Here are some possible solutions being considered for white-nose syndrome. It would be fantastic if we could get that fungal infection under control. Getting farmers to spray less pesticides when...
Here are some possible solutions being considered for white-nose syndrome. It would be fantastic if we could get that fungal infection under control. Getting farmers to spray less pesticides when that means losing more crops doesn't seem all that feasible at present, although I could easily be wrong about that.
The unfortunate thing about spraying more insecticides to make up for the loss of bats is that it will make it harder for the bat population to recover. They need those insects! American...
The unfortunate thing about spraying more insecticides to make up for the loss of bats is that it will make it harder for the bat population to recover. They need those insects!
American agriculture is unfortunately fairly behind the times compared to agriculture in a lot of other wealthy nations. There is a big movement toward IPM (integrated pest management) methods, which are far less destructive to insect populations — and in some cases actively encourage larger insect populations.
For example, I worked on a farm that uses a banker plant system, and we actively bred and released a large variety of insects into our greenhouses. Our goal was to establish a self-maintaining population of beneficial insects, but it also had the side effect of attracting plenty of frogs, birds, and bats.
Unfortunately I think the biggest factor as to whether or not something takes hold in America is often whether or not it seems like it will be profitable, regardless of what other benefits it offers.
Unfortunately I think the biggest factor as to whether or not something takes hold in America is often whether or not it seems like it will be profitable, regardless of what other benefits it offers.
Is that doable on a personal gardening scale? Like, is it possible to buy a box of misc bugs to release on a couple acres kinda thing? I would love see more helpful bugs and the bigger critters as...
Is that doable on a personal gardening scale? Like, is it possible to buy a box of misc bugs to release on a couple acres kinda thing? I would love see more helpful bugs and the bigger critters as well
I live on a small, 1/9 acre lot. Even with my size-constrained garden, I don't use any pesticides, and plant a wide variety of plants. I have tons of beneficial insects, birds, bees, the whole...
I live on a small, 1/9 acre lot. Even with my size-constrained garden, I don't use any pesticides, and plant a wide variety of plants. I have tons of beneficial insects, birds, bees, the whole lot. I literally have almost no problems in my veggie garden, while my immediate neighbors, who all spray relentlessly, are always fighting some outbreak or another. FWIW.
For you and @boxer_dogs_dance: Miscellaneous not neccessarily. But I've purchased worms for composting, but you can also easily aquire ladybugs. If you're in a temperate climate, installing a...
Miscellaneous not neccessarily. But I've purchased worms for composting, but you can also easily aquire ladybugs.
If you're in a temperate climate, installing a water feature will almost certainly attract mosquitos, then everything that eats mosquitos will follow with time. Not neccessarily a good choice, but bats love them.
It should be possible to buy several kinds of insects? I used to work in a garden center in the US that sold praying mantis eggs and live ladybugs (you just want to be careful that you are not...
It should be possible to buy several kinds of insects? I used to work in a garden center in the US that sold praying mantis eggs and live ladybugs (you just want to be careful that you are not inadvertently introducing non-native species).
At the farm where I worked (which is in Australia), we made bulk purchases from Bugs For Bugs. Many other countries have similar companies, although they don't necessarily all have an online presence. Many bug-rearing companies are associated with universities, so it might be worth contacting the entomology department of some universities near you.
Government regulation should be the solution there.
Getting farmers to spray less pesticides when that means losing more crops doesn't seem all that feasible at present, although I could easily be wrong about that.
Government regulation should be the solution there.
The increase in deaths is “huge,” says Tracey Woodruff, an environmental health scientist at the University of California San Francisco. The connection is plausible and concerning, she says. In an earlier study, she found an increase in infant mortality of similar magnitude due to worsening air pollution. But a puzzling fact about the new study is that other aspects of infant health, such as birth weight, did not correlate with the bat declines.
Still, other confounding factors might have contributed to the rise in mortality, [Paul] Ferraro[, a sustainability scientist at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved with the new work] notes. [The study, he says, is the “most convincing evidence to date” linking economic and health impacts with dramatic losses of a wild species.] “I wouldn’t change public policy based on this one study.”
Not to downplay the problems of pesticide use but to directly attribute infant deaths to it without data about their exposure levels vs other pollutants (like carbon monoxide etc like the article...
