Does anyone else > 40 years old remember there just being lots more animals around when you were a kid? I don't know if it's just age blinders or paranoia, but in particular I remember there being way more birds pretty much everywhere.
Nowadays fish are back everywhere, even in the canals in Amsterdam. There seem to be salmons swimming in the big rivers, this was unthinkable in my childhood. Species higher in the food chain such as otters are slowly returning to the Netherlands as well.
My personal impression is that there are way less insects than there used to be.
Edit: found an old HN comment about the relationship to Agent Orange production and Diemerzeedijk: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431741
I was actually searching an article about exploding chemical barrels now and then landing on fishing boats sailing in the area.
There has been lots of progress.
The net result may be a win for the environment in developed Western nations, but considering how polluted China now is, I wonder if it's still a net negative for the world as a whole.
Unfortunately gains in some parts of the world are not seen everywhere.
Sockeye Salmon populations in British Columbia (basically the world HQ for "wild" salmon) are plummeting: https://twitter.com/raffertybaker/status/1293318721574801408...
Today, the skies and rivers are noticeably cleaner. There seem to be more large wild animals (wolves, bears, buffalo, cougars, elk) in national parks and forests now than when I was a kid. And you can eat the fish in the Great Lakes now. Wild deer are, seemingly, everywhere around here and rise to nuisance levels. On the other hand, there seem to be less earthworms in suburban areas, somewhat less bugs and less birds. But that may just be related to where I now live (a much more urbanized area than that of my youth). Or it may be a harbinger of doom. I don't know.
Of course, my perspective on this is rather limited since I can only say what I've seen. Larger wild animal populations in Western Europe, for example, are essentially non-existent in comparison North America. I suspect that most or all of the decline described in the report happened in what were pretty poor regions of the world 50 years ago. But now that some of those nations are approaching the levels of wealth where they can start to care, I'm confident they'll start to clean things up over the next half century like most of the developed world did over the last half century.
The above depends on where you live of course. In their place they are good. Out of place they destroy the natural ecosystem.
Yet, clearly, the statistics in this article and elsewhere show that this is plainly not the case. We are killing off wildlife at an unprecedented speed.
Why the disconnect? Are all our efforts really directed towards feel-good efforts at home, maybe, which make the world look cleaner and better for nature, while obscuring the huge amount of invisible damage we're doing?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1269-4
> Recent reports of dramatic declines in insect abundance suggest grave consequences for global ecosystems and human society. Most evidence comes from Europe, however, leaving uncertainty about insect population trends worldwide. We used >5,300 time series for insects and other arthropods, collected over 4–36 years at monitoring sites representing 68 different natural and managed areas, to search for evidence of declines across the United States. Some taxa and sites showed decreases in abundance and diversity while others increased or were unchanged, yielding net abundance and biodiversity trends generally indistinguishable from zero.
This is going to be increasingly difficult part of dealing with environmental damage. It will not be enough for North America and Europe to decarbonize. Somehow we have to bring the rest of the world along with us. But they haven’t enjoyed the benefits of all the environmental destruction over the last 200 years, as we have, and (understandably), they are trying to catch up.
I live in Minnesota. I used to take trips in high school to the boundary waters area. The water was so clean, you didn't need a filter, you could drink right out of the lake. We didn't have to carry a ton of water, we just had cups that hung on the inside of our canoes. Thirsty? Just dip your cup and have a drink.
Nighttime was always an adventure. The bears and other animals out there were always vocal and nighttime is when a lot of animals came out and hunted. There were always an abundance of birds as well during the daytime. Hawks, bald eagles, falcons.
I've gone back through college and after college in the early 2000's. Everything has changed. Now we have a TON of ugly cell towers because people can't spend 5 min away from their phones. Less birds, the nights are a lot quieter, there didn't seem as many bears as I remember, and the nights have this eerie quiet to them.
Never mind now you have to haul in your own water, or bring a decent filter to filter the water now because its so polluted and not safe to drink. It used to be crystal clear, now its just mucky mud filth.
The other depressing thing is the trash. It was hammered into my brain when I was young the idea of "leave no trace" all through high school by my guides and in college all my roommates who were loyal to the idea. We took it on ourselves to self police each other. You leave a wrapper, a beer can? We all got on each other. It almost became a game, but it also taught us the importance of leaving an area as prestige as you found it. The last two times I was in the Boundary Waters (2008, 2014), I spent a LOT of time picking up others trash - beer cans, plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, you name it, I picked it up. There were two articles recently in the local paper saying it was getting worse now too.
I'm not sure if its a generational thing, people just don't care anymore or I've grown older and have no patience for people leaving their campsites a mess when they leave. Either way, the changes over the past decade have soured my attitude on going there anytime soon.
...but the outer suburban areas and rural areas have far less wildlife because they are so much more developed than they used to be. There has been some recovery of species in those areas too because many species were widely hunted at the turn of the 20th century and populations have rebounded but that mostly only effects the big visible species.
I remember in my last trip seeing a pile of garbage and being mad about why people would do that. Then when I got back I happened to look it up and see that the dump was on the guides as something to notice - loggers left it there in 1800s.
I honestly feel that if I were to have grandchildren they would not believe me describing them or at the very least thing that I was greatly exaggerating.
I know they still exist but I haven't seen a yard filled with fireflies in a long time.
They do seem fewer to me, but who knows, I'm comparing my memories to a kid's from decades ago. I wonder if anyone keeps track of this stuff. I did notice less bumblebees this year, in fact I don't think I saw a single one, but that's my own experiences and not anything scientific of course. Miss those chonky little guys.
Also snow... we had cross-country skis and used them almost every winter (northern Germany) 15 years ago. Today they are basically useless and you would certainly stand out if you used them here. Some birds that usually migrate with seasons just stay or are only absent for a few weeks.
No data, but it certainly looks that way.
People telling us that we live in an age of mass extinctions seem to be correct.
They are just the larger, more peaceful versions that somehow aren't interested in humans the slightest. Sadly, they move every year and this time around the wasps are back.
I'm careful to approach only lone foragers and not nests, and I have yet to be stung while taking pictures of any wasp, something I typically do from as close to my macro lens's six-inch minimum working distance as I can manage - usually within 12 inches (30cm). Hornet, yellowjacket, paper wasp, or solitary, they all seem about equally willing to leave me unbothered, so long as I don't bother them first. Happily, having a camera lens and flashes going off nearby doesn't seem to count as bothering!
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/509080.Coming_Up_for_Air
In my rural area, though, there are much more animals, of a much varied type than ever before. I saw a badger this year for the first time, ever. I think this is partially because of conservation efforts actually working, and partially because animals are being displaced by humans/climate change now.
We have armadillos now, too. Midwest Illinois/Iowa area. We should not have armadillos.
My childhood in the South was spent in a cacophany of frogs, birds, and cicadas. We'd have to yell at each other on the back porch to be heard over the treefrogs. Everywhere you looked was a reptile, bug, or other critter. Throw a hook in the water with a piece of bread or worm on it, and you'd have a bite nearly instantly.
Today, here in the Pacific Northwest, the forests are beautiful but almost entirely silent aside from a bird here and there. The last time I went camping, I didn't see a living thing larger than a banana slug. Much of that is surely the temperature difference, but I'm never sure if that explains all of it.
However, no one I asked had seen a horned toad or armadillo in years. And these are definitely the kind of folks that used to. Cicadas used to deafening on summer evenings, but now they were barely audible. Sample size = 1, but the numbers seem to bear out these anecdotes too.
It's totