CCD: Symptom of a greater "disease"

For the ecologically minded, some of the biggest "buzz" this year has regarded the recent phenomenon of hive collapse in captive bee populations across the globe. Honey bees, frequently exploited by man for both honey production and the pollination of crops and greenhouses, have seen significant declines in population virtually world wide. Researchers are still scrambling to find the exact cause, with viral infections, mites, protozoal parasites, and even cell phone signals implicated in the losses of some 30-70% of captive populations world wide. The one thing no one seem to want to say is the likelihood that captivity and domestication itself has likely played a strong role in the decline in bee populations through many of the same mechanisms that diseases and disorders in livestock have been spread over the years.

Time and time again we see a pattern: when you remove animals from their natural habitat, weaken their genetic health through domestication, transport them to foreign environments, and attempt to control every aspect of their natural lives through artificial means, they inevitably suffer declines in health. Be it the factory farmed chicken that survives but a few months due to the demands of its unnaturally bulky body, the puppy-milled dog suffering hip dysplasia and seizure disorders, or the race horse who breaks his spindly legs merely running, the demands of the human world are often too great for the animal. Is it any surprise that bees, a creature whose complex behavior is only now just beginning to be understood by ethologists, are failing to thrive after years of increasingly intensive captive keeping?

We plucked the European honey bee from the wild, bred it within the confines of captivity - often with sub-species it would never naturally encounter, disrupted its social order, stole the fruits of its labor, and spread it across the globe. Exposed to new climates, new diseases and parasites, and non-traditional food sources, the honey bee thrived for some time nonetheless. But as honey production, like meat production, becomes more intensive, the other shoe has fallen. Colony Collapse Disorder is now thought to be the product of a number of combined factors, ranging from transport stress to imported viruses to native parasites the species was not equipped to combat. All of these factors relate closely to how we have kept bees in captivity.

Entomologists understand that invertebrates, for all their hardiness, easily become victims of stress. Their roles are highly refined, which mean most can survive only within a limited range of highly specific parameters. Many rely on a single species of plant or animal for survival. Some can survive only within a few degrees of range in temperature or humidity. For honey bees, social structure is proving to be the the most important factor for survival. Thus one must question what happens when natural behaviors are derailed in favor of artificial removal and introduction of the queen, restriction of nymph rearing, hybridization, artificial hives, global transport, removal of honey, and inhibition of swarming. Could it be that stress is the true root of CCS by simply making bees increasingly susceptible to parasites and disease? It is something worth considering.

It is only logical that honey production is not a valid reason to "farm" bees; it is a product of exploitation that is utterly non-essential for human health and wellbeing, a luxury that offers little more but allure to one's sweet tooth. Unfortunately, apiculturists have not only used the bee as a source of a product, but also for crop and greenhouse pollination. Whereas wild native bees once pollinated both the wild plants of nature and the domesticated plants of man, invasive honey bees have taken a monopoly in the Americas, where escaped specimens quickly began to edge out native pollinators. The panic now, of course, is that at least one third of our crops and much of our wild plants rely on the honey bee as pollinator. Instead of recognizing the folly of relying on the fragility of domestication and permitting (nay, fostering) the return of our native bees, the new goal is genetically engineering, hybridizing, and medicating the honey bees to create a strain more hardy and resistant.

Thus, what continues to be ignored is a second important detail: beekeeping has not just harmed the honey bee, it has harmed the populations of wild bees, and in turn, every living thing that relies upon them - from bee eating predators to native plants not attractive to honey bees. Indeed, it is probable that the honey bee has played a strong role in facilitating the spread of invasive plants, which though often snubbed my native bees are typically embraced by the bees that yield from the same regions. Entomologists are already reporting recovering populations of native bees as honey bee populations plummet, a phenomenon promising to biodiversity as a whole. Indeed this year we discovered that bee species hold greater diversity globally than both birds and mammals combined, and increasingly we find that this massive range of species is absolutely pivotal to the survival of entire ecosystems.

Unfortunately, the calm voice of reason noting that domesticated honey bees are unnecessary & environmentally devastating is being drowned out by the panicked hollering of "honey bee panic." It seems doubtful that the pollination industries will be willing to step back and permit nature to take its course, permitting wild bees to reclaim their rightful place as principal pollinator. Nor does it seem likely that the public will acknowledge that honey is exploitation and environmental destruction, for our infatuation with food over ethics is demonstrated time and time again even with species more appealing to the general public. If only we could we step back for just a moment and realize that the more we deprive, confine, domesticate, and exploit animals, the more problems we see arising in them and the natural world, we might realize that Colony Collapse Disorder may be a symptom of a greater "disease."

