Poisoning our friends (2014, house, university)

[Idunn]

'At one time, Colorado (emphasis mine) had a reputation for producing fine honey, mostly sweet clover and alfalfa. Tom remembers when honeybees saved the melon industry in the Arkansas Valley. Today, he says, there are fewer bees than ever. We could live on imported honey. But we couldn’t grow a third of our crops without the busiest creature alive. That’s why he's alarmed that numbers of honeybees are dwindling all over the country.' [1]




Today, Friday, the White House released a presidential memorandum tasking the EPA with studying the decline of pollinators such as the honeybee. Specifically with the role neonicotinoids play.

If this directive falls well short of the more serious EU ban on three neonicotinoids for two years pending further study. This in direct reflection of the known harm neonicotinoids play in the environment. Such as confirmed in a recent Harvard University study. [2]

Aside from honey, pollinators like honeybees are vital to fruit crops such as apples, peaches, oranges, and melons. While Colorado probably isn't suitable for growing cranberries, also involved would be vegetables grown here such as tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers, all requiring pollination.

While the dramatic decline in honeybees is often termed mysterious, there is little mystery to it: we have not only destroyed sizable portions of their habitat, but also developed and deployed quite lethal poisons so affecting them.

Hummingbirds are also pollinators, and not immune.

1) 'The Plight of the Honeybee,' Front Range Living
Plight of the Honeybee in Colorado

2) 'White House task force charged with saving bees from mysterious decline,' The Guardian
White House task force charged with saving bees from mysterious decline | Environment | theguardian.com

[Neditate]

Thank you for posting this very important information.
Some of the same pesticides that are poisoning honeybees are also killing butterflies. There are many petitions online to contact the EPA (not sure if they are okay to post here).

[Mike from back east]

No matter how worthy the cause, petitions are not allowed since the site owner considers it soliciting.

[DurangoJoe]

Not just bees......

LA Mountain Lion A Poster Cat For California's Rat Poison Problem : NPR