Blab Lab host and ecoRI News reporter Rob Smith speaks with senior reporter Frank Carini to discuss Carini’s ongoing series on Rhode Island’s endangered species — many of which are threatened by habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change.

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This transcript was edited for clarity and length.

Rob Smith

Rob, Welcome to Blab Lab, a podcast from the reporters of ecoRI News where we unpack the critical environmental issues facing southern New England today. I’m reporter Rob Smith, and today I’m in the studio with ecoRI News co-founder, columnist and all-star Frank Carini to talk about his ongoing series featuring Rhode Island’s flora, fauna and everything in between. Frank, thanks for coming on the show today.

Frank Carini

Thanks. I didn’t know I was an all-star. Do I get a bonus?

Rob Smith

You have to go talk to the publisher who handles the business end if you want to receive additional compensation. I am not an HR professional. I’m sorry, that’s above my pay grade.

So Frank, for the last couple of months, you’ve been writing this wildlife series. How did you get started on this idea? I know you’ve been talking about wanting to do more wildlife coverage and what’s happening with them for a while now. But how did this idea come to your mind?

Frank Carini

It’s actually the species that are listed in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. So it’s not everything that lives here. It’s native species that have been listed. Either they’re threatened, they’re species of concern, or they’re endangered. And I thought it was important to let people know what’s out there and what potentially we could lose.

Rob Smith

Why, as an environmental reporter, is the native stuff so important?

Frank Carini

Because that’s what’s here. If we don’t have native insects – and I’m going to do plants after I’m finished with the animals – but if we don’t have the native species, what we’re going to have is multiflora rose, mosquitoes, ticks, not that they’re not native but you know, we need diversity. If you don’t have diversity, it’s going to hurt the ecosystem, which inevitably will hurt our public health and our well-being. You need different species, and we’re losing a lot.

Rob Smith 

You mentioned the endangered or species of concern lists that the states maintain, and these are lists that are maintained by the states, right?

Frank Carini

Connecticut, Massachusetts. Rhode Island is kind of maintained now by the Rhode Island Natural History Survey and David Gregg and his team, and they’re just a small nonprofit, so two states out of the three, but there’s still a list.

Rob Smith

What does it mean for species to be on that list?

Frank Carini

It means they’re in trouble. Whether they’re there as the first level of species of concern: ‘Hey, we got to keep an eye on the species because it’s a little bit in trouble.’ The other one is threatened, which means it’s already in trouble, and the other one’s endangered, that it’s going to soon disappear from our states, not necessarily from the planet, but from southern New England.

Rob Smith 

What are some of those more surprising things you’ve talked about covering the species on the list in the three states that you didn’t know before. What’s something people would be surprised to learn?

Frank Carini

I don’t know if this is that interesting, but I was kind of surprised there were so many warblers on this, and sparrows too. Yeah, the birds [on the list] are, like, eight or nine each of sparrows and warblers that are coming through, not necessarily the migratory birds. They’re not necessarily staying here and overwintering, which few birds do, but they come through here.

 But there’s less and less coming through, even my own yard. When we moved to Portsmouth eight years ago, I’m not a bird expert, and I can’t even tell if a single bird is probably the same warbler. I don’t know, but we’ve used to have several in the backyard, and now the last couple years, I’ve never seen one, and I’m on the porch a lot out there, and we have the bird book and hardly see any.

Rob Smith 

And warblers are songbirds, right? I don’t know that much about birds, to be honest. I noticed when my dogs caught them in the yard, but that’s about it. So you said there were eight or nine warbler species, and then you also said there were sparrow species.

Frank Carini

Sparrow species are on the list, and not like the European Sparrow that you see, but yeah, a bunch. I compiled a list of the animals that were listed, and I haven’t got to the warblers or sparrows yet. I have the list. I don’t remember which, which was on them, because I’m going to set up some conversations the next couple weeks with experts that could speak about that. [Editor’s note: The story on warblers can be found here.]

I remember catching that. I’m like, Wow, there’s so many warblers and sparrows. I thought there was only a couple sparrows in general. Never mind eight or nine different species that are listed in these states.

Rob Smith

And do you know what’s endangering them?

Frank Carini

It’s mostly the same: us. It’s mostly habitat loss, insecticides, pesticides, you know, spraying poisons around, ripping up habitat, filling in wetlands. It’s the same thing. Some of it’s, they’re getting eaten by, you know, predators. But mostly it’s human activity, human development, human beings, idiots, and climate change too.

Rob Smith

Yes. What are some of the other ways that you’re seeing climate change impact these species?

Frank Carini

I haven’t got into the species that are endangered in our marine waters yet. That’s toward the end of the series, which will wrap up into June or so. But anyway, the warming waters, for one, are changing.

