Rusty patched bumble bee proposed for U.S. endangered species status

By Laura Zuckerman and Steve Gorman; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Sandra Maler22 September 2016 (Reuters) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed listing the rusty patched bumble bee, a prized but vanishing pollinator once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, for federal protection as an endangered species. […]

‘Like it’s been nuked’: Millions of bees dead after South Carolina sprays for Zika mosquitoes

By Ben Guarino 1 September 2016 (Washington Post) – On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers. Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that […]

Vanishing Act: Why insects are declining and why it matters – ‘The decline is dramatic and depressing and it affects all kinds of insects, including butterflies, wild bees, and hoverflies’

By Christian Schwägerl6 July 2016 (e360) – Every spring since 1989, entomologists have set up tents in the meadows and woodlands of the Orbroicher Bruch nature reserve and 87 other areas in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The tents act as insect traps and enable the scientists to calculate how many bugs live […]

Firefly populations are blinking out globally – ‘Everyone is reporting declines’

By John R. Platt 7 July 2016 (TakePart) – Blink and you’ll miss them this summer. Around the world, people are reporting that local firefly populations are shrinking or even disappearing. The insect’s dilemma first came to the world’s attention at the 2010 International Firefly Symposium, where researchers from 13 nations presented evidence of firefly […]

California beekeepers feel the sting of stolen hives

By Jodi Helmer6 June 2016 (NPR) – Between December and March, beekeepers send millions of hives to California to pollinate almond trees. Not all of the hives make it back home. “The number of beehive thefts is increasing,” explains Jay Freeman, a detective with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. In California, 1,734 hives were stolen […]

U.S. beekeepers lost 44 percent of bees in 2015-16 – ‘The fact that beekeepers are losing bees in the summer, when bees should be at their healthiest, is quite alarming’

10 May 2016 (UMD) – Beekeepers across the United States lost 44 percent of their honey bee colonies during the year spanning April 2015 to April 2016, according to the latest preliminary results of an annual nationwide survey. Rates of both winter loss and summer loss—and consequently, total annual losses—worsened compared with last year. This […]

This is the reality of what India forest fires are doing to wildlife

By Susmita Mukherjee7 May 2016 (India Times) – Thank the Gods for the rains; it has helped in putting out one of the worst forest fires we have known in the Himalayas. But do all eyes now turn away from the truth behind such a tragedy? What happens to what remains, charred and vulnerable? Forest […]

Video: Radioactive spiders of Chernobyl weave deformed webs

28 April 2016 (Animal Planet) – Thirty years after the worst nuclear radiation catastrophe in history, 100 times the combined amount of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, two scientists have now been allowed total access to the area surrounding the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Radioactive Spiders of Chernobyl Technorati Tags: Chernobyl,insect decline,pollution,ecosystem disruption

World’s largest monarch butterfly population could disappear in 20 years – ‘The next generation of children may never see a monarch butterfly’

WASHINGTON, 21 March 2016 (Center for Biological Diversity) – The eastern migratory population of the monarch butterfly — which includes 99 percent of the world’s monarchs — is at high risk of extinction within two decades unless the population rebounds dramatically, according to a new study published today by Nature Scientific Reports. The study from […]

Ash tree set for extinction in Europe – ‘Between the fungal disease and a bright green beetle called the emerald ash borer, it is likely that almost all ash trees in Europe will be wiped out’

By Claire Marshall23 March 2016 (BBC News) – The ash tree is likely to be wiped out in Europe, according to a review of the evidence. The trees are being killed off by the fungal disease ash-dieback along with an invasive beetle called the emerald ash borer. According to the research, published in the Journal […]

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