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Decreasing insect population
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Aug 2, 2020 19:00:31   #
JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois
 
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/aug/02/the-bottom-has-just-dropped-out-as-insect-populati/
I'm sure many macro photographers are aware of this. I noticed it several years ago and it's only getting worse.

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Aug 2, 2020 19:07:49   #
Quixdraw Loc: x
 
JRiepe wrote:
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/aug/02/the-bottom-has-just-dropped-out-as-insect-populati/
I'm sure many macro photographers are aware of this. I noticed it several years ago and it's only getting worse.


Alternate universe - certainly not the case here. Check any of my short photo forays around the house (10 minutes max) we have bugs of all kinds in considerable quantity and variety. More Doom and Gloom by "Experts" with an agenda.

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Aug 2, 2020 19:47:05   #
JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois
 
quixdraw wrote:
Alternate universe - certainly not the case here. Check any of my short photo forays around the house (10 minutes max) we have bugs of all kinds in considerable quantity and variety. More Doom and Gloom by "Experts" with an agenda.


Before I had ever read the gloom and doom by the experts I noticed it so I'm basing my opinion on what I see or don't see around me. When I was a kid you couldn't go outside in the summertime without being bombarded by biting insects but that certainly is not the case now, at least not where I live.

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Aug 2, 2020 19:50:29   #
foodie65
 
quixdraw wrote:
Alternate universe - certainly not the case here. Check any of my short photo forays around the house (10 minutes max) we have bugs of all kinds in considerable quantity and variety. More Doom and Gloom by "Experts" with an agenda.


AlwaYs the case of “experts” being wrong

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Aug 2, 2020 19:52:21   #
Quixdraw Loc: x
 
JRiepe wrote:
Before I had ever read the gloom and doom by the experts I noticed it so I'm basing my opinion on what I see or don't see around me. When I was a kid you couldn't go outside in the summertime without being bombarded by biting insects but that certainly is not the case now, at least not where I live.


I once lived in Wisconsin, so simple fair play precludes comment on IL - though both have radically changed!

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Aug 2, 2020 19:59:09   #
Rich Maher Loc: Sonoma County, CA
 
Have not seen a monarch butterfly yet. Used to flood our garden.
Something's seriously wrong.

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Aug 2, 2020 20:02:08   #
Quixdraw Loc: x
 
Rich Maher wrote:
Have not seen a monarch butterfly yet. Used to flood our garden.
Something's seriously wrong.


Some States have issues, others don't!

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Aug 2, 2020 20:06:21   #
JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois
 
foodie65 wrote:
AlwaYs the case of “experts” being wrong


Is this an expert opinion? My brother mentioned to me that there are hardly any bugs congregating around his security light whereas in years past there was an abundance of them.

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Aug 2, 2020 21:11:05   #
newtoyou Loc: Eastport
 
JRiepe wrote:
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/aug/02/the-bottom-has-just-dropped-out-as-insect-populati/
I'm sure many macro photographers are aware of this. I noticed it several years ago and it's only getting worse.


There seems to be a decrease in all lifeforms, except that pesky human race, of late years.
But, that is not the reason for less around lights.
Parking lights were mercury vapor until the true poisoness nature of the metal was better known.
This was a good thing, not just to get rid of the poison.
The wavelength emitted by Mercury vapor lights attracts insects of all types, disrupting their normal doings.
Moths were at a low because they were not mating, but being eaten by bats, birds, mice, rats, you get the idea, because the lights attracted and trapped them more than pheromones.
Lighting, and the wavelengths are not near as distracting today.
Now the danger is more pesticides and habitat distruction.
Those pesky humans again.
Of course, they are my favorite people, for the most part.
Bill

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Aug 2, 2020 22:20:11   #
Quixdraw Loc: x
 
newtoyou wrote:
There seems to be a decrease in all lifeforms, except that pesky human race, of late years.
But, that is not the reason for less around lights.
Parking lights were mercury vapor until the true poisoness nature of the metal was better known.
This was a good thing, not just to get rid of the poison.
The wavelength emitted by Mercury vapor lights attracts insects of all types, disrupting their normal doings.
Moths were at a low because they were not mating, but being eaten by bats, birds, mice, rats, you get the idea, because the lights attracted and trapped them more than pheromones.
Lighting, and the wavelengths are not near as distracting today.
Now the danger is more pesticides and habitat distruction.
Those pesky humans again.
Of course, they are my favorite people, for the most part.
Bill
There seems to be a decrease in all lifeforms, exc... (show quote)


I had a half pint of metallic Mercury I played with frequently as a boy - still here at a bit over three quarters of a century. Probably all the cigars and alcohol saved me. Check out the actual sample size on the "definitive" lead based paint study! SOS

