Richard Conniff's Blog, page 54

The Deadly Gamble When Cats Go Free

The Washington Post ran a story over the weekend about feral cats and the flawed and falsely “humane” ideology of “trap-neuter-release,” or TNR.  Here’s an excerpt:

 The American Bird Conservancy points to the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s 2013 review of previously published studies that estimated free-roaming cats kill 1.3 billion to 4 billion birds a year. Unowned cats do most of the killing, the study said. (Animal welfare groups such as the Humane Society of the United States have questioned the study’s validity.)

But these groups present no comparable peer-reviewed studies. That puts them in the same category as climate change skeptics who dispute the science because, well, they don’t like it.  Calling them “animal welfare groups” is also misleading when they endorse policies that kill  as many as 4 billion birds a year.  It’s a bit like the Koch Brothers and coal companies forming “grassroots” anti-environment groups with names like “Americans for Prosperity.”

The conservancy also says free-roaming cats spread rabies. A 2011 study in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association found that in 2010, four times as many rabid cats (303) were reported as rabid dogs (69), although another study noted the last human rabies case associated with cats in the United States was in 1975. Cat feces in outdoor recreational areas can be a source of toxoplasmosis, which can lead to neurological impairment, blindness and birth defects.

The story skips over this bracing list of maladies.  Regrettably, it also fails to cite a scientific study that would give a sense of the scale of the toxoplasmosis problem.  But this epidemiological study says that the infection is present in 10 to 80 percent of humans, depending on the country, climate, sanitary conditions, and other factors.  It’s generally asymptomatic, but in one study, 80 percent of pregnant women in France were infected, with unknown consequences for their offspring.  Cats are the main source of the infection.  That means, TNR doesn’t just gamble away the lives of birds and small mammals.  It also trivializes the health of newborn children.

But, sorry, I’m getting sidetracked:

Research on TNR has found, at best, only modest success in reducing the numbers of free-roaming cats. In a 2004 paper in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, veterinarian David A. Jessup says the practice is likely to succeed only when the number of feral cats is small to begin with; when no new cats join the colony; when all females are captured and spayed; where the terrain is accessible and cats have trouble hiding; and where TNR efforts are early, intense and prolonged. “Many feeders of cats will not keep records, are not committed to population control, or are not willing or able to aggressively maintain a vigilant TNR effort,” Jessup writes. “How much of a fig leaf does TNR provide for people who just want to have lots of cats?”

Julie Levy, director of Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida, estimates between 71 percent and 94 percent of the cat population must be neutered to bring the birth rate below replacement level. At one university campus she studied, the feral cat population was reduced from 155 in 1991 to 23 in 2002 through a combination of adoption, euthanizing sick cats, natural attrition and neutering “virtually all resident cats.”

In a 2004 research paper published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, veterinarian Paul L. Barrows concludes: “Sometimes it is better that some healthy animals die in light of the excessively negative impacts of their continuing to live. Our nation has greatly benefited from anti-littering campaigns and actions. We must similarly seek to make it politically incorrect and socially unacceptable to engage in biological littering resulting from irresponsible cat ownership and promotion of TNR programs.”

The bottom line: If you have a cat, keep it indoors.  If you see cats roaming free in your neighbor, report them to your animal control person.  Cats can be adorable in their place, at home.  But outdoors they are just agents of disease and death.

Going Extinct to Boost the Sex Lives of The Rich and Powerful

(Photo: Oldansolo / Flickr)

Every year beginning in November, the tawny, mottled birds known as houbara bustards make their annual migration southwest from their breeding grounds in Kazakhstan, China, and Mongolia. Most end up in the deserts of Pakistan.

Another migration, by some of the richest and most powerful men in the world, soon follows them there, armed with almost every kind of hunting weapon imaginable.

Well, no drones, so far. But for Pakistani environmentalists, the uncontrolled slaughter by foreign powers is almost as enraging. The hunters often deploy a trained falcon to stoop down on a houbara and slam it to the ground, the victim reduced to a violent flapping of wings and feathers torn loose from its flesh. (They preserve the memory in videos like this.) They also use shotguns on houbaras and target Siberian cranes and almost any other living thing foolish enough to come in range.

A 2011 estimate—a guesstimate, really—put Asia’s houbara population at no more 55,000 birds and sharply declining. The houbaras, as well as the cranes, are nominally protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and the hunters all come from countries that are signatories to that convention. Worse, many of them are heads of state or national leaders of those countries—among them the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. This year, UAE actually sent a large delegation to slaughter bustards in Pakistan while it was simultaneously signing a treaty to protect them in Kazahkstan. (The apparent aim is to breed up more birds for future hunting.)

You can find a complete list of the permit holders for the latest hunting season, which took place in December and January, here. It might be worth paying attention to the names, because these otherwise powerful men apparently hunt at least in part to boost their sex lives: Tradition says that the aphrodisiacal flesh of houbaras ranks somewhere between Spanish fly and Viagra. Maybe it’s a kind of sympathetic medicine, suggested by the long, upright necks of these birds. But it takes a lot of houbaras: Each of the 33 permits issued this hunting season allowed the holder to take 100 birds. Critics say the reality is that the hunters kill indiscriminately.

“Is there any more ridiculous reason to kill an animal?” asks Naeem Sadiq, one of the activists whose petition to end the hunting succeeded in establishing an interim ban last week while the case proceeds. Pakistan has also warned the sheiks that it plans to suspend the 2014-2015 season, to allow for recovery of the birds. But environmental critics are skeptical that it will follow through.”If it’s illegal for Pakistanis to kill these birds, why should the Arab sheikhs be allowed to do it?” asks Sadiq.