World hunger, environmentalism, and animal products.

The Sydney Morning Herald recently produced an article titled "Humble Chicken: The Meat Eater's Saviour." In light of the latest Green craze sweeping the country, which has spawned such rabid idiocy as E85 Ethanol, agribusiness is now promoting chicken as an eco-friendly alternative to beef and pork. The article explains the lower greenhouse gas emissions, better space efficiency (well of course, when you cram them all in warehouses by the million), lower waste output, etc. but then has the audacity to begin discussing the greater resource consumption efficiency of chickens.

Meat production is one of the most inefficient food producing processes in existence. In addition to the water, energy, and land directly required to keep and raise the animals themselves, they consume a massive amount of grain during their lifespan - anywhere from 2-8kg per kg of body weight - thus taking up additional food, water, and energy resources (one has to harvest, process into feed, and transport said grain, after all). Some 50% of all US grain production goes into feeding livestock, overtaxing arable land that could be better utilized to raise crops for human beings. With close to 10 billion animals now being slaughtered annually for consumption, one has to wonder what marvelous things we could have done for world hunger with the resources squandered to produce flesh.

The focal point of "Humble Chicken" indeed shifts quickly to global food resources, with David Farrell, a professor at University of Queensland who apparently failed math and logic, correctly stating that meat competes directly with people in developing countries for increasingly limited grain resources. He then goes on to contradict his own point, however, when he notes that unlike beef and pork (which require seven and four kg respectively), chicken only requires 2kg of grain to generate 1kg of body mass (note: body mass, not edible mass in particular). This is supposedly "better" for world hunger. What he failed to note was that 2kg of grain makes... 2kg of edible food (prior to preparation, which greatly increases the mass!), which arguably would be best applied to the 18,000 children who will die today of malnutrition and starvation rather than chickens. Think chicken would provide more nourishment than grain? Wrong-o! 1kg of oats trounces 1kg chicken in calories and protein, a lack of either being a primary cause of malnourishment in developing nations. And oats, compared to amaranth or quinoa, are not even the most nutrient dense nor efficient grain to grow - yet they still beat chicken on both fronts.

There is nothing environmentally friendly about any meat consumption; there are enough problems with horticulture in and of itself without having to produce such a vast amount for feeding livestock on top of what is farmed for human consumption. Be it hog farms contaminating streams with waste, cattle emitting greenhouse gases, chickens spreading illness to wild birds, or feral goats destroying the outback, industrialized animal agriculture is the antithesis to environmentally mindful consumerism. Add to this human rights concerns ranging from world hunger to the treatment of farmers & meatpackers, human health concerns like deadly food borne illness & diet related chronic disease, and of course, the serious ethical connotations of exploiting and commodifying other living beings, and the picture becomes very clear: we have chosen our pallets over what is safe, logical, and moral, at the cost of human and animal lives, our own health, and our own planet.

The basis of ethics is forming rational decisions on how we ought to live our lives based on strong evidence to support our choice, as well as consideration of the effect our choices have on others. Tell me again, now, how consuming more chicken is the right choice in the face of world hunger and environmental devastation?

Is this the new face of "environmentalism?"

Killing Sea Lions to Protect Fish (So We Can Kill Fish?)

I was reading an article today that made me want to collectively bitchslap the human race. It was about recent illegal sea lion killings thought to be tied to groups protecting salmon. The sea lions apparently "threaten" salmon populations (depleted and far more frequently threatened by overfishing and dams), and are thus trapped and relocated when they hunt in areas where humans would like to eat said salmon. Someone apparently decided that stealing food from the mouths of sea lions by dumping them elsewhere wasn't sufficiently speciesist, so he or she shot the trapped sea lions.

The article was ripe with language suggesting that the sea lions, not the humans competing with them for salmon, were the gluttons in the equation and had to be removed to protect fish. This much I could expect, especially since modern conservation often demands that we punish natural predator/prey relationships due to decimated populations of one or the other to prevent extinctions. However, I couldn't help but laugh that it was suggested that these actions, though illegal, "protect" salmon.

Salmon shouldn't need "protecting" from sea lions. Sea lions and salmon used to have a pretty good deal; some of the salmon get eaten, meaning more reproductive success for those that don't, and of course obvious benefits to the sea lions. When people decided that fish was the new healthy fad meat and started wiping out the salmon, it suddenly became our interest to "protect" the salmon from those mean ol' sea lions, having the effrontery to think that they, not us, were damaging the populations.

