Insects in general.

Mach Two

Is there a major drop in the insect population across the country. Years ago when you would run your hand along the front of the car it would be covered in dead insects. Now there is none. What has happened to all the insects?

emo72

Seems to be. Pesticides are getting too good. I thought I heard some depressing statistic that insects have dropped some phenomenal percentage. Like 40% or something. To me that's extinction level events. Because of all the critters that eat them. Hopefully someone can prove me wrong. I think I read it somewhere, but that's so depressing I probably blotted it out.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120548899#Comment_120548899

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120548899#Comment_120548899

I'd say in the context of this country the loss of habitat is probably a far bigger factor - in this case the likes of herbicides and mechanical destruction are the biggest factors

Atlantic Dawn

As mentioned pesticides are killing them off, big problems with bees at the moment, a brighter light than 'climate change' needs to be shun on it, far more damage incoming.

Eddie B

I would say it must be more like 70 to 80 percent, compared to the nineties. There are hardly any insects anywhere these days. Very worrying, and not a word about it.

Mach Two

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120548899#Comment_120548899

I don't know of anyone that uses pesticides. What do you use pesticides for? There seems to be no scarcity of swallows or other insect eating birds. Or maybe I am not aware of a drop in bird numbers. Are you saying there are too many creatures eating them or there is too many creatures depending on them.

I think it's the lack of suitable habitat. Most grassland is too heavily fertilized. No wild flowers in the fields like cowslips or daisys. Even primroses are scarce. If insects disappear everything else will disappear. They are at the bottom of the food chain. Worrying times ahead.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549287#Comment_120549287

I would imagine most green fields in north Dublin are covered in pesticides

Danzy

Fertilizer use in Ireland is significantly less than 20 to 40 years ago and that trend is accelerating rapidly.

In terms of agriculture we are among the lowest users anyway but that's falling quickly. Asia is the fertilizer junkie, poor ground flogged hard and washed out every monsoon, at rates unimaginable to Irish agriculture for half the yield.

Pesticide use is way down as well. These chemicals are not good for nature of course, especially when overused but there is something else going on.

The mild January followed by a cold February and a wet march followed by an April with an East window. The damage that did to wildlife here is incredible. We are now a much wetter country than historical norm, where much drier to long dry periods were normal.

The mild winters are doing wreck as well.

My honey bees were flying hard in January, if they didn't have big stores they would have starved after. What about insects that woke up then, they were out of sync with their food and months to go.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549606#Comment_120549606

Why would you think that?

Where would the money come from to do that or even a portion of it?

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549010#Comment_120549010

It is much less, from studies in Germany, unless you are saying a drop of 70 to 80, which is spot on.

https://www.dw.com/en/munich-study-confirms-severe-decline-in-insect-populations-in-germany/a-51052955

it's the same here, remember much of Germany is woodland and less intensive farming than 30 years ago.

In the 80s if you Left a window open at home, within 10 minutes there could be 30 insects flittering around the light, now it could be open all night and you might only have a few.

I would say that it is slightly better now than a few years ago.

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549606#Comment_120549606

And most new build houses nowadays have no gardens just parking bays. Not even a narrow border to grow a few plants or wildflowers. Also very common to see when an older house is being refurbished, that the front garden will be completely removed for parking with nowhere left for nature. Many apartment developments also short on landscaped areas. Is it because people and MC's dont want the bother of maintenance?

Can the city planners not insist that developers include more green areas?

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058294956/insects-in-general

Collie Ennis and Colette Kinsella of the Critter Shed Podcast covered this a bit in one episode. The former a research associate in the Department of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin. I think in the end the quick answer is "Its complicated and multi factorial". I hope this is the right episode: open.spotify.com/episode/0hIJPgHHIy0gkZCtRMmzdM

Like you he comments on how older people remember how after a long drive you used to have to clean the dead bugs off the screen and now we don't.

Mach Two

I should have explained the chemical fertilizer think a bit more. It isn't the fertilizer itself that is doing the damage. It just encourages grass to grow faster and thicker. The grass then crowds out all the weed species and stops sunlight from getting down to other plants. In other words they cannot compete. A monoculture of grass. Good for food production but bad for the environment.

I must check out that podcast.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550387#Comment_120550387

I'm agree, just pointing out an awful lot of ground doesn't see a spreader from one year to the next and the ones that do mostly see a lot less fertilizer than decades ago and that trend is rapidly accelerating.

Dairy and tillage are seeing fertilizer reduction but a lot less, still they are only a part of the picture.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550421#Comment_120550421

I agree and I was pointing this out yesterday on a similar thread on the gardening forum. We live in a rural area of what would be called disadvantaged land - mixture of sheep grazing and forestry and some of that very old forest, rivers etc. Small amount of tillage and which has increased last year due to government incentives. Little in the way of pesticides used, bit of lime spread now & then. Forest not touched in many years, apart from one thinning.