The short answer is that they have money. The sheiks spend lavishly not only on the private jets and transport planes (along with cooks, drivers, cleaners, and other staff) needed to set up luxurious hunting camps but on improving local roads, runways, and schools in Sind, Punjab, and Balochistan, the provinces where most of the hunting takes place. Their benefactions may also matter on the national level. During the 2012–13 hunting season, Pakistan’s then president, Asif Ali Zardari, invited the son of Qatar’s prime minister to hunt inside his country’s second-largest national park. (Zardari now faces graft charges, apparently unrelated to the bustard hunting.)

Officials in Sind have challenged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ right to issue hunting permits, with one  official promising that if the province regains its constitutional rights, “we will immediately introduce a five- or 10-year ban because the bird numbers have become so low.” (It’s not the first time regional authorities have protested against a national government’s decision to allow indiscriminate hunting by Arab sheikhs. The same thing happened in the African nation of Niger in 2003.)

“Very soon we will be left with nothing—no wildlife, no biodiversity,” says Ali Murtaza Dharejo, a zoologist at the University of Sindh. “We are destroying the natural habitats of the birds and the animals; there is no vegetation, fewer ponds, and hardly any weeds left.”

India has already banned the houbara hunt. The question is whether Pakistan will step up to the example set by its regional archrival. Pakistan’s Save the Houbara group has a Facebook page. World Wildlife Fund’s Pakistan branch is also active on the issue. But given our own bloody reputation in that country, help from Americans may not be particularly welcome.

So here’s another idea: Check out this year’s hunting permits, and post each hunter’s name on Twitter.  If you are feeling generous, offer to send him a lifetime supply of Viagra, hint vaguely about the dreaded four-hour side-effect, promise anything, if only–for a little while–he will lay off the houbaras.

A Misguided Bid to Legalize Wildlife Trafficking

(Photo: courtesy of IUCN/ David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation)

 

Foreign Affairs magazine is getting attention today with an opinion piece arguing that wildlife trafficking should be legalized.  It’s not a new idea, and the writer also makes broadbrush statements that gloss over the nitty-gritty details.

Yes, 1920 prohibition of alcohol and the modern war on drugs both drove up the price of those commodities and created lucrative niches for criminal syndicates.  But both alcohol and drugs can be produced in almost limitless quantity.  That’s not true for wildlife. The writer uses the example of the vicuña trade to suggest how thoughtfully planned commercialization can save a species.  This is disingenuous.  Shearing an animal for its wool is different from de-horning, de-tusking, or, more often, just killing the animal that’s the source of a commodity.

Would it be possible, for instance, to produce enough elephants to meet the current demand for ivory? The writer says 22,000 elephants died at the hands of poachers last year. WCS puts the number much higher, at 35,000.  Either way, elephants don’t grow–and don’t grow tusks–that fast.

I accept that trophy hunting elephants for a very high fee can benefit elephant habitat, under carefully controlled circumstances. But up to the moment of its death, the quarry still lives as a wild animal.  Most people–much less most animal activists–would balk at the idea of farming elephants for their tusks.  Would the elephants be slaughtered for their ivory? Or merely anesthetized for removal? The gender thing is a little confusing here, but what is the appropriate term for emasculation of a species?

Here’s an excerpt from the Foreign Affairs article:

Outright bans, then, are not the answer. For this reason, the South African government plans to propose lifting the ban on trading rhino horn at the next CITES meeting in 2016. South African officials argue that a legal trade would take profits away from criminal syndicates. Just as taxes on cigarettes fund education and health programs in the United States, similar levies would also provide ample funds for campaigns to combat poaching and reduce demand. Meanwhile, regular de-horning of the animals would increase the global horn supply, lowering prices and the attraction of poaching. Rhinos produce nearly one kilogram of horn each year, which can easily be harvested through a simple veterinary procedure. Farming the animals ethically, moreover, would allow consumers to demand horn products from sustainably managed sources.

To legalize the rhino trade, South Africa will need a two-thirds majority among CITES members. It can expect to run into stiff opposition from a group that will likely include the United States, Kenya, and a number of European countries. Animal welfare groups will also push hard against legalization. That said, CITES already permits the trading of live rhinos and some limited hunting. In January, the Dallas Safari Club auctioned the right to hunt an old rhino in Namibia for $350,000. (One bidder withdrew his offer of $1 million — money that could have gone toward protecting rhinos — after receiving a death threat from an animal welfare extremist.) Such hunting fees can provide a critical source of revenue; in Namibia, they finance one-third of the government’s wildlife protection budget.

Peru embarked on a similar legalization process in 1979. To save the vicuña — a camelid that resembles a small llama — from extinction at the hands of hunters who prized its fine wool, the Peruvian government gave local communities the right to shear and market the animal’s wool. Now local herders protect the animals and also earn money from sale of their wool. Since then, the country’s vicuña population has grown from 5,000 animals — on the verge of extinction — to more than 200,000 today. CITES approved the policy in 1994.

