vines above where Ayla had been sitting. 

Kiwi fruit

I sent the story into the South Wales Echo and the newspaper sent out a cameraman and a reporter. The story got published with a photo of me with kiwi fruit on each side of my face. So that was how I got known in the Cardiff news media as being the gardener who managed to grow pineapples and kiwi fruit at his home.

Passion for fruit

That was all back before I moved to Tenerife in 2004. Some years later I went back on a holiday visit to Cardiff and went back to Ely to see some friends. I was amazed to see large banana plants growing in a garden in Wroughton Place in the estate. Someone there was following in my footsteps I thought, and with yet another exotic fruit.

Bananas in Ely

If Climate Change continues perhaps it will become normal for fruit normally grown in subtropical and tropical countries to being grown in Wales.

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.