SOAPBOX | LETTERS FROM READERS
Save Australian pines for the birds

The Australian pines lining Rickenbacker Causeway have been a draw for generations, their shade cooling picnickers and board sailors, lovers and joggers.

Miami-Dade County has begun bulldozing them all -- dozens of the stately trees from the toll booth to the Miami Seaquarium -- as part of a $6.8 million project to restore eroding shoreline and prevent storm runoff from pouring directly into Biscayne Bay.

Many regular travelers along one of Miami's most scenic stretches are, putting it politely, peeved. Miami Springs is an officially designated Tree City USA. Yet, it is allowing the destruction and removal of hundreds (if not thousands) of mature Australian pine trees that harbor native bird species.

Growing up on Ludlam Drive, my brothers and I enjoyed swinging from those trees and swimming and fishing in the Ludlam Canal.

I have seen osprey nests in the pines on the Canal; my family and I frequently see them fishing there. If not for the trees, the ospreys would not be present. My brothers and I frequently saw burrowing owls in the bases of the trees, as well as great horned owls in the branches.

Recently we saw an eastern screech owl in my back yard, just 50-70 yards from the canal.

These trees provide needed shade and beauty, as well as habitat for multiple bird species including the double-crested cormorants, little green herons, anhingas, and great white and great blue herons and egrets.

These trees weathered the hurricanes of 1926, 1947, multiple storms in the 1960s, and Hurricanes Andrew and Wilma. Why are people now concerned that they pose a hazard? Instead of destroying these historic pine trees, the money should have been spent dredging the canal and fixing the FEC bridge which impedes water flow and drainage.

If we cannot stop the removal of all the trees, we must at least save an area that the city can designate as a wildlife preserve and nature park, perhaps at the end of Ludlam Drive where it meets Royal Poinciana Boulevard.

SHIRLEY TAYLOR-PRAKELT

MIAMI SPRINGS

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