Such a process of legalization, however, would not necessarily be a magic bullet. For a legal trade to work, governments would have to enforce a tight system of export permits and harvest quotas. Policing would still be needed to protect animals and forests. The success of a legal trade would also hinge on animal reproductive rates and the level of poverty in rural areas where the incentives to poach are high. But policymakers should heed the lessons of the drug wars. Bans fail because borders remain porous and officials corrupt. There is no wall high enough to counteract enormous financial rewards for breaking the rules to feed a voracious market.

Like the drug wars, restrictions on the animal trade reflect not only policy positions but also certain moral beliefs. Yet moralizing conservation organizations are typically based in wealthy countries and overlook the huge financial burdens that enforcement imposes on poor countries with already scarce resources. Such groups also minimize the potential benefits of taxing the wildlife trade, in the form of precious funds that would otherwise go to criminal outfits. Individual countries, then, will also have to make some informed decisions on their own. They would do well to consider what the United States has achieved in its war on drugs — now in its fourth decade.

There are some good examples of how carefully managed commercialization can save a species–the leather trade, for instance, helped get the American alligator off the endangered species list.  Tourism and trophy hunting brought the rhino back from near-extinction in South Africa (but in the end the horn trade also induced ranchers there to sell out their own conservation success.)

The article in Foreign Affairs glibly skirts all the real issues when it comes to the challenge of saving elephants, rhinos, and other species in a very crowded modern world.

Florida Coughs up 18-Foot-Long Python. BBQ, Anyone?

Yesterday was a kind of a big day in the Everglades

OK, in case you had any doubt, here is why people should not “humanely” dump unwanted pets in local waterways or other habitats.  It’s 18.2-feet-long, and it didn’t get that way eating feeder mice.

Here’s Megan Gannon’s story from Livescience

Florida officials say they’ve bagged one of the biggest Burmese pythons ever found in the state: an 18.2-foot-long (5.5 meters) female weighing some 150 pounds (68 kilograms).

The snake, which was shot and killed in the Everglades on Tuesday (Feb. 4), could set a record for the largest Burmese python ever seen on state-owned lands, said Randy Smith, a spokesperson for the South Florida Water Management District.

The animal, however, measures a few inches shorter than the longest-ever Burmese python found in Florida: a snake that stretched 18 feet, 8 inches (5.6 meters) long and was wrangled by a man on the side of the road in a rural part of Miami-Dade County in May 2013.

Watching an Elephant Die

Filmmaker Mark Deeble has a post about the unsettling experience of seeing a bull elephant fall before his eyes in Kenya’s Tsavo National Park, a victim of the escalating war on elephants:

Recently, we went on a recce [reconnaissance] for the film. The destination was a distant waterhole. We set off early. It was a typical Tsavo waterhole – seemingly hewn out of ochre. That warm glow seemed reflected in the animals that, as we watched, came to drink. A magnificent bull elephant, encrusted with dry mud, stood beside a tamarind as if surveying his personal fiefdom. He seemed unimpressed by the flights of sand-grouse that tumbled from the sky, briefly patterning his skin with their whirling shadows. They sipped twice, sometimes thrice, and clapped their way back into the sky. As they disappeared into the expanse of the Taru desert and their whistling blended with the day’s first gentle movement of air through the acacia thorns, the bull stepped forward to drink. He drank calmly and deeply. He might have traveled thirty miles to reach the water. He wasn’t going to hurry now. He’d drink a while and then rest in the shade, and then drink again as the shadows lengthened – or so we thought. What actually happened was that he drank deeply and stepped away. He faltered briefly and then suddenly collapsed. His legs spasmed as he thrashed in the dust – and within minutes he was dead.

It was utterly shocking.

Our plans for the day changed rapidly after that. A call to KWS/ DSWT vet Jeremiah Poghon resulted in an impromptu postmortem beside the waterhole.  He removed the head of a poisoned arrow that had been embedded in the bull’s flank, and released over 100 liters of pus from the hidden infection -  the result of the bull’s encounter with a poacher months before.

We’d watched the bull through binoculars before he fell and there was no noticeable sign of injury. It chills me to think how many others there may be like him, walking around, apparently fine, until the poison or infection finally catches up with them.

Read the full blog, with interesting stuff on the methods of modern poachers, here.

Maybe the Problem Isn’t Just Monsanto & Roundup

I wrote an article earlier this week for Yale Environment 360 about the disappearance of pollinators and other beneficial insects.  It quoted University of Kansas entomologist Chip Taylor’s estimate that monarch butterflies have lost 167 million acres of essential milkweed habitat just since 1996.

No coincidence, that’s when Monsanto introduced Roundup-ready crops.  Their tolerance to herbicides made it possible to significantly increase the spraying of weedkillers.  (The increase since 1996 amounts to 527 million pounds of herbicide in the United States.) The resulting loss of milkweed has been a major factor in the near-disappearance of the Monarch migration.

But a new study suggests that it might not be Monsanto alone that is killing off the monarchs.  The study doesn’t absolve Monsanto.  It just adds other elements of agricultural intensification as contributing factors.  (I checked and the research doesn’t appear to have been paid for by Monsanto.  The authors list their funding sources as Pennsylvania State University College of Agricultural Sciences and the US Environmental Protection Agency.)

Here’s the press release:

The increasing use of chemical herbicides is often blamed for the declining plant biodiversity in farms. However, other factors beyond herbicide exposure may be more important to species diversity, according to Penn State researchers.

If herbicides are a key factor in the declining diversity, then thriving species would be more tolerant to widely used herbicides than rare or declining species, according to J. Franklin Egan,research ecologist, USDA-Agricultural Research Service.

