What happened to all of the bugs? A 50 year observation from one location.

Perspectives from an old dude.

I realize that ATS has changed considerably from it's roots. The major populus is in the younger crowd. However, I will inject the fact that I am increasing in age, and, though it is not as drastic a change as it was a decade ago, it is definitively something to take note of, and that is the decreased presence of insects.

I live next to a swamp in Braintree, Massachusetts (10 miles from Boston), and when I moved here in 1973, the bugs were the worst nusance that you could possibly imagine. You could not stay outside after 7pm in the Spring, through Autumn, without being bit to hell with mosquitos, flies and other insects.

It got so bad in 1990, I purchased (like many around me), one of those electronic bug killers. This thing worked so well, we had to remove it because the noise that the bugs made burning up, kept me and my wife awake at night. Some were so big, they cought on fire and you could see the trap sparking endlessly.

We had a nice flower garden, and butterflies and lighting bugs frequented it every year. There were those Monarque butterfly types and yellow ones that were really beautiful, and you could see them fluttering around almost every day in the yard in the Spring, through Autumn.

Within the last few years, I will tell you about such a drastic decrease in all insects, that is it is noticeably overwhelming.

No more flies except the occasional horsefly when something is dead, hardly any other insects, even though there is standing water in the swamps, no butterflies, hardly any mosquitos, although there are some,.... It is like deadville for most all of this insects I have been used to here for the last 50 years. This is important, because hardly anyone today stays in one location for 50 years, but we did, adding on to our house every 10 years or so. It is a nice community.

The lack of Wasps is alarming, as they used to be one of our biggest pests in the past. We also used to hear Cicada's in the trees and there were many caterpillars and other strange insects everywhere... but no more. The occasional Bee visits the flowers., but no like they used to.

There were so many spiders that flourished here, because there was such a diversity of insects, that there were webs everywhere, but now just a few.

I need to tell this to all, because it is so obvious that something has drastically changed in the insect community, that I am at a loss to explain it. I know about the global decrease in Bees, but sure, the town sprayed stuff every once in awhile to hold down the mosquito community, but over time, they just stopped because it was no longer a problem.

I just want to put this out as the historical recollection of someone who has stayed in a local area for 50 years, and this is MY observation.

I would be interested if any others out there had the same situation, and have noticed anything close to what I have witnessed.

Thanks ATS, as this is a place to put stuff like this out in the wild, and reap what comes back.

You want bugs? Get up and move down here to Florida. Plenty of the damned things, and don't you dare try the forests and swamps during rainy season, a damned mosquito armageddon. Now mind you, I live in the city of Tampa. Its fairly urban, but there are pockets of an acre or so of woods there and here that have not yet been paved over. There are damn bugs that come out of there at night that look like damn aliens from another planet!

I notice bug activity always dwindles in the winter though, thank goodness. Sucks though, as much as we find them irritating, their absence would end life on Earth above them in the food chain.

You aren't the only one that's noticed.

Me too in SoCal.

Then there is - in 'nature preserves':

In just 3 decades, insect populations in German nature reserves have plummeted by more than 75%, according to a new study.

The reasons for the decline aren’t clear, but the pattern is consistent over a swath of western and northern Germany, from the region around Bonn and Cologne to the countryside south of Berlin.

For 27 years, members of the Krefeld Entomological Society near Dusseldorf have monitored flying insect populations—everything from parasitic wasps to hoverflies and wild bees—in dozens of nature reserves

www.sciencemag.org...

a reply to: FyreByrd

I have seen this or another study declaring a similar drop in insect populations. It may have been the same study.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

I don't want em, I just wonder where the hell they went. I was stationed in Jacksonville for a few years in the 70's and I certainly know of what you are dealing with down there.... but what happened here?

a reply to: FyreByrd

Perhaps it is a latitude thing , but what you have shown shows pretty much what I have witnessed.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Yep. St Petersburg, Florida had the most bizarre looking bugs but my strange mutt of a dog ate them all. The cats played with them then the dog ate them. But those mosquitoes were awful.

Also, Gulfport, Alabama has the worst sand fleas ever in addition of all the other bizarre insects and they stay there all year long.

I'd say be grateful. Oh, and here in Georgia, we've got them all- horrid. Bees, wasps, even the birds attack you and yur pets. Must keep windows closed all times because of all the cacophony at night; especially the cicadas.

No, I'm not a camper.

Same in Texas....in the old days gnats were the most prevalent.....now we have none.....no redwing blackbird masses either miss that

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: worldstarcountry

I don't want em, I just wonder where the hell they went. I was stationed in Jacksonville for a few years in the 70's and I certainly know of what you are dealing with down there.... but what happened here?

I think you sig line is perhaps the most fitting thing to read in this thread.

"The root cause is always in the minutia."

