Plummeting insect numbers

Anja, I had to acknowledge the usefulness of insects. Sigh...

It is so scary....hopefully the decline can be stopped....

I'm doing what I can, by planting bushes, shrubs and flowers that insects like in my garden and not weeding all that often.

If anyone, like my dear friend, mentions the weeds, just say you have joined the society for the propagation of bees, they won't know there isn't one.

DH build an insect hotel in the garden, but I am not sure the rooms are let yet.

I do feel very sad about the destruction of wildlife habitats and animals becoming extinct either because of lack of food or being hunted.
Unfortunately this is mostly because of the huge growth in the human population.

Hint for making sure my hedgehog eats up those ruddy garden snails and slugs.

In hedgehog season put out a couple of cabbage, lettuce, etc leaves. The outside ones you might be tempted to discard.
Place them in a suitable location or locations at night. Along come your slimey gastropods to feast on these offerings and there my hedgehog and her family find them and eat them.

Proof was firstly slimey trails, nibbled leaves and hedgehog droppings. Then I had this on motion-activated night camera.

Slightly divergent I know but doing my bit for nature.

Unfortunately Anja hedgehogs are in serious decline as well! I wish I had one in my garden as I am overun with snails, but there are a pair of thrushes about so I certainly don't use slug pellets.
Not divergent at all as it is a web or food chain, everything is interrelated.

ReadyMeals - good of you to be honest. But as Anja says, did you think more about it later? We can all do our bit, in our gardens, and with our food buying, but this is a massive issue that needs huge changes to happen in global agriculture and lifestyles. We ignore it at our peril, but perhaps it’s being downplayed in the news, as many global companies profit from producing environmentally unsafe sprays etc?

Sorry ReadyMeals - crossed posts

I'm SO interested in all of this. Was handed a leaflet last week by EXTINCTION REBELLION... look it up on internet.
Nature Studies should be taught in schools. Politicians ignore nature at their peril. People must stop having so many children... there are too many people in the world. I''m glad I was born when I was but worry about my decendants. I am fascinated by the insect world and have bought myself a macro lens so I can start photographing them. Also going to turn my garden into a wildlife garden. We must all do our bit, however small, and HOPE that the powers that be come to their senses. Somehow I'm not optimistic but must try to be.

The underlying problem, which no politician dares address, is that there are too many people for the planet. The number of people is increasing at an unsustainable rate. There's no doubt that the planet would be much better off with very few or no humans and would gradually recover. I can't see any prospect of that happening so the future looks very bleak.

Crystalltipps... I belong to the RSPB, our local Wildlife Trust, Greenpeace and the Woodland Trust. They are all FANTASTIC but think if I had to choose one it would be the RSPB. Their magazine is superb.
madmum38 - I can't BELIEVE people on Twitter were laughing. I'm glad I don't use it as I'd have been ranting on forever.........Grrrrhhhh!

Culag we got ‘ours’ from a hedgehog rescue. We’ve created a hedgehog highway by cutting small holes at the base of our fence and so have our neighbours. There must be a male around as she had babies in 2017.

This problem was known about when I was a student of Environmental Science. There was a book published in the 60s by Rachel Carson called ‘Silent Spring’. Silent because bird numbers in decline, lack of insects for food.

Food chains are everything! If one bit goes AWOL then the rest is jeopardised.

We have to stop wanting & buying stuff! Use less, buy less then the raw materials are less plundered or less land cleared to grow the 'stuff' people demand. It really is selfish to have more that 2 kids! Sorry everyone with more!

As soon as girls get an education they naturally have fewer children. That's simplified but roughly true.
In the rich West and in China and India the birth rate is in steady decline but now we worry who will look after us in our old age as we live longer! In Japan they are seriously worried as almost a third of the population is over 65.
I don't worry about mother nature. She'll recover once we've poisoned ourselves though it would be good to think our DGC had a future.

Environmentalists have been worrying about bees for several years, and not being taken seriously.

to the stupid person I saw being interview on the news when talking about the declining bee population who said ‘that’s ok I don’t eat honey’

It is truly frightening.
The expanding world population demands more and more food which cannot all be produced organically so farmers spray with insecticides - so it is a Catch 22 situation - if the pollinating insects die out then so will we eventually.

I often wonder if the demand for honey is contributing to the decline in the bee population too - if we deprive them of their natural food and give them sugar instead are we causing the disease that is contributing to their decline?

We seem to have fewer and fewer takers for our bird food - although there seems to be an increase in magpies, seagulls and pigeons.

I think one issue is that politicians only have the short term in mind with policies and practice. Perhaps its time to vote for a Green party?

When we were school children we were often taken on nature walks and had the purpose of insects explained and taught to us so that we had an appreciation of how the whole of creation works together for the benefit of all. Obviously it is sadly not happning so much nowadays.
We are having a couple of areas in our garden turned into very mini wild flower meadowns and have erected bug hotels. Really hope it works well for all interested parties and looks pretty too.
Our DIL has just completed the second year of keeping bees and they are thriving. She leaves her bees with plenty of their own honey to get them through the winter because she has been taught that it is better for the bees which must be so as she had to get another hive last year and is anticipating at least another one again this year. It is important thst we all grow whatever we can to increase the availability of nectar during as much of the year as we possibly can. I have a friend who sows wild flower seeds around where she lives and says she has noticed a beneficial difference in the bird and insect population over the years she has been doing it. I just hope our garden will help in that respect too.
We occasionally see a hedgehog in our garden but no babies as yet. Perhaps it is a boy?!

Have just planted 27 trees (including native Hawthorn especially for the birds) in our garden to encourage pollinators to survive. I get really upset when people chop down natural hedging and trees and concrete over their gardens. Please let nature have a chance in your garden, however big or small it is.

Don’t worry, President Chump has it all under control.
Climate change is a complete myth, let me tell ya, and he really knows all about science. Science is good, and it’s really big, like space, which is also really big, and he knows better than anyone how big it all is.
Besides, the world will come off its axis if he doesn’t get re-elected!

Humans are terribly destructive creatures and, in the history of our beautiful Earth, they've done more damage than any other species, and they've hardly been around any time at all. The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. If you plotted out a 4.6 km walk, humans would appear in the last 20cm (200,000 years) - that's how little we've been here. Hard to say when we have loved ones but the Earth needs us to die out, so that it can survive.

To save the planet we are supposed to eat a vegan diet.

Would producing enough vegan food to feed the world's population be possible without using insecticides?

I don't think it could keep up with the numbers.....