“Many ecotoxicology studies have tested the response of various wild plant species to low dose herbicide exposures, but it is difficult to put these findings in context,” said Egan. “Our approach was to compare the herbicide tolerances of plant species that are common and plant species that are rare in an intensively farmed region. We found that rare and common plant species had roughly similar tolerances to three commonly used herbicides.”

This could mean that herbicides may not have a persistent effect in shaping plant communities.

The researchers, who report their findings in the online version of the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, said that over the past several decades, in the same time that the use of herbicides was on the rise, other factors such as the simplification of crop rotations, segregation of crop and livestock and increasing mechanization have also been rapidly evolving. In addition, the clearing of woodlots, hedgerows, pastures and wetlands to make way for bigger fields has continued apace and resulted in habitat loss.

While the findings are preliminary, the approach could be effective in clarifying the implications of herbicide pollution for plant conservation, Egan said.

“These findings are not an invitation to use herbicides recklessly,” he said. “There are many good reasons to reduce agriculture’s reliance on chemical weed control. But, for the objective of plant species conservation, other strategies like preserving farmland habitats including woodlots, pastures and riparian buffers may be more effective than trying to reduce herbicide use.”

Egan worked with David Mortensen, professor of weed and applied plant ecology, and Ian Graham, an undergraduate student in plant science.

Journal Reference:

J. Franklin Egan, Ian M. Graham, David A. Mortensen. A comparison of the herbicide tolerances of rare and common plants in an agricultural landscape. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 2014; DOI: 10.1002/etc.2491

Best Commuter Show on Earth (Not Nice for Dolphins)

This video just went up, showing what commuters saw from a ferry yesterday in British Columbia.  Here’s the story from the Vancouver Sun:

An increase in transient killer whales and white-sided dolphins in the Strait of Georgia led to a rare sighting of an attack between the two mammals on Monday near Nanaimo.Travellers on board a BC Ferry were stunned as they watched a pod of killer whales prey on a large pod dolphins.

In video, captured by ferry passengers and posted on YouTube, the killer whales appear to chase the dolphins, as they swim and leap fast at the surface of the ocean.

Then, in a rare confrontation not usually seen so close to shore, the orcas can be seen attacking the dolphins.

Read the rest of the story here.  Or just watch the video.  As my friend Geoffrey F. Miller commented: “Orcas held captive for human amusement? Horrible (‪#‎Blackfish‬). Dolphins slaughtered in Taino Bay? Horrible. Orcas hunting and killing dolphins in the wild for human amusement? Priceless! ‪#‎morallyconfused‬”

Man Versus Wild. Wild Wins.

The lead on Todd Masson’s story in today’s New Orleans Times-Pacayune caught my attention:

Chris Morris’ handle on a popular Louisiana hunting-and-fishing forum is “Chris Morris vs. Wild.”

On Sunday, Wild won.

Morris is apparently a hunter with a not particularly enlightened world view.  He was out squirrel hunting on Sunday, and ran into a big surprise:

Morris was moving in the general direction of the squirrel when his attention was diverted immediately and permanently from the small rodent. A 140-pound feral boar had heard Morris’ approach and jumped up from its bed only 8 feet away.

“I turned and looked, and by the time I saw it, it was 6 feet away and closing,” Morris said.

Such situations are not uncommon for hunters who target wild hogs or any other type of big game. Sometimes the hunter is on a trail that the animal intends to use, and the hunter has two options: Get out of the way, or get run over.

Morris figured he’d go with option No. 1. The furious boar, however, had no intention of simply running by Morris.

“I figured I’d just side-step it, but when I side-stepped, he lowered his center of gravity and turned on me,” Morris said. “I was going into a back-pedal, and I was in all those little saplings, trying to get the gun around and trying to do a contact shot on his head — he was right there in front of me. But I tripped and fell.

“I was on my back, and he was between my legs. I was kicking, trying to keep him away from my thighs. He was steadily just gashing back and forth. He gashed my left knee a little bit, punctured my right knee and my calf. When he did that, he actually bit me. When he grabbed my calf, I grabbed his snout.”

There they sat — the hunter and the hunted. The hog had locked its jaw, and wasn’t letting go. Morris, a Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office detective, had his hand wrapped around the boar’s snout, its razor-sharp tusks dripping with blood. His adrenalin wouldn’t allow him to let go either.

“I was finally able to get the gun around. I fired a shot into him, and he backed up,” Morris said.

Morris ended up in the hospital.  No word on the boar.

Nine Simple Ways to Bring More Wildlife to Our Cities

A snowy owl perches outside an office building in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 24. (Photo: Nathaniel Gran/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

My latest for Takepart:

The spectacle of wildlife on city streets has been making the news lately, in ways both delightful and disturbing. It’s not just the snowy owls that have mysteriously decamped from the Arctic this winter to turn up in places like downtown Washington, D.C. It’s also the cosmopolitan coyotes living full-time in the Chicago Loop, and the mountain lion in Griffith Park, hemmed in by highways in the heart of Los Angeles. It’s the wild turkeys that some people now regard as “a scourge” in parts of New York City (though others remember when the species was almost eradicated from North America). It’s porpoises that recently swam up the Thames into the center of London, and the estimated 3,000 wild boars wandering around the streets of Berlin.

