{"id":4779,"date":"2004-01-06T17:01:23","date_gmt":"2004-01-07T00:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=4779"},"modified":"2004-01-06T17:01:23","modified_gmt":"2004-01-07T00:01:23","slug":"trade_offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/06\/trade_offs.html","title":{"rendered":"Trade-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nobody wants a military installation next door.  But military installations often become wildlife sanctuaries &#8212; broad expanses of land, mostly protected from development, certainly protected from hunters.  Hence, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal &#8212; a chemical weapons plant and repository on the outskirts of Denver, is home to herds of antelope, deer, and is a bald eagle nesting refuge.<\/p>\n<p>And, so, in Britain, the Salisbury Plain is largely controlled by the Ministry of Defense (the &#8220;tank crossing&#8221; signs are always entertaining to see on the road from Stonehenge to Avebury).  And, so, wildlife within the military reservations there are largely protected.  Including the badger population.<\/p>\n<p>And, of course, badger hunting &#8212; for food, for bristles, for sport &#8212; has also dramatically declined in Britain.<\/p>\n<p>Good stuff for badgers, right?<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | Badgers endanger Britain's trove of hidden relics\" href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/arts\/news\/story\/0,11711,1115822,00.html\">Bad stuff for archaeology<\/a>, which has also, until now, benefitted from MoD ownership of much of the Salisbury Plain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">The 94,000-acre plain has 2,500 archaeological sites, more than 300 of them protected by law as Scheduled Ancient Monuments.<br \/>\nSince the MoD took it over for military exercises in 1897 it has become one of Britain&#8217;s best protected areas for wildlife and archaeology because little of the land is farmed. &#8216;It&#8217;s one of the most important historical landscapes in Europe &#8211; amazingly well preserved,&#8217; says David Miles, chief archaeologist at English Heritage. <br \/>\n&#8216;Most people think of Salisbury Plain for prehistoric archaeology, but it&#8217;s desperately important for the Roman period &#8211; you could walk around from one Roman village to the next, and down the streets in the village and down the country lanes to the next village. It&#8217;s almost like going back in time and seeing a countryside for the last 500 years or more.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>But badger populations have been booming on the plain, possibly causing TB epidemics among livestock, and certainly wreaking archaeological havoc.<\/p>\n<p class=\"block\">To make matters worse for the archaeologists, badgers have an instinctive urge to dig &#8211; even when their sett is big enough, said Miles. &#8216;They are little bulldozers.&#8217; <br \/>\nThe result on Salisbury Plain, Morton estimates, is badger setts in more than 52 Bronze Age barrows and Iron Age enclosures. They have burrowed into key sites such as the late Bronze Age East Chisenbury Midden, a rare accumulation of the remains of ceremonial events, built of layers of bones, flint, pottery and manure like a giant &#8216;chocolate cake&#8217;, he said. <br \/>\nEach sett generates tens of cubic yards of soil and scatters remains, so the damage can be considerable. &#8216;The layers become hopelessly jumbled &#8230; to such a degree that a large part of the information is lost forever.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Problem is, short of extremely expensive fencing, or a nationwide culling of the badger population &#8212; neither of which is very palatable &#8212; there&#8217;s not a lot to be done.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, the flashy stuff &#8212; Stonehenge, Avebury, places like that &#8212; will get the protection they need.  But the less prominent sites, and the ones with possibly the most yet to tell us, are likely to be in big trouble.<\/p>\n<p><small>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cronaca.com\/archives\/001918.html\">Cronaca<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nobody wants a military installation next door. But military installations often become wildlife sanctuaries &#8212; broad expanses of land, mostly protected from development, certainly protected from hunters. Hence, the Rocky&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41817,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/27\/honey-badger-dont-care-to-be-penned-in.html","url_meta":{"origin":4779,"position":0},"title":"Honey Badger Don&#39;t Care (to be penned in)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 27-Apr-14 10:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"The saga of Stoffel, the honey badger who would not be kept in a cage.\ufeff View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36541,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/28\/the-us-and-the-world-on-defense-spending.html","url_meta":{"origin":4779,"position":1},"title":"The US and the World on Defense Spending","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 28-May-13 11:15am","format":false,"excerpt":"The main issue is that the US wants to project military power all around the world (offensively or defensively), whereas everyone else is mostly interested in their borders, or maybe at most their region.Among the many questions: Can the US actually afford to continue doing this? Can it afford not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41855,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/29\/big-oil-and-big-guns.html","url_meta":{"origin":4779,"position":2},"title":"Big Oil and Big Guns","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 29-Apr-14 10:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"Why is the fossil fuel industry making major donations to the NRA? Because that lets them \"lobby\" for policy changes on endangered species, access to public lands, and shifting wildlife preserve efforts into private hands rather than public ones -- all of which makes oil and gas development a lot\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133958,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/26\/trump-administration-to-bypass-environmental-studies-for-border-wall.html","url_meta":{"origin":4779,"position":3},"title":"Trump administration to bypass environmental studies for border wall","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Jul-17 7:14pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because of course they are.http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/usa-trump-borderwall-environment-idUSL1N1KC1MH\u275d The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol plans to use a 2005 anti-terror law to sidestep an environmental impact study for a section of President Donald Trump's border wall that will pass through a Texas national refuge for endangered ocelots, according to two government sources familiar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/GettyImages_6010687445B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/GettyImages_6010687445B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/GettyImages_6010687445B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":32780,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/12\/paul-ryan-seems-to-have-forgotten-he-lost.html","url_meta":{"origin":4779,"position":4},"title":"Paul Ryan seems to have forgotten he lost","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Mar-13 8:38pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Rather, he and his running mate lost the White House. He still managed to win his House seat, which is why he's back proposing a more draconian budget than he ran on last year.But, then, last year, he was trying (unsuccessfully) to convince the public. \u00a0Now he only needs to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4863,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/12\/16\/excuse_me_stewa.html","url_meta":{"origin":4779,"position":5},"title":"Excuse me, stewardess &#8212; I&#8217;ll have some of whatever he&#8217;s smoking &#8230;","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 16-Dec-03 11:16am","format":false,"excerpt":"George Monbiot's current screed about the airplane, on the approximate centennial of powered flight, makes even Michael Moore's latest drivel sound -- well, if not sensible, at least grounded somewhere...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hi-Tech&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}