Not to downplay the problems of pesticide use but to directly attribute infant deaths to it without data about their exposure levels vs other pollutants (like carbon monoxide etc like the article linked) sounds like correlation not causation. They may be right but I'd want to know more details about which chemicals are causing the problems and how they are reaching the infants. I'd also want to know about other general health issues like increases in viruses spreading due to larger insect populations like mosquitos.
Obviously it's correlation -- no one thinks that bat population crashes are causing an increase in infant deaths due to disease or birth defects. But the fact that these are so correlated...
Obviously it's correlation -- no one thinks that bat population crashes are causing an increase in infant deaths due to disease or birth defects. But the fact that these are so correlated indicates that it's worthwhile to consider potential common causes. The fact that bat population crashes are also highly correlated with increased pesticide use is what makes that a worthwhile factor to consider. While it's possible other factors could be contributing to both bat population crashes and infant deaths due to disease or birth defects, the evidence here that there's something causing both and that pesticide use may be that something is pretty damn strong and absolutely merits further research.
I find it frustrating when people use the phrase "correlation not causation" to criticize studies like this. Obviously any study like this needs to be carefully designed to avoid or at least consider confounding factors, but observing and measuring correlations are a huge and important step to identifying causation. There are circumstances where you can run more direct tests that more strongly imply causation, such as a double-blind randomized controlled study, but that type of experiment is more or less impossible to run in this context. You can't feasibly randomly expose bat populations to pesticides in a controlled study on a suitable scale, and you certainly can't do so to human infants -- even if that weren't horrendously unethical, since we may not know for sure the mechanism by which infants in these areas with declining bat populations and high pesticide use are getting exposed to these pesticides (as you point out), we wouldn't be able to run such a study without guessing on that factor. Studying population-level data to find potentially important strong correlations like this is an important prerequisite to further inquiry into exactly the specific details you want to know more about.
Comment box Scope: information, personal reaction Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Austin, TX noticed that bats were living under some of its bridges and started building bridges...
Comment box
Scope: information, personal reaction
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
Austin, TX noticed that bats were living under some of its bridges and started building bridges differently to support additional bat populations. It's a tourist attraction now.
You can smell the guano, but they eat bugs. Free insect management. Also, it's hilarious.
"BATS 4 BABIES" would be a good campaign slogan in central Texas.
[climate doomer rant] To me, this is one of those "well obviously" type things that I'm so glad we have scientific studies to actually quantify. It's a given that as our planet loses its ability...
[climate doomer rant]
To me, this is one of those "well obviously" type things that I'm so glad we have scientific studies to actually quantify. It's a given that as our planet loses its ability to sustain life, we also lose more humans whose lives can be sustained.
some species consuming 40% of their body weight each night in insects. The value of this service has been estimated at between $4 billion and $53 billion per year. [...] (Sustainability scientist not involved in study ) Ferraro notes. “I wouldn’t change public policy based on this one study.”
Maybe just outright pay farmers to spray less? Give researchers $4B a year to develop antifungal, and make life as cozy for bats as possible and to give money rewards to farmers who let scientists install all kinds of bat friendly stuff?
But maybe it's all too late. We already know we're losing insects on an alarming scale. Insectivores dying is just the next domino. Ironically, we'll have both too few regular helpful bugs AND too many crop eating poison resistance mega bugs. Then we're gonna spray more and eat crops with less nutrition but hardier against insects. Maybe we just have to shrug and accept that infant mortality will creep back up and life expectancy will go back down.
Here are some possible solutions being considered for white-nose syndrome. It would be fantastic if we could get that fungal infection under control. Getting farmers to spray less pesticides when that means losing more crops doesn't seem all that feasible at present, although I could easily be wrong about that.
The unfortunate thing about spraying more insecticides to make up for the loss of bats is that it will make it harder for the bat population to recover. They need those insects!
American agriculture is unfortunately fairly behind the times compared to agriculture in a lot of other wealthy nations. There is a big movement toward IPM (integrated pest management) methods, which are far less destructive to insect populations — and in some cases actively encourage larger insect populations.
For example, I worked on a farm that uses a banker plant system, and we actively bred and released a large variety of insects into our greenhouses. Our goal was to establish a self-maintaining population of beneficial insects, but it also had the side effect of attracting plenty of frogs, birds, and bats.
Unfortunately I think the biggest factor as to whether or not something takes hold in America is often whether or not it seems like it will be profitable, regardless of what other benefits it offers.