It's hard to see the world start to kill off the big animals, it has to start with the small ones that most of us won't notice, till it's too late.

a reply to: charlyv

Well pesticides, electronic bug killers, pollution all kill bugs, kill enough of them and they disappear.

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
a reply to: charlyv

Well pesticides, electronic bug killers, pollution all kill bugs, kill enough of them and they disappear.

I get that, but as obvious from other posts, down South it is like it was up here in the past. They certainly use pesticides and other methods to reduce them , but they still proliferate. Perhaps there is a line that gets crossed, where we do indeed wipe them out. I do not know, but they are important to other life, and when gone, that other life must be impacted, which is the scary consequence.

a reply to: charlyv
I think its clearly obvious what happened. They packed their bags and moved south because they hate the climate up north! The cold must suck tonnage for them to brave the snowbirds for a warmer life

a reply to: charlyv

We are living through an ecosystem collapse..

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: charlyv
I think its clearly obvious what happened. They packed their bags and moved south because they hate the climate up north! The cold must suck tonnage for them to brave the snowbirds for a warmer life

Hear that, but the "all of a sudden" scenario is troublesome. This place is like the Arctic some years, and for hundreds of years. When you notice in a few years such a drastic change, it seems like something else is at bay. Something put it over the line, and that is what bothers me.

BTW: I will add to that the incident that happened to my brother in law, who kept Bees in man made hive boxes in his yard. Last year the bees stopped producing honey, and at the end of the season only a few were coming back to the hives. These hives were in production for almost 70 years, as his father had started them long ago. This just happened in 1 year ! This is not an African bee thing, they just never came back!

a reply to: charlyv

The Guardian article does not mention proliferating microwaves: increasing MW from cell tower base stations (about 670,000 in US alone; type your address in AntennaSearch.com to find towers and antennae). To have faster Internet, see movies, play games, we are contributing to decline of all sentients. Another German article a decade ago should be read carefully - they ID microwaves, electro smog, invisible pollution-put Bees, Birds and Mankind: Destroying Nature with ElectroSmog in your search engine to find alarming article written in lay and scientific language. Here is a quote about it:

From Stop Smart Meters UK: _According to his findings, we are currently in the process of destroying in less than a few decades what nature took millions of years to create. The outlook is especially worrisome because the report is not based on hypotheses and probabilities but the work of verifiable and reproducible effect mechanisms._

RE the 75% decline noted by OP:

www.theguardian.com...

The new data was gathered in nature reserves across Germany but has implications for all landscapes dominated by agriculture, the researchers said.

The cause of the huge decline is as yet unclear, although the destruction of wild areas and widespread use of pesticides are the most likely factors and climate change may play a role. The scientists were able to rule out weather and changes to landscape in the reserves as causes, but data on pesticide levels has not been collected.

“The fact that the number of flying insects is decreasing at such a high rate in such a large area is an alarming discovery,” clip

“Insects make up about two-thirds of all life on Earth [but] there has been some kind of horrific decline,” said Prof Dave Goulson of Sussex University, UK, and part of the team behind the new study. “We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse.”
clip

When the total weight of the insects in each sample was measured a startling decline was revealed. The annual average fell by 76% over the 27 year period, but the fall was even higher – 82% – in summer, when insect numbers reach their peak.

a reply to: worldstarcountry


This may be more true than not. I was reading a report the other day that talked about a possible coming ice age. Of course in a world of global warming and climate change, nobody wants to think about an ice age, but the little ice age only ended a little over 100 years ago, and our current warm period is more of an anomaly then anything else. If we are going back into a nasty cooling trend in the northern hemisphere, then it would make sense for a lot of bugs to migrate south. I would suspect that the migration of insects will cause a lot of birds and mammals to head south as well.


Just a thought.

originally posted by: purplemer
a reply to: charlyv

We are living through an ecosystem collapse..

Indeed the question remains at what point does the collapse directly impact us at the top of the food chain.

originally posted by: charlyv
... decreased presence of insects.

I live next to a swamp in Braintree, Massachusetts

because of disease fear mongering we humans started doing things like this braintree.wickedlocal.com... in almost all cities, that is where the insects go, we kill them, every year.

a reply to: charlyv

I am in the UK far South West and the same has happened here. I have noticed the same thing during my life time.

www.sciencemag.org...

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Researchers in Germany have documented a steep decline in flying insects at dozens of nature reserves in the past three decades, and agricultural pesticides may be to blame. While it is well documented that butterflies and bees have been disappearing in Europe and North America, the study in PLOS ONE is the first to document that flying insects in general have decreased by more than three-quarters across Germany since 1989.

e360.yale.edu...

Insect populations are declining dramatically in many parts of the world, recent studies show. Researchers say various factors, from monoculture farming to habitat loss, are to blame for the plight of insects, which are essential to agriculture and ecosystems.

I think we are in big trouble. It is happening in America and Europe. This is a really bad sign.

A good start would be to ask Monsanto.
a reply to: charlyv