onenicebugperday:

onenicebugperday:

shnemes:

onenicebugperday:

I’ve seen a few ~aesthetic~ photos of rock stacks in rivers recently and this is just a reminder that you are destroying habitat when you move rocks around in rivers and streams.

In addition to dragonfly nymphs, rocky river beds are home to lots of other larval invertebrates like damselflies, mayflies, water beetles, caddisflies, stoneflies, and a bunch of dipterans. Not to mention lots of fish and amphibians!

Plus large scale rock stacking can change the flow of a stream and lead to increased erosion.

Anyway dragonfly for admiration:

Calico pennant by nbdragonflyguy

Everything is something’s habitat. You might as well not go outside for fear of stepping on some larval beetle.

This is hugely missing the point. The idea is to enjoy what’s left of our natural spaces while having as little an impact as possible. It’s not difficult to avoid intentionally destroying habitat. I recommend looking into the Leave No Trace principle which is very important for conservation. Cynicism doesn’t help anything.

You can read more about Leave No Trace here.

A few rock stacks here and there wouldn’t have much of an impact alone. But in parks that see thousands or even millions of visitors each year, when you have people like you saying, “sure, literal scientists and park rangers are telling me not to do this, but surely that doesn’t apply to ME,” the effect is huge. Please attempt to see the bigger picture. You are not so special that YOU get to ignore the rules and continue intentionally destroying habitat even after you’ve been told it’s harmful.