Is that doable on a personal gardening scale? Like, is it possible to buy a box of misc bugs to release on a couple acres kinda thing? I would love see more helpful bugs and the bigger critters as well
I live on a small, 1/9 acre lot. Even with my size-constrained garden, I don't use any pesticides, and plant a wide variety of plants. I have tons of beneficial insects, birds, bees, the whole lot. I literally have almost no problems in my veggie garden, while my immediate neighbors, who all spray relentlessly, are always fighting some outbreak or another. FWIW.
I would also like to find out.
However we have had good results just planting things that bugs like to feed from
For you and @boxer_dogs_dance:
Miscellaneous not neccessarily. But I've purchased worms for composting, but you can also easily aquire ladybugs.
If you're in a temperate climate, installing a water feature will almost certainly attract mosquitos, then everything that eats mosquitos will follow with time. Not neccessarily a good choice, but bats love them.
It should be possible to buy several kinds of insects? I used to work in a garden center in the US that sold praying mantis eggs and live ladybugs (you just want to be careful that you are not inadvertently introducing non-native species).
At the farm where I worked (which is in Australia), we made bulk purchases from Bugs For Bugs. Many other countries have similar companies, although they don't necessarily all have an online presence. Many bug-rearing companies are associated with universities, so it might be worth contacting the entomology department of some universities near you.
It seems like insect populations could come back pretty quickly if there are places that aren’t sprayed?
Most insects do reproduce very quickly, so I imagine they should be able to make a reasonably quick recovery in favorable conditions.
Government regulation should be the solution there.
What do we think the chances are of getting that done with the current defanged state of the EPA?
Not to downplay the problems of pesticide use but to directly attribute infant deaths to it without data about their exposure levels vs other pollutants (like carbon monoxide etc like the article linked) sounds like correlation not causation. They may be right but I'd want to know more details about which chemicals are causing the problems and how they are reaching the infants. I'd also want to know about other general health issues like increases in viruses spreading due to larger insect populations like mosquitos.
Obviously it's correlation -- no one thinks that bat population crashes are causing an increase in infant deaths due to disease or birth defects. But the fact that these are so correlated indicates that it's worthwhile to consider potential common causes. The fact that bat population crashes are also highly correlated with increased pesticide use is what makes that a worthwhile factor to consider. While it's possible other factors could be contributing to both bat population crashes and infant deaths due to disease or birth defects, the evidence here that there's something causing both and that pesticide use may be that something is pretty damn strong and absolutely merits further research.
I find it frustrating when people use the phrase "correlation not causation" to criticize studies like this. Obviously any study like this needs to be carefully designed to avoid or at least consider confounding factors, but observing and measuring correlations are a huge and important step to identifying causation. There are circumstances where you can run more direct tests that more strongly imply causation, such as a double-blind randomized controlled study, but that type of experiment is more or less impossible to run in this context. You can't feasibly randomly expose bat populations to pesticides in a controlled study on a suitable scale, and you certainly can't do so to human infants -- even if that weren't horrendously unethical, since we may not know for sure the mechanism by which infants in these areas with declining bat populations and high pesticide use are getting exposed to these pesticides (as you point out), we wouldn't be able to run such a study without guessing on that factor. Studying population-level data to find potentially important strong correlations like this is an important prerequisite to further inquiry into exactly the specific details you want to know more about.
Comment box
Austin, TX noticed that bats were living under some of its bridges and started building bridges differently to support additional bat populations. It's a tourist attraction now.
You can smell the guano, but they eat bugs. Free insect management. Also, it's hilarious.
"BATS 4 BABIES" would be a good campaign slogan in central Texas.
[climate doomer rant]
To me, this is one of those "well obviously" type things that I'm so glad we have scientific studies to actually quantify. It's a given that as our planet loses its ability to sustain life, we also lose more humans whose lives can be sustained.
Maybe just outright pay farmers to spray less? Give researchers $4B a year to develop antifungal, and make life as cozy for bats as possible and to give money rewards to farmers who let scientists install all kinds of bat friendly stuff?
But maybe it's all too late. We already know we're losing insects on an alarming scale. Insectivores dying is just the next domino. Ironically, we'll have both too few regular helpful bugs AND too many crop eating poison resistance mega bugs. Then we're gonna spray more and eat crops with less nutrition but hardier against insects. Maybe we just have to shrug and accept that infant mortality will creep back up and life expectancy will go back down.