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Comment by pingec | Hacker News Reader

When I was a child about 20 years ago, I remember going snorkelling near my home in the North Adriatic Sea quite often. I could see crabs, starfish, sea urchins, sea horses, octopuses under rocks and loads of fish.

I went back there recently and was shocked to find the water looked clear but there were no animals left inside except for a few fish and a crab here and there.

This makes me really sad and pessimistic about the future of the planet and its living conditions for all living beings on it.

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My equivalent of this is frogs. Frogs and the rhythmic noises they made at night were the "white noise" of my childhood.

My equivalent of this is insects. My family and I made a lot of trips with our car in the 90th. The front of the car was full of squashed insects when we arrived. There was a constant knocking on the windshield. The amount of insects that I find on my car today is far less. I think it's about 10-20% of what it was in the 90th. I'm worried.

This has to be one of the funniest takes I've seen

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insect...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/08/26/windscreen-ph...

I don't doubt that bug populations are dropping.

The idea of lamenting climate change by having nostalgia for the days when piling into a car and driving across the countryside would guarantee a handful of smashed insects on the windscreen is funny to me.

You guys can come take some of our frogs and insects :)

My car (sports car, low to the ground) doesn't really get many bugs these days. My pickup, on the other hand, is a hot mess every couple days.

Me too- I remember catching frogs in the water by my parents house and listening to the peepers at night. Now, the frogs are gone. I don't know where they went..

Butterflies in my case. There used to be lots of them around here when I was a child. Luckily, there still seems to be enough bumblebees around to keep plants pollinated. I hope it lasts.

My version is lightning bugs. Growing up I used to go out to catch lightning bugs all the time and there would be hundreds of them in nearly any field. Now I'm surprised and delighted just to see a dozen or so of them.

Did you move, by chance? I ask because I haven't seen lightening bugs in years. Not because of environmental disaster, but because I moved from Indiana to the West Coast. I kinda figured lightening bugs were everywhere. Turns out...

Eagles in my case. About 17-18 years ago, West India, I would see huge eagles and ask my dad silly questions. Now we hardly see any crow and sparrow here.

It's sad because we really don't appreciate these small things in our lives until they are gone.

I think humans are naturally receptive to nature, but we take nature for granted when it's always there, until one day it isn't.

For those who grew up in the Pacific Northwest: Seagulls.

30 years ago if you went to the coast you would have hundreds of seagulls on every beach. If you go there today you are lucky to see more than 5 in an entire day.

Remarkably, the same in Los Angeles

There's a ton here in cold fucking Alberta

Ladybugs in my case, the gardens were full. Now they are a very rare encounter as the plants don't have aphids anymore.

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