Bug decline

[Dave Boyle]

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ng-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

A while back I posted a long article in the main page but I figure this sub forum may strike a chord. Here is another quite depressing article on how bug #s are starting to tank and that is a pretty frightening scenario. It makes me wonder the failing hatches, bombers on some WA lakes,caddis on BC lakes. Urbanisation and pollution are no doubt involved but is there more to it all.

Dave

 

[Taxon]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for sharing. Given the seeming popularity of science denial, I fear not much will be done to reverse this disturbing trend until it's too late. However, I suppose nature will take care of both this (and global warming) through drastic reduction in human habitation of this planet.

 

[Dave Boyle]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for sharing. Given the seeming popularity of science denial, I fear not much will be done to reverse this disturbing trend until it's too late. However, I suppose nature will take care of both this (and global warming) through drastic reduction in human habitation of this planet.

Indeed but it sucks that no one really cares or has some ideas or a point stuns me. It’s a forum, I guess the consensus is oh well, the economies good, foods in the store, whatever. Put up a Trump idiocy and plenty folks are ready to vent/clarify.

What do you like for breakfast? Swimmy’s vest or chest pack, best muted colour? Folks are all over it. The source of life on earth after plants, the main thing trout eat, vanishing, meh! I won’t swear to keep things polite. Arm chairs on the titanic anyone?

Dave

 

[Riogrande King]

 

[mikemac1]

"Moreover, all our knowledge of organic remains teaches us, that species have a definite existence, and a centralization in geological time as well as in geographical space, and that no species is repeated in time." Edward Forbes

I am not a scientist but this documentary convinces me that in the long-term, things are going to change, sometimes pretty drastically.

Australia: First 4 Billion Years

 

[Richard Olmstead]

This is critically important, but as Dave points out, how do we even get it onto peoples' radar?

 

[Wyobee]

I guess I'm not really convinced that anything anyone says on the left or anything anyone says on the right is true. Most of what we call news and even even science I'd classify as entertainment. We are lied to and manipulated at every turn so why trust any report. Yes, we are changing the planet but it was changing before we came along with fire and agriculture. We are a force of nature not separate from it and I dont believe we will reach the level where we can rise above our own nature and the planet's nature to govern as benevolent caretaker/gods for some time. I'm just too f-ing selfish and lazy to care why or even if the bugs are dying, but I'm absolutely positive they will still be here until the sun winks out.

 

[Rock Creek Fan]

IMHO most people think about insects as a nuisance. For example, mosquitoes bite and spread disease, bees sting and ants bite or chew up wood in houses. Yet insects have a very important role. One of those valuable roles is breaking down substances into mulch to fertilize plants. There are many more...

Just look at a 'symptom' of losing an insect, e.g. bees/entire hives dying, and look how much impact it has on food production it should be very disconcerting to all. Multiply that by the number of insect species that have become extinct recently, it is only compounded.

@Taxon - your comment set me back to see such a pointed POV. Yet I wholeheartedly agree. Insects are the foundation and are integrated into our ecosystem. Little do we realize if there is an impact on them it affects our entire ecosystem.

@Dave Boyle - thank you for posting a link to the article.

 

[Preston Singletary]

As far back as 2004, Steve Raymond, in his book Blue Upright, wrote of anecdotal reports of a decline in the numbers of Callibaetis mayflies in regions along the west coast. Within a few years, I began to notice similar declines at such favorite spots as Lake Lenice. One that really hurts is Lake Chopaka; while I initially blamed the decline there on the poisoning to remove bass a few years back, the numbers have shown no indication of recovering in the intervening years. Those who never experienced the epic hatches of those days would be hard put to imagine the numbers of emergers and the duration of the emergence. At times it seemed as if every fish in the lake was up and feeding on the surface.

 

[jamma]

Insect numbers are down all over the planet, it does not bode well.

 

[Rob Allen]

The first step is to organize your own life in line with your values. If you are passionate about saving bugs your life must reflect that in your own actions before you can suggest that individuals need to change their behavior or before you reorganize society. If you aren't willing to do that what it says is that you really don't care about bugs so why should anyone listen to you?

 

[Taxon]

I encourage any others with an opinion concerning insect life decline to weigh in.

 

[Wyobee]

Where are the crop failures from the bees dying? Are the animals that eat insects declining, spiders, various birds, shrews, ect. Was it a bunch of narrow studies that agreed with the authors mission statement then thrown together or was it a methodical study carried out globally by a single entity over a period of decades, because we still haven't developed something stronger than DDT, and even then the bugs made a comeback.

 

[plaegreid]

We've seen an effect on the plains lakes around Laramie in the past couple years: scud populations tanked, and the normally phenomenal trout growth rates have taken a nose-dive as well. We think it's due to a change in mosquito spraying chemicals, but we're not sure. All I know is that we've seen the effects, the Game and Fish have seen the change, and we're gonna start doing something to get our scuds back.

 

[Wyobee]

So, yeah, the insecticides we spray for mosquitoes probably does a great deal of harm to more than just mosquitoes.
I remember when the massive spraying campaigns started back up in the late nineties to fight bird encephalitis, then it was kept going with west Nile, oh and then it was Zika.... and it will be something new, menacing and urgent if this current anti-pesticide rally lasts more than a couple weeks. Sorry, it sucks we are saps, but dont count the bugs as being so easily pushed aside as our fluttering convictions