Drain the swamp?

Terrifying, horrifying, paralyzing, frustrating, even entertaining: no matter which side of the political street you call home, this is a unique moment in our nation. However, while my beat is the animals rather than politics (and I do thank the heavens for that!), there’s an expression we keep hearing in a political context that deserves some review from an animal perspective. Drain the swamp. Separate from the metaphor it has become, from a literal sense is that really such a good idea?

No, most decidedly it is a bad idea. Swamps, wetlands, bogs and marshes are natural spaces that hold water much like a sponge, thereby controlling flooding and purifying natural waterways. Nature and native wildlife thrive in these land-water intersections and they play a critical role for life on the planet. The Wragg Swamp was drained half a century ago to allow for the expansion of Mobile, Alabama. Replacing this shallow, water-soaked, natural feature with impervious concrete and asphalt (and all that was then built on those surfaces) resulted in massive pollution of both water and air qualities, but let’s not just pick on poor Mobile. Half or more of the original 220-plus million acres of wetlands in the continental United States have been destroyed, with another quarter-million acres or more a year continuing to fall to development.