I’m a grassland ecologist. I am intimately familiar with the collapse of insect populations – part of my earliest research was on the impact of insect population declines on grassland birds (it’s bad, fam).
But I never connected the way I can now drive ten hours across the prairies without needing to clean my windshield with said declines until I sat in on a native bees workshop last week, and the speaker pointed out the change.
So you know. That’s concerning. I drove across Canada last fall and just realized that I only had to stop and clean the windshield once.
If you want to help, here are some things you can do for bugs in general:
- The Xerces Society is a primarily US-based non-profit dedicated to conserving invertebrates; they support research, and run a lot of public outreach events, including seminars and citizen science projects. They could use your dollars or your time.
- get involved with your local naturalist or conservation society; there are a heck-ton of these that are often linked to specific areas or watersheds, and they can always use help (in AB there’s the Alberta Native Bee Council, for example)
- cut out pesticides in your garden; a significant part of this decline is related to the fact that pesticides kill indiscriminately, and have a tendency to travel long distances from the point of application
- plant native species; insects (especially butterflies and other pollinators) are often specialized on native species for food or shelter, and without these native species they don’t do as well even if they can use another non-native plant
- if at all possible, reduce or eliminate lawn space; in ecological terms, well-kept grass lawns are only slightly better than concrete - they don’t provide habitat or food to most species. if you absolutely have to have a lawn, see if you can swap it for another ground-cover (preferably a native species). if you have to have a lawn-lawn, leave it as long as you’re allowed - longer grass at least provides habitat for some species (especially leave it long as you go into winter and wait as long as you can to cut in the spring - overwintering habitat is critical).
- if you can, don’t rake up your fall leaves. If you have to rake them up, store them in open bags or spread them on flower beds until spring - lots of baby bugs spend the winter under those leaves.
- build a bug hotel; if you’re in a cold climate (like Canada), make sure it’s at least 8-12″ deep so that things can overwinter.
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