Salmon preservation today has NOTHING to do with protecting salmon for their inherent value as a species, for their role in the natural food web, their importance to ecosystems, or just the fact that they're pretty nifty and it would be nice if they didn't go extinct. It is strictly about making sure that we can eat them in the future, regardless of if that relationship is a healthy one for salmon and their natural predators and prey. This is not questioned at all; we only take issue with the moral implications of how to deal with cute and fuzzy things that compete with our appetites.

Arguably any protection is better than none, and I understand (though strongly disagree with) the perspective of people who suggest that the best way to preserve a species is to permit exploitation since people will want to keep populations sufficient for future exploitation. However, that isn't the focus here: the point is that we are killing one species to promote future killing of another species and call this conservation when time and time again this methodology has resulted in only further imbalance to ecosystems - not to mention the utterly unethical murder of other animals.

A better solution to species preservation would be not killing the salmon in general, which would also eliminate the need for ethical qualms with killing competitor species (an act facilitated solely by the competition of humans with sea lions). Basically, the "management" style of species conservation is inherently flawed and morally inexcusable, as we've seen exemplified with similar efforts involving land predators and hoofstock. Conversely, attempts to restore natural balances through non-fatal means (such as reintroductions or strict limits against hunting) generally have more favorable results not just for one species, but the ecosystem as a whole.

On a more personal note, I for one would love to see people respond with as much outrage about the deaths of millions of salmon at the hands of man as they did the deaths of a few sea lions.

This relationship is the one that needs protection.

Scapegoating Sharks

Recently, a great white shark killed a man off the coast of California, spurring mass hysteria and cries to track down and kill not only the shark implicated in the "attack," but sharks in general. Posing an "unacceptable threat to human safety," many Americans would like to see sharks, alligators, bears, and other species occasionally implicated in attacks on man eliminated. Since 1990, sharks have killed a whopping 12 people in the United States, making them very possibly the least threatening animal to human safety despite being among the most feared. In reading responses to news articles that often had people ranting about a "need" to eradicate sharks due to their inherent danger to human safety, it occurred to me that in our blind terror, we were forgetting about a much more dangerous animal.

The species in question kills roughly 50,000+ humans directly in the US every year, another 26,000+ through vehicular collisions, and a startling 14,000+ through infectious disease. Non-direct human deaths through other activities of this species kill many more. Ready to grab your rifles and wipe out these deadly beasts? Good. Turn your gun around and shoot yourself, because humans result in more human death than any natural predator in existence. 20,000 through manslaughter and murder, 30,000 through suicide, 26,000 in automobile accidents, and 14,000 through infectious disease - and that does not begin to account for self-induced deaths caused by substance abuse, sedentary lifestyle, or non-vehicular accidents.

The ocean is not human habitat, it is wildlife habitat. By entering the ocean, you do so at your own educated risk; without a weapon, humans rank pretty low on the food chain, and even when wild animals pose no predatory threat to us, plenty are deadly through defense mechanisms and disease alone. This is inevitable. Any interaction with wildlife thus holds the potential for harm or death, and that detriment can not be blamed on the species when your invasion is causative.

I have noticed virtually no coverage nor emotional outrage for the number of sharks being killed by humans annually. For shark fin soup alone, a wasteful Asian delicacy, it is estimated that 100 million sharks lose their lives. As slow reproducing and maturing animals, most shark populations are already in significant decline. This suggests that those calling for the extinction of sharks may soon get what they desire; most species are considered critically endangered, yet due to phobic human attitudes, few have been afforded any protection from exploitation. 100 million deaths annually for a single dish (non-inclusive of shark fishing for other reasons or shark bycatch) vs. 5-10 deaths annually (global)... and who is threatening whom?

What we should examine are risk factors associated with shark attacks and shark deaths, so that we might prevent the majority - for the sake of humans and sharks alike. Recently, an Austrian tourist was killed free-swimming in water deliberately baited with meat and blood to attract sharks. This is a rare (and stupid) example of activities that should be avoided to prevent shark attacks. More commonly, fatal shark attacks occur when people are surfing or body boarding - it is thought that the silhouette of a human on a board looks like an ailing seal resting at the surface. Divers are also targets, probably due to the fact that they are essentially wearing a seal suit in the middle of shark territory. That is not to say that such activities should be stopped, but that we should be mindful of heightened risks and act accordingly, such as taking shark spottings seriously and perhaps avoiding such activities at times where shark populations are projected to be high in a given area.

Absolutely, it is tragic when any human life is lost for any reason (though we seem to make exceptions for war and corporal punishment). However, it is a childish knee-jerk reaction to lash out at entire species for a human death. As a species granted disproportionate power over others, it is our duty to be merciful, not vengeful.