Year 2, Month 1, Day 6: Not Good News At All

Hey, kids! Wanna get the shit scared out of you?

Dear Representative Markey, Senator Kerry and Senator Brown,

A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences, “Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees” (Authors: Sydney A. Cameron, Jeffrey D. Lozier, James P. Strange, Jonathan B. Koch, Nils Cordes, Leellen F. Solter, and Terry L. Griswold) outlines in disturbing detail the declining population of bumble bees in our country and on our continent.

Among the authors’ findings:

“…the relative abundances of four species have declined by up to 96% and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23–87%, some within the last 20 years.

We also show that declining populations have significantly higher infection levels of the microsporidian pathogen Nosema bombi and lower genetic diversity compared with co-occurring populations of the stable (nondeclining) species. Higher pathogen prevalence and reduced genetic diversity are, thus, realistic predictors of these alarming patterns of decline in North America, although cause and effect remain uncertain.”

While “cause and effect remain uncertain” it seems overwhelmingly likely that much of the population decline was triggered by a disease organism in populations of commercially raised bumble bees, which had been distributed for greenhouse pollination in the western U.S.

Indigenous pollinators are integral to our country’s agriculture, and thus to its food supply. When whole populations of some of the most industrious and effective insects decline so precipitously, it bodes ill for all of us.

Just under a year ago, a group of concerned scientists sent a petition to Agriculture Secretary Vilsack; the opening paragraph read:

The undersigned scientists respectfully request that the USDA-APHIS take action to regulate the movement and health of commercial bumble bees in order to safeguard wild, native bumble bee pollinators.

I am attaching a copy of the petition for your records. I wish to go on record as strongly supporting the petition’s aims and goals, and I sincerely request you to do the same.

While the decline in native pollinating insect populations is not, strictly speaking, a “climate-change” issue, it is another aspect of the same problem: human beings have been interfering with beautifully functioning natural systems for the sake of profits. How much more of this can we (our species, our planet) take?

Yours Sincerely,

Warren Senders