What’s going on here? It’s possible that urban wildlife enthusiasts, aided by camera traps and other new technologies, are simply revealing some of the wildlife that has always lived, unsuspected, all around us. But wildlife is probably also responding to larger changes in the landscape. One theory on snowy owls suggests that a surplus of lemmings in the Arctic has produced a bumper crop of owls, now spreading out into new habitat. The opposite theory says species are coming into the cities because they can no longer find the food and habitat they need in wilder terrain. That is, wildlife is being caught between landscapes that are, on one side, increasingly plowed under for intensive industrial agriculture and, on the other side, ever more sprawlingly urbanized.

In the United States, just in the 1990s, expanding urbanization ate up an area equivalent to Vermont and New Hampshire combined. By mid-century, cities and suburbs in the lower 48 states will occupy three times as much land as in 1990. Worldwide, 61 percent of people will live in urban areas by 2030, up from 29 percent in 1950, according to a United Nations report.

These changes mean cities and suburbs need to plan for wildlife, partly to minimize conflict, but mainly to welcome and promote newcomers to the neighborhood. “We must abandon our segregationist attitude toward nature—humans here, nature somewhere else,” says University of Delaware entomologist Douglas Tallamy.

Tallamy is part of a growing urban wildlife movement—with an agenda that ranges from promoting pretty songbirds in our backyards to providing essential ecosystem services to meet our own need for clean water, clean air, and food on our tables. Tallamy and other researchers suggest nine useful steps cities and home owners can take to become more wildlife friendly:

1. Bumblebees, honeybees, and other essential pollinators are in decline worldwide, and cities can help reverse that worrisome trend. In the United Kingdom, 60 cities have recently planted wildlife meadows, inspired by the extensive meadows planted at the 2012 London Olympics. Your own yard, or your kids’ school grounds, can also provide suitable habitat to encourage pollinators and other beneficial insects like monarch butterflies. Here’s a website with tips for getting started.

2. Lobby your town and state highway departments to reduce mowing and spraying of highway margins. Nationwide, that land could provide millions of acres of habitat for small animals—and save taxpayer dollars now wasted on unnecessary mowing.

3. Plant more trees, but choose the right species to make them wildlife friendly. Home owners tend to go for ornamental exotics like Bradford pears, and city parks departments likewise treat gingkoes and Kousa dogwoods as street-smart standbys. But oaks, for instance, are a much better choice, says Tallamy, because they provide habitat for 557 species of caterpillar. (I am enclosing Tallamy’s ranking of Eastern state trees and shrubs, according to their wildlife value, below.) Why would anybody want caterpillars? Because that’s what birds eat: A single pair of Carolina chickadees needs to bring between 6,000 and 9,000 caterpillars to the nest to rear a clutch of a half-dozen nestlings. Plant the right trees, and you’ll probably never know the caterpillars are there, because they are masters of camouflage. But the birds will find them.

4. A perfect lawn is a poor measure of a life well lived. Minimize lawns, and mow less often—every two or three weeks, say—to encourage native pollinators. Lay off the chemicals and fertilizers, which just end up in your drinking water (or a fish’s). Parks departments can also attract more birds, butterflies and other wildlife by breaking up endless lawns with the right mix of shrubs, to add structure and variety. Visit local companies and talk about more wildlife-friendly alternatives to the sprawling lawns around many office buildings. (The alternatives often turn out to be more employee- and budget-friendly too.)

5. Meet with local building owners to discuss ways to reduce bird collisions. A new study says building collisions kill up to 988 million birds in the United States every year—second only to the deaths caused by house cats. It’s not just high rises either: More than half those deaths involve low-rise buildings, and just under half are residences. Here’s a link for advice from the American Bird Conservancy.

6. Join up your yard with those of like-minded neighbors to create pockets of wildlife friendly habitat. The big idea of creating wildlife corridors can work on a small scale too.

7. Don’t feed the animals. Bird feeders are a reasonable exception. They seem to be harmless in most cases, though they don’t appear to increase the overall abundance of birds. But feeding deer, foxes, raccoons, and other wildlife can create a risk to public safety—and to the animals themselves. In particular, don’t feed stray cats and dogs. They not only kill wildlife but can also spread rabies and other diseases in wildlife and humans alike.

8. Keep your cats indoors. That single step would save the lives of billions of birds and small mammals every year. If you’re worried that a housebound cat will become frustrated or bored, the Humane Society suggests a variety of ways to keep kitty interested at home without putting wildlife in peril.

9. Spread the word. Most everybody perks up at the news of a fox crossing the road or a snowy owl turning up in a local marsh. Your excitement—at the water cooler or via social media—can be contagious.

The idea is to bring people around to the idea that any city is healthier and more interesting when the neighbors aren’t only of the two-legged variety.

The landscape is changing dramatically all around us. If we hope to keep a place for wildlife in this world, it’s going to take more than just building tolerance or accommodation. We also need to recover a sense of delight at having wildlife live among us.