What’s here, and also when it comes to climate change, it’s growing with the birds, because the birds for centuries were used to, you know, it goes down. It’s in their genetics that this time of year, this is when they start warming up. This time of year won’t start cooling down in the fall. So they kind of plan their migratory trips through that. But now those weather patterns are screwed up, and that affects when they come, and when they show up when they used to and there’s no food, or there’s too not too much, but you know, what they expect is not what they’re finding when they get here.

Rob Smith

Are there any protection efforts in the three states for these species that you’ve been covering?

Frank Carini

No, there’s no rules in all the states, laws that govern what you can do. But as we see in Rhode Island, I mean how much environmental impact study is supposed to be done, they seldom are, or they’re done and ignored.

So there’s laws on the books that should protect them, and they’re obviously in danger. Some of them are in danger. Not as many are on the national endangered species list, but a few are. So they’re obviously protected by that, like when I get into the whales, they’ll be more so, like the North Atlantic right whales, but—

Rob Smith

There’s very limited federal protections, whatever that may be worth.

Frank Carini

Well, exactly, worth nothing now. But under normal times, if you will, they’re worth a little more. And then the states have some protections, but they’re not the federal government and aren’t as powerful. The states aren’t that powerful. It’s just taking away habitat that’s needed with endless development that doesn’t have any thought behind it, and we do that all the time, even with the solar panels and green space, you know, cutting down woods, you know. So whatever we’re developing, it’s just we don’t do it with enough thought into the species we’re hurting, and it’s going to ultimately kick us in the ass.

Rob Smith

Where should, where can people expect to find these species? Because people think of Rhode Island as a German state, right? That we don’t have a lot of wilderness, which is probably a fair point. You could probably debate it. But where do these species live, that is, is it so endangered?

Frank Carini

It’s mostly forestlands and it’s mostly wetlands like the salt marshes. Easy for me to say the salt marsh sparrow is not that hard to say, like they’re going to be extinct, certainly on the East Coast.

Sea level rise is going to bury them. They’re on the East Coast, and they’re not going to be around. And the experts say 20 to 30 years, and we have some in Warren and Barrington marshlands that are going to be sunk and they’re going to be gone. For dragonflies, some of their preferred habitat is where we cut down, where telephone poles run through. They love that. And some other insects like that and some birds like that too. Not that I want to cut down woodlands and put up telephone poles, but some of the things we do does help certain species.

Rob Smith 

Colleen wrote the story a couple months ago about the stone walls and what lives in the stone walls that have dotted the landscape for hundreds of years now. So I know you said that in Rhode Island, there’s not really an official list that’s maintained by a nonprofit. So the Department of Environmental Management doesn’t do much for species or what is their role?

Frank Carini

That list of species is handled by Rhode Island, as I mentioned, that was last updated in 2006 I’ve talked to David Gregg many times about this. He has this massive spreadsheet with 40,000 boxes and stuff. And I love it. And they do as best they can with the staff they have, like five of them to keep track of it.

The state does have, like, forest plans and wildlife action plans that mentioned it. So it’s not like DEM doesn’t know, but when they do, they kind of know what’s out there. Massachusetts and Connecticut know better because they last updated more recently. Connecticut was 2023, Massachusetts was 2024 in August. So they know a little bit better, l but even it’s important to know where [species] are, so you don’t trash [their habitats] because some of them in Massachusetts, there’s certain spots in all the states, there’s certain spots are only this one species of insect or bird or whatever goes there, you need to know that so you don’t trample on it. But if we did know it, would we trample on it anyway, probably so.

Rob Smith 

When people go in and go to bulldoze marshes and forest land, it’s the same. To say that whether they want to or not, people don’t know what’s in there regardless.

Frank Carini

I think the experts would know. But do they get listened to, like, like the women that I spoke to, Virginia Brown and Nina Briggs, about dragonflies. They know where the dragonflies are, if anybody asked them, they could tell you, ‘Yeah, don’t do this here, don’t do this here,’ but is anybody going to listen?

And they’ve seen where, like, it was a quarry activity in Richmond, and it slowly kept expanding, expanding, expanding. I forgot the name of the dragonfly that was listed, that basically used to be a ton of them there. Now there’s none.

I forgot the name of the dragonfly, and I certainly don’t know it’s Latin name or spell it, but so they knew it was there, and they watched slowly over 20-something years, where the quarry operation just kept expanding, and then climate change played a part, and just it’s gone. Now, there used to be a huge population of that dragonfly, and it’s not there anymore.

Rob Smith

Is there a lot of state money for any kind of environmental protections when it comes to endangered or species of concern?

Frank Carini

No, but you cover the Statehouse, you probably know better than me. No, there isn’t.

Rob Smith 

Yeah, but I’m not interviewing myself.