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Aug 2, 2020 22:37:09   #
newtoyou Loc: Eastport
 
quixdraw wrote:
I had a half pint of metallic Mercury I played with frequently as a boy - still here at a bit over three quarters of a century. Probably all the cigars and alcohol saved me. Check out the actual sample size on the "definitive" lead based paint study! SOS


Mecury, iodine, picric acid, numerous pure chemicles like K, PH, Na, carbolic acid and more reagents. And a couple ounces of phenobarbatol had accumulated in my garage 'lab' before I found a recycling place run by the county.
No questions asked.
No explanations offered.
Glad to have it gone.
Bill

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Aug 3, 2020 08:11:07   #
Screamin Scott Loc: Marshfield Wi, Baltimore Md, now Dallas Ga
 
Around here, some species of insects are in short supply, others, not so much. I don't think I have ever seen as many Skipper butterflies as I have this year... As for biting and stinging insects, I can send some to other locales if you need them...

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Aug 3, 2020 08:57:38   #
randave2001 Loc: Richmond
 
Screamin Scott wrote:
Around here, some species of insects are in short supply, others, not so much. I don't think I have ever seen as many Skipper butterflies as I have this year... As for biting and stinging insects, I can send some to other locales if you need them...



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Aug 3, 2020 10:18:12   #
Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI
 
Experts don't have an agenda. They get paid no matter what they find. Saying there is an agenda among researchers is a kind of myth that can be tracked back for over a century. People don't change, it seems.

Anyway, a small sample:
"In 2013 the Krefeld Entomological Society reported a "huge reduction in the biomass of insects"[12] caught in malaise traps in 63 nature reserves in Germany (57 in Nordrhein-Westfalen, one in Rheinland-Pfalz and one in Brandenburg).[31][32] A reanalysis published in 2017 suggested that, in 1989–2016, there had been a "seasonal decline of 76%, and mid-summer decline of 82%, in flying insect biomass over the 27 years of study". The decline was "apparent regardless of habitat type" and could not be explained by "changes in weather, land use, and habitat characteristics". The authors suggested that not only butterflies, moths and wild bees appear to be in decline, as previous studies indicated, but "the flying insect community as a whole".

"A 2018 study of the El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico reported a decline in arthropods, and in lizards, frogs, and birds (insect-eating species) based on measurements in 1976 and 2012.[38][3] The American entomologist David Wagner called the study a "clarion call" and "one of the most disturbing articles" he had ever read.[39] The researchers reported "biomass losses between 98% and 78% for ground-foraging and canopy-dwelling arthropods over a 36-year period"

"In 2019 a study by Statistics Netherlands and the Vlinderstichting (Dutch Butterfly Conservation) of butterfly numbers in the Netherlands from 1890 to 2017 reported an estimated decline of 84 percent. When analysed by type of habitat, the trend was found to have stabilised in grassland and woodland in recent decades but the decline continued in heathland. The decline was attributed to changes in land use due to more efficient farming methods, which has caused a decline in weeds. The recent up-tick in some populations documented in the study was attributed to (conservationist) changes in land management and thus an increase in suitable habitat.[40][41][42][43] A report by the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences in April 2019 reported that 60 percent of the insects that had been studied in Switzerland were at risk, mostly in farming and aquatic areas; that there had been a 60 percent decline in insect-eating birds since 1990 in rural areas; and that urgent action was needed to address the causes."

You can also find details that report that certain insects are not declining, and that there is little measurable decline in some areas. But the overall trend is that they have been declining. Most persons in their 60s and 70s will state, informally, that they have noticed the loss as well. I certainly can say so. When visiting the same forests and fields that I ran in as a kid, the difference I see is immediate. My brother, who has stayed in the area also says so and is actually rather alarmed by it even though he could not care less about bugs.

One can similary find studies that quantitate worldwide declines in birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. The sheer breadth and consistency of these independent findings can hardly be a coincidental error. Again, experts get paid no. matter. what.

quixdraw, if you could go back to your current area 60 years ago, or a century ago, you would find pretty quickly that it is different now. You may think its buggy now, but not if you have the long view! Just as one example, we had a kind of locust (a grasshopper) that darkened the skies over the American west, I think including Montana, about a century ago. It went extinct before you were born.

I think this matter is settled unless hard data finds otherwise. Then we revise. That approach is the best way to find the truth.

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Aug 3, 2020 10:31:49   #
sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri
 
I am simply a casual wanderer looking for wildflowers and insects with camera and a collection bottle in hand. I have more often come up short than to find a treasure. When I do find one they are most often the same species that I see time and time again so I wish them well and walk on by.

Now...if there were only a decline in ticks, aggressive wasps, chiggers and mosquitoes life would be much more perfect.

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