But despite there being lots of habitat, including long established ditches and overgrown land.. there is a very notable decline in insects over the past 20 years. Still a good population of birds and bats about so they must get a deal but nowhere near the amount of insects there used to be. Rarely get butterflies and moths in the house in summer. Have a ditch with a lot of the flowering currant bush which would have once been a steady drone on any half decent day. Looking out now at a grazing field spattered with dandelions and daisy etc

So my conclusion is that whatever has happened, it's not all down to habitat. There are wider influences about, but I doubt if those include climate change. Could many insect species I wonder have been affected genetically in some way by intensive agriculture in other parts, which has diminished the overall numbers elsewhere?

Eddie B

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549742#Comment_120549742

Yes meant drop. In the 80's/90's there'd be a thousand red dots all over your car windscreen all through the summer. Little to nothing these days.

Mach Two

What has changed in the last 25 yrs. Definitely a lot more cars on roads. Has agricultural changed much. No hay been made any more. Or very little anyhow. Hard to say exactly. Milder winters. Maybe. Very little hard frosts.

Long Sean Silver

it's not just insects, though i agree their numbers have fallen hugely. i think pesticides are largely to blame.

i remember as a kid seeing frogs every summer in our back garden. i rarely if ever see them anymore, and i take country walks along rivers, streams, ponds, lakes practically every weekend. in the last 5 years i can count on 1 hand the number i've spotted.

a hedgehog ambled into my back garden last Autumn and i was shocked tbh. brought the kids to have a look. these creatures were a constant feature of my childhood, but sadly not my kids.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550883#Comment_120550883

Still cut hay round here, though grass species would much more limited than what you see in western parts of the country.

Take flies, annoying things where you'd have a swarm about you on a warm summer days in the forest. They started diminishing a few years ago round here, I was hardly bothered at all in recent years whereas before you'd be swatting them away. Generally just don't seem to be breeding and multiplying as they used to.

Eddie B

Isn't there a certain herbicide or pesticide used in Ireland, that is banned from most countries in the EU? I'm sure I read that somewhere a few years ago.

Mach Two

Alive with hedgehogs around here. Interesting what you said about grass species. Maybe they are not as varied as they used to be. No scarcity of frogs either.

iniscealtra

Butterflies are plant specific or rather the caterpillars. Peacocks need nettles etc.Without diversity in the sward you will lack butterflies and moths.

https://butterflyconservation.ie/wp/2022/08/03/lets-love-larvae/

Long Sean Silver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551034#Comment_120551034

that is good to hear. maybe i'm looking in the wrong places.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551338#Comment_120551338

Good stands of nettles in our field in the bits I don't keep cut. I do see a few peacocks about most recent summers but worthy of mention when you would see them. Cabbage whites are another matter altogether, have had brassicas stripped in the past unless they are kept netted.

iniscealtra

@Furze99 This is a better link to the larval food plants in Ireland

https://www.ulsterwildlife.org/help-wildlife/help-wildlife-home/help-pollinators/how-attract-butterflies-your-garden

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549287#Comment_120549287

Main decline in farmland birds happened between 1970 and 2000 with rollout of intensive farming practices like the switch from silage to hay and associated heavy use of chem fert and herbicides. Switch from Spring to Winter arble crops was also a factor as it led to loss of overwinter stubble food sources. Monoculture spruce forestry and the activities of Bord Na Mona were also significant factors here in terms of habitat loss for species like Curlew, Red Grouse etc. Your perception of current bird populations and insect numbers would be a case of "shifting baselin syndrome" of which we are all susceptible too for various reasons. Cos of my age I was lucky enough to know and talk to people who grew up in rural areas during the 20's and 30's and in terms of farmland wildlife numbers including birds.moths, grasshoppers etc., there clearly has been a massive reduction since those times:(

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551025#Comment_120551025

Probably the one Coillte uses on its wretched monoculture spruce plantations.

https://clarechampion.ie/coillte-insecticide-licence-decision-deplored/

Eddie B

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120552798#Comment_120552798

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/ireland-unlikely-to-follow-germany-in-banning-weed-killer-glyphosate-1.4008986

Mach Two

Correct. Birdnuts is absolutely right. There is hardly any game around here. Apart from the odd pheasant, a few snipe and woodcock. Far cry from the 1920's I'd say. Now the insects. The mink are playing havoc with our trout stocks. Foxes and vermin everywhere. The countryside is becoming more sterile every year. Never mind the lack of diversity of plant life.

Long Sean Silver

imo mankind is "too successful". we are like 2 legged locusts.

magicbastarder

pheasant is a non-native release though, and not exactly good for our own wildlife. and is theorised to be one factor in why we've so many foxes (i read somewhere that we've possibly 10 times as many as we would do if we'd a predator like the wolf to keep their numbers in check).