 

Doug Tallamy’s Ranking of Trees and Shrubs (U.S. Eastern States),

According to their Wildlife Value. In Parentheses: The Number of Caterpillar Species They Host



Quercus (557) (Oaks)                                                                

Prunus (456) (Cherries)

Salix (455) (Willows)

Betula (411) (Birches)

Populus (367) (Poplars)

Malus (308) (Crabapples)

Acer (297) (Maples)

Vaccinium (294) (Blueberries)

Alnus (255) (Alders)

Carya (235) (Hickories)

Ulmus (215) (Elms)

Pinus (201) (Pines)

Crataegus (168) (Hawthorns)

Rubus (163) (Berries)

Picea (150) (Spruces)

Fraxinus (149) (Ashes)

Tilia (149) (Linden)

Pyrus (138) (Pears)

Rosa (135) (Roses)    

Corylus (131) (Filberts)

Juglans (129) (Walnuts)

Castanea (127) (Chestnuts)

Fagus (127) (Beeches)

Amelanchier (124) (Serviceberry)

Larix (121) (Larches)

Cornus (118) (Dogwoods)

Abies (117) (Firs)

Myrica (108) (Bayberries)

Viburnum (104) (Viburnums)

Ribes (99) (Currants)

Ostrya (94) (Hophornbeam)

Tsuga (92) (Hemlocks)

Spiraea (89) (Spireas)

Vitis (79) (Grapes)

Pseudotsuga (76) (Douglasfir)

Robinia (72) (Locusts)

Carpinus (68) (Hornbeams)

Sorbus (68) (Mountainashes)

Comptonia (64) (Sweetfern)

Hamamelis (63) (Witchhazels)

Rhus (58) (Sumacs)

Rhododendron (51) (Rhododendrons)

Thuja (50) (Arborvitaes)

Diospyros (46) (Persimmons)

Gleditsia (46) (Honeylocusts)

Ceanothus (45) (New Jersey Tea)

Platanus (45) (Sycamores)

Gaylussacia (44) (Huckleberry)

Celtis (43) (Hackberry)        

Juniperus (42) (Junipers)

Sambucus (42) (Elders)

Physocarpus (41) (Ninebark)

Syringa (40) (Lilacs)

Ilex (39) (Hollies)

Sassafras (38) (Sassafras)

Lonicera (37) (Honeysuckles)

Liquidambar (35) (Sweetgums)

Kalmia (33) (Mountain-laurel)

Aesculus (33) (Buckeyes)

Parthenocissus (32) (Virginia Creeper)

Photinia (29) (Photinias)

Nyssa (26) (Black Gums)

Symphoricarpos (25) (Snowberries)

Cydonia (24) (Quince)

Ligustrum (24) (Privets)

Shepherdia (22) (Buffaloberries)

Liriodendron (21) (Tuliptrees)

Magnolia (21) (Magnolias)

Cephalanthus (19) (Buttonbush)

Cercis (19) (Redbuds)

Smilax (19) (Green-briar)

Wisteria (19) (Wisterias)

Persea (18) (Redbay)

Arctostaphylos (17) (Bearberry)

Ricinus (16) (Castorbean)

Taxodium (16) (Baldcypresses)

Chamaedaphne (15) (Leatherleaf)

Toxicodendron (15) (Poison Ivy)

Oxydendrum (14) (Sourwood)

Ampelopsis (13) (Porcelainberry

Arbutus (12) (Madrone)

Asimina (12) Pawpaw)

Berberis (12) (Barberries)

Acacia (11) (Acacia)

Euonymus (11) (Euonymus)

Frangula (11) (Buckthorn)

Lindera (11) (Spicebush)

Lyonia (11) (Fetterbush)

Caragana (10) (Peashrubs)

Clethra (10) (Summersweet Clethra)

Rhamnus (10) (Buckthorns)

Pyracantha (9) (Firethorns)

Morus (9) (Mulberries)

Elaeagnus (9) (Russian-olive)

Chaenomeles (8) (Floweringquince)

Cytisus (8) (Scotchbroom/broom)

Ficus (8) (Fig)

Catalpa (8) (Catalpa)

Chamaecyparis (8) (Falsecypress)

Chionanthus (8) (Fringetree)

Maclura (8) (Osage-orange)

Taxus (8) (Yew)

Cupressus (7) (Cypress)

Andromeda (7) (Bog-rosemary)

Campsis (7) (Trumpetcreeper)

Celastrus (7) (Bittersweet)

Halesia (7) (Silverbells)

Ledum (7) (Labrador Tea)

Ailanthus (6) (Tree of Heaven)

Clematis (6) (Clematis)

Ptelea (6) (Wafer-ash)

Zanthoxylum (6) (Prickly Ash)

Albizia (5) (Mimosa)

Ginkgo (5) (Gingko)

Decodon (5) (Swamp loosestrife­)

Diervilla (5) (Bush-honeysuckle)

Gymnocladus (5) (Kentucky Coffeetree)

Hydrangea (5) (Hydrangea)

Cotinus (4) (Smoketree)

Eremochloa (4) (Centipede grass)

Genista (4) (Woadwaxen)

Indigofera (4) (Indigo)

Pueraria (4) (Kudzu)

Leucothoe (4) (Fetterbush)

Philadelphus (4) (Mockorange)

Phoradendron (4) (Mistletoe)

Sideroxylon (4) (Bully Trees)

Cedrus (3) (Cedars)

Cissus (3) (Grape)

Cotoneaster (3) (Cotoneaster)

Hedera (3) (Ivy)

Lagerstroemia (3) (Crapemyrtle)

Myrtus (3) (Myrtle)

Tamarix (3) (Tamarix)

Deutzia (2) (Deutzia)

Lavandula (2) (Lavendar)

Lycium (2) (Goji Berry)

Melia (2) (Mahogany Family)

Paulownia (2) (Empress Tree)

Phoenix (2) (Palm)

Sophora (2) (Pagodatree)

Sorbaria (2) (Falsespirea)

Weigela (2) (Weigela)

Calycanthus (2) (Sweetshrub)

