ANIMAL MARTYRDOM

The No. 1 stressor on honeybee colonies is varroa mites. Largely found in Florida, these mites feed off of adult honeybees and those unhatched or maturing (called brood). The mites actually develop on the honeybee brood, allowing them to overtake adult bees as they grow, and move from colony to colony by attaching themselves to agricultural workers and drones.

Other pests and parasites like tracheal mites, small hive beetles, and wax moths, as well as the disease nosema, are also having a negative impact on the health of the honeybee population. Hive beetles are native to the sub-Saharan areas of Africa but have been found outside of the region around nests of the honeybee.

Pesticides, weather, and diseases have also had significant adverse impacts on the honeybee population in the U.S., together accounting for over 20 percent of colonies lost in 2015 and 2016.  

GEORGE WUERTHNER—Much of what is burning in the large California fires as well as elsewhere in the West is not forest at all, but chaparral, grasslands, sagebrush, and non-forested habitat. So “active forest management” would have no influence upon much of the acreage currently in flames.

“Climate change is the ultimate cause, even if the proximate cause is something different,” claims McCann. “These type of things are only going to become more common, more frequent and the issue of warming waterholes is going to become worse and worse in time.” Because of climate change, Southern Africa’s temperatures are rising at twice the global average, according to CSAG, one of the leading climate research groups in Africa.

DAVID MATTSON—All of this traces back—at least in a small way—to Mountain Creek, the cow farmer I was observing, and the deeper history of how European colonists despoiled the mountain West. The specifics matter here because this mini-drama set in the magnificent mountains of Montana comes as close as any to being an exemplar of a contemporary malaise featuring the romanticized West, the mythologized cowboy, and our national infatuation with both.

  ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS. [premium_newsticker id=”154171″]…