Frank Carini

No, I did the stories more so to let people know that they’re here, and what you can do in your backyard.

Rob Smith 

That was my next question. What can people do after reading your stories? Besides, you know, donating to ecoRI News and so on.

Frank Carini

Obviously plant native flowers, rip up grass or let it turn to meadow. That’s the biggest thing. Stop spraying chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer on your lawn. It’s the easiest thing to do.

 I mean, that’s the first thing, and the second, the bigger things are like talk. You know, if you’re concerned about something, tell your rep, tell your local council members, you know, stuff like that.

But it’s basically in your own yard. Stop spraying stuff, plant native stuff, and it attracts native insects. I know mosquitoes and ticks are nasty, but most insects are beneficial, and having them around helps.

Rob Smith

What do you think are the barriers to people taking these types of actions?

Frank Carini

I think lawns, like, mean some, some status symbol. I think people want to maintain their lawns. I see it all over my neighborhood and people look at me funny. I’ve got 30 gardens now, and six raised beds. Most people, like, stop and talk to me if they see me out there, what’s going on, and I try to explain why I’m doing it. Other people like, “Oh, this looks messy.”

Rob Smith 

I mean, I’ve been to your house, I don’t think it looks that messy,

Frank Carini

But it’s not yards, and it’s not this green, this massive green space.

Rob Smith

You don’t have grass, but, like. Also, you know, for what it’s worth, it doesn’t look like a stereotype of someone who’s let their yard run wild.

Frank Carini

No, I do that in the back where it’s wetlands, and I let, oh, a third of the yard as managed wild. But it is like, it’s cattails and stuff. Nothing, I don’t want to touch it anyway. I try to do pull out, like this purple, blue stripe that can take over, which is fine.

Pollinators use it. It looks nice, but it can just take over. So I kind of pull up that a little bit, but basically I let it be on its own. But my point was, like lawns are so still ingrained in us, like there’s some status symbol or something, and people spray and you have these signs.

Rob Smith 

I think it has gotten worse since COVID, because I’ve lived in two different neighborhoods now since COVID, and the amount of little signs for the lawn chemical companies that come up every, I don’t know what is it, five or six weeks, more and more houses keep having them and having the service, and I’m like, well great, I think your yard looks terrible.

Frank Carini

That’s all over the place. I think of my neighborhood, and it’s all lawns. To their credit, not many of my neighbors have lawns, but they don’t put any chemicals down. It’s other streets and other areas.

But my point is, like lawns are especially important when we’re taking away [habitat] to build these yards, especially in my neighborhood or in Portsmouth. There’s a lot of building of these massive homes that are for part-time residents, and they were once woodlands, or at least open space, and now the deer and coyote in there, and rabbits and other things, that’s disappeared since we moved in eight years ago.

There’s been tons of development, and it’s all these big, massive homes that are filled, you know, a couple months out of the year, half the year, whatever, and displaces all these animals, insects, everything.

Rob Smith 

Is there anything else you wanted to mention, or you wanted me to ask you?

Frank Carini

I hear people complain that if I plant something, the deer eat it or the rabbits eat it or whatever. That’s true. They will.

But you have to remember that we’re ripping up all their habitat. There’s nowhere for them to go, we’re forcing them out and forcing them into people’s yards, into places they probably don’t want to go, but they have no choice. So you just have to put up fences, or [plant] certain plants that they don’t eat. It’s tough. It’s tough, and they’re gonna eat some of this stuff.

Rob Smith 

My dad has stopped this year putting a garden in his home in Coventry, because rabbits and deer would eat no matter what he did. They would eat it. He would put up a fence. They would jump over the fence. He would watch them jump over the fence, very graceful. He would not get a lot of produce. You would get very little flowers to cut by the end of the year, because out there’s so many deer just eating it.

Frank Carini

We have a lot of rabbits and deer in the yard, and I battle them. They outsmart me. But, I mean, I don’t mind sharing, of course, but sometimes they just take, they’ll take everything.

But like the elderberry, the deer just, I can’t protect it so they don’t kill it, but it never fully grows. Instead of saying, oh, I want to poison them, or I’m going to put out traps or whatever, I mean, not for deer, you know, but this, taking this into consideration that we’re taking their homes away and they’re going to end up in our yards.

Rob Smith

Right, I think that’s all I wanted to ask. Frank, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Thanks to Frank for coming on the show today, and thanks to our listeners for following along on this episode. We want to thank Vanessa Carlton for letting us use her song ‘Willows’ for our theme song. We record Blab Lab at LitArts RI, it’s edited by Avory Brookins, who also mixes all of the episodes.

If you have any questions, ideas, or tips for future podcasts, you can email me at [email protected]. Until next time, you can get more Rhody environmental news at our website, ecori.org.