Gaultheria (2) (Wintergreen)

Litsea (2) (May Chang)

Menziesia (2) (False Azalea)

Pieris (2) (Pieris)

Staphylea (2) (Bladdernut)

Abelia (1) (Abelia)

Bambusa (1) (Bamboo)

Broussonetia (1) (Paper Mulberry)

Buddleja (1) (Butterfly Bush)

Buxus (1) (Boxwood)

Calluna (1) (Common Heather)

Camellia (1) (Camillia)

Clerodendrum (1) (Glory Bower)

Colutea (1) (Bladder Senna)

Forsythia (1) (Forsythia)

Koelreuteria (1) (Goldenraintree)

Laburnum (1) (Golden Grain)

Phyllostachys (1) (Bamboo)

Poncirus (1) (Hardy Orange)

Pterostyrax (1) (Fragrant Epaulette Tree)

Sapium (1) (Chinese tallow tree)

Thamnocalam)us (1) (Clumping Bamboo)

Vincetoxicum (1) (Swallowwort

Callicarpa (1) (Beautyberry)

Dirca (1) (Leatherwood)

Leiophyllum (1) (Sandmyrtle_

Menispermum (1) (Moonseed)                       Nemophila (1) (Baby blue-eyes)

Osmanthus (1) (Devilwood)

Stewartia (1) (Stewartia)

Metasequoia (0) (Dawn Redwood)

Vitex (0) (Chastetree)

Ceratonia (0) (Locust Bean)

Cercidiphyllum (0) (Katsuratree)

Exochorda (0) (Pearlbush)

Firmiana (0) (Chinese parasoltree)

Grewia (0) (Forest Raisin)

Kalopanax (0) (Prickly Castor-oil Tree)

Kerria (0) (Japanese Kerria)

Kolkwitzia (0) (Beautybush)

Nandina (0) (Heavenly Bamboo)

Phellodendron (0) (A)mur Corktree

Pseudosasa (0) (Bamboo)

Rhodotypos (0) (Black Jetbead)

Stephanandra (0) (Cutleaf stephanandra)

Styphnolobium (0) (Japanese pagodatree)

Tetradium (0) (Bee bee tree)

Toona (0) (Australian red cedar)

Zelkova (0) (Japanese Zelkova)

Adlumia (0) (Allegheny Vine)

Arceuthobium (0) (Dwarf Mistletoes)

Berchemia (0) (Alabama Supplejack)

Borrichia (0) (Sea-Oxeye)

Cladrastis (0) (American Yellowwood)

Empetrum (0) (Black Crowberry)

Eubotrys (0) (Fetter-bush)

Itea (0) (Virginia Sweetspire)       Loiseleuria (0) (Trailing Azalea)

Nestronia (0) (Leechbrush)

Styrax (0) (Japanese snowbell)

Xanthorhiza (0) (Yellowroot)

Zenobia (0) (DustyZenobia/ Honeycup)

 

Why Farmers Must Grow Insects Like A Crop–Or Starve

One of our forgotten pollinators: Megchile fortis from Badlands National Park, South Dakota (Photo: USGS/Sam Droege)

For the last few years, Richard Rant has agreed to let researchers introduce strips of wildflowers among the blueberry plants on his family’s farm in West Olive, Michigan. It’s part of an experiment to see if the wildflowers can encourage pollinating insects and, in a small way, begin to reverse the worldwide decline in beneficial insects. It’s also a pioneering effort in the nascent movement to persuade farmers to grow insects almost as if they were a crop.

That movement is being driven by news that is disturbingly bad even by gloomy environmental standards. Insects pollinate 75 percent of the crops used directly for human food worldwide. They contribute $210 billion in agricultural earnings. But honeybees are now so scarce, according to a new study from the University of Reading, that Europe is 13.6 million colonies short of the number needed to pollinate crops there. Nor can farmers count on natural pollinators as a backup system. A 2011 study sampled four North American bumblebee species and found that they have declined by as much 96 percent over the past century. In China, the loss of wild bees has forced farmers to hand-pollinate apple blossoms using paint brushes.

The broad decline in beneficial insects has also affected species we take for granted as part of our cultural heritage. Just last week, researchers announced that monarch butterfly numbers, already at record lows, once again fell by half in the annual count at overwintering sites in Mexico, with the iconic monarch migration now “at serious risk of disappearing.”

So far, the movement to get farmers to grow beneficial insects amounts, in the United States, to no more than a few hundred thousand acres of pollinator plantings, mostly subsidized by state and federal governments. Through its Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) now partners with the Xerces Society and other conservation groups to get the message out to farmers and help them with the technical issues of how to grow beneficial insects, and how to get paid for doing it. USDA also recently added a pollinator component to the farmland set-asides it pays for through its Conservation Reserve Program. Similar programs are also under way as part of the European Union’s “agri-environment” schemes, Australia’s Landcare program, and the United Nations International Pollinator Initiative.

The experiment on Richard Rant’s blueberry farm — part of a research study by Michigan State University entomologist Rufus Isaacs — is an example of what can happen when such efforts work well. The study results are not expected to be published until later this year. But for Rant at least, planting for pollinators has seemed to work. He noticed that the wildflower patches were humming not just with bees and other pollinators but also with wasps, ladybugs, lacewings, and predacious beetles known to attack the sort of insect pests that damage blueberries. On his own, he started to add flowering cover crops — buckwheat, soybeans, mustard, alfalfa, and clover – in the 10-foot-wide gaps between blueberry rows, so that something nearby would be flowering throughout the growing season.

As fewer harmful insects turned up in his monitoring traps, Rant gradually cut back on spraying insecticides, from 10 or 12 times a season to as few as two or three in some years. The 80 percent saving on insecticides, he says, was easily worth $5,000-6,000 a year, “not even factoring in the labor and diesel for running the tractor.” He also cut by more than half the number of honeybee hives he needed to rent during the pollinating season — a big savings because rental prices have soared as honeybee populations have collapsed. Rant is now so hooked on the idea of farming insects that he wishes out loud for something to flower directly under his blueberries, so the beneficial insects wouldn’t have to travel as far.

But other farmers have not yet taken up the idea, and the acreage being protected or enhanced for beneficial insects is still trivial in the context of the global expansion and intensification of agriculture. In the United States, acreage protected by the Conservation Reserve Program, for instance, has continued to shrink dramatically, both because of congressional cost-cutting and because the federal mandate for ethanol fuel has driven up the price of corn and encouraged farmers to plow under their marginal land for row crops. Just from 2008 to 2011, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group, that expansion ate up 23.6 million acres of grassland, wetland, an area larger than Indiana — which used to produce beneficial insects naturally.

Add in the dramatically increased dependence on herbicides to eliminate weeds, and Orley R. “Chip” Taylor of the University of Kansas figures that monarch butterflies — the poster child of beneficial insects — have lost 167 million acres of habitat across North America since 1996. In many places, the milkweed they need to produce the next generation simply does not exist anymore.

Gary Nabhan, the Arizona ecologist and co-author of Forgotten Pollinators, argues that the U.S. public is willing to pay for the recovery of beneficial insects, even if Congress might not be. He cites a 2013 study in which Americans indicated that they were prepared to make household contributions that would total up to $6.6 billion just to protect the monarch butterfly migration. “But consumers, conservation advocates, and farm groups are still unclear on which mechanisms are the best way to invest in pollinators and other beneficial insects that affect their own food production and health.”

It can be expensive. Getting the right wildflower seed mix and preparing a site can cost as much as $1,500-2,000 an acre, according to Mace Vaughan, pollinator program director for Xerces. Depending on the state, government programs could pick up 50-75 percent of the cost, but that still requires a big investment by farmers.

Wildflower plantings aren’t the only technique available to farmers. At the University of California at Berkeley, research by Claire Kremen has demonstrated that hedgerows of native shrubs and wildflowers also produce a big bump in pollinator abundance and variety, with the effect spilling over 100 meters into adjacent fields. But getting to the break-even point for a hedgerow can take eight years, and only then can the farmer expect to see any gain. And that’s with government subsidies included, Kremen says. Some farmers are experimenting with simpler techniques — for instance, providing bamboo tubes, or boards with holes drilled into them, as habitat for leaf cutter bees, orchard mason bees, blue orchard bees, and other wild pollinators.

Polyculture, the opposite of monoculture, could also produce a broad recovery of pollinators, but it would require major changes in modern agriculture. It already works on a small scale in California’s Salinas Valley, says Kremen. Growers there are geared to supplying farmers’ markets and tend to “have a few rows of this, a few rows of that,” with maybe 20 different crops growing on a 10-acre plot. But that’s a much harder sell in California’s Central Valley, where large-scale intensive farming means there may be a crop flowering nearby one week, but no flowers for five miles in any direction two weeks later. So bumblebees and other native pollinators are scarce there. A practical solution might be to organize plantings of conventional crops in smaller contiguous zones, so that something is flowering nearby nonstop from spring through fall. But that would require adjusting the conventional pesticide regimen and rethinking a food distribution system that’s now geared to monoculture farming. And those kinds of changes are likely only if farmers see that profits depend on it.

“What we need now,” says David Kleijn of the University of Waginengen, “are studies like the ones that [Michigan State’s] Rufus Isaacs is doing” with blueberry farmers, “showing that if farmers take up biodiversity schemes they will actually benefit from it, without the general public having to pay for it.”

Simply paying a farmer to produce pollinators doesn’t really engage him in conservation, says Kleijn. “But if he can show his neighbors that by improving habitat for pollinators on his land, he was able to increase his yield by five percent, that’s something he can brag about. We need to use these psychological aspects much more in the way we deal with biodiversity.”

Marketplace-driven incentives, like the “Conservation Grade” program in Britain could provide an alternative means of paying for pollinator recovery. The cereal company that runs that program pays farmers to set aside 10 percent of their land, and it stipulates a precise planting protocol for pollinator habitat, bird habitat, and so on. For their trouble, farmers get a markup on their crop and the buyer sells the product to consumers under a premium wildlife-friendly label.

But so far, those kinds of programs seem to function only on a limited boutique scale. It will take some far more ambitious enterprise to face up to what has become a global challenge.

“This is really different from other things conservationists have encouraged the public to do in the past,” says Gary Nabhan. “It’s not like saving pandas or gray whales. It’s not about pristine habitats. It’s more nuanced and complex. It’s about interactions and ecological relationships, not just species: You can’t save monarch butterflies without saving milkweeds. So people don’t immediately get it.”

Some people, particularly farmers, may struggle just to conceive of the words “beneficial” and “insect” together in a sentence. In that sense, says Nabhan, getting farmers and the general public engaged in pollinator recovery could be a turning point for the conservation movement, and even more so for modern agriculture