Have you ever stopped to think about how much we owe to the tiny creatures flying around our gardens? Bees, butterflies, bats and birds are unsung heroes of our ecosystems, playing a vital role in pollination. This process is essential for producing the fruits, vegetables, and nuts we love. Understanding why pollinators are essential and discovering ways to protect them can help us do our part to ensure a healthier planet. Why Pollinators Matter Pollinators are like nature’s matchmakers, helping plants reproduce by transferring pollen from one flower to another. This might sound simple, but it’s a big deal! Over 75% of the world’s flowering plants and about one-third of our food supply depend on pollinators. Imagine a world without apples, almonds, blueberries, or cucumbers—that’s what we’re facing if we don’t protect these little helpers. And the damage to our agriculture industry and our economy as a whole would be enormous. Why Pollinators are in Trouble Sadly, our pollinator populations are declining at a rapid rate. The American Bumblebee, for example, has vanished from eight states and is in serious decline elsewhere. The Monarch Butterfly population has declined almost 60%, and the list goes on. The threats facing pollinators include: Habitat Loss: Urban sprawl, agriculture, and deforestation are shrinking the natural homes of pollinators. Pesticides: These chemicals, which are used widely in agriculture, by pest control companies, and by homeowners, are deadly to pollinators—especially if applied around flowering plants—either killing them outright or harming their ability to forage and reproduce. Climate Change: Shifting temperatures and weather patterns disrupt the delicate balance of pollinators’ life cycles and the plants they...
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) turns 50 years old this year. The law, which was passed in 1973 by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress (unanimous in the Senate) and signed into law by President Nixon, stands as an enduring testament that we can rise above our lesser instincts and be good stewards of what President Reagan referred to as “this magical planet that God gave us.” From the deliberate and cruel efforts to eradicate wolves and grizzly bears from the Lower 48, to the carelessness that drove the bald eagle, our national symbol, to the brink of extinction, history is full of examples where mankind has been intolerant of wildlife and/or ignorant of its needs. Thanks to the ESA, bald eagle numbers have recovered across the Lower 48, going from a low of 1,000 or less in the 1950s to more than 300,000 today. Wolves and grizzly bears have also rebounded significantly, with healthy, sustainable populations in several states. Unfortunately, too many people fail to recognize the ESA as the conservative law it is. President Reagan once rhetorically asked, “What is a conservative after all, but one who conserves?” Conservative political theorist Russell Kirk went even further, writing in a Baltimore Sun op-ed, “nothing is more conservative than conservation.”Wildlife, from apex predators to the tiniest insects, play an essential role in keeping the earth’s life-sustaining ecology healthy. Bears and wolves, by preying primarily on weak and sick moose, deer, or elk, make the populations of those ungulates healthier. And pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are essential to our food crops. From my personal experiences, I have come to...
People often do not realize just how much of the food we eat only exists because of insect pollinators, especially bees. Bees are in fact essential in the production of at least a third of our food. This includes most of the fruits, nuts, vegetables, and seeds that are essential to our diets. That is why the fact that the American Bumblebee has completely vanished from eight states (Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon) should be a huge wake-up call for all of us. And this problem is not just limited to those states. In just the past two decades, the bumblebee population across the U.S. has declined by nearly 90 percent. A similar decline is happening with honeybees. Beekeepers across the country reported losing more than 45 percent of their managed honeybee colonies from April 2020 to April 2021. Pollinators directly contribute a whopping $24 billion to the U.S. economy. That number nearly doubles when you add in their indirect contribution to other agricultural products like milk and beef. Globally, 75 percent of the top 115 food crops depend on pollinators. In the Bible verse (Matthew 25) where Jesus talks about our duty to care for “the least of these,” meaning the less fortunate, His words seems equally applicable regarding our obligation to protect pollinators. Without these tiny pollinators, many will suffer. Crop scarcity not only leads to famine in parts of the world, it also will cause food shortages and prices to skyrocket here at home. Why is this happening? There are several reasons. Habitat loss and a changing climate play...
