Mike Johnson wrote:
Well yeah. Just in the last thirty years or so, the conservative estimate says we’ve lost about 50% of insect biomass worldwide. Flying insects in general, the consensus is closer to 75% — the more mobile they are, the more likely they are to encounter insecticide. And in agricultural areas of the US, the numbers you see are often somewhere between 75%-90% reduction in the last thirty years. There was probably a huge reduction in the forty years before that, too, but the data wasn’t so rigorously collected. We didn’t really make counting insects a priority until we saw complete population crashes occurring among key beneficial or charismatic species (like wait, there used to be fireflies here?) It’s not just anecdotes or aerodynamics.

Our planet is toxic yo.

testcase wrote:
They must ALL be attracted to the windshield of my RV.

SteveO wrote:
I've noticed this too the past 30 years and have figured it was due to mass chemical overuse. Apparently I was right. So terribly right. :-( I stopped using insecticide and herbicide years ago, use only natural stuff now like live ladybugs and praying mantis (order via Amazon), boric acid, and mint spray on occasion.

I found a large glass container of Chlordane in my dad's garage last summer, about halfway full, maybe 24 ounces. Chlordane was outlawed decades ago and kills everything, including people. The half-life of it is like, literally, centuries. Can't believe it ever made it to mass market. (Then again...) My dad died from leukemia 2 years ago. Also a 40-year smoker and regularly had his home interior, exterior and yard sprayed with various chemicals, Roundup, etc. Not a good combo.

Stop using this stuff, people - and dispose of it properly at your local hazardous waste collection site. I told one of my dad's friends who was helping us move my mom about the Chlordane find. He asked if he could have it to use around his house. I said no effing way, bro, and then told him how dangerous it is. People have no idea how toxic all this stuff is. So tragic.

Mike Johnson wrote:
Back in the thirties and forties, my dad would see schools of dophin as far as the eye could see just off the coast of Los Angeles. I never saw anything like that growing up. But when I was a kid, I did experience that in the Sea of Cortez.

I could take my son down to Loreto for a fishing trip, but schools of dolphin like that, they’re just not there any more. You just get used to it, it’s the new normal.

Our grandkids won’t really notice the lack of birds or bugs. They’ll see old time videos of flocks of birds on the wings, murmurations of starlings wheeling above fields of grain, and it’ll be like us looking at a grainy old photo of the last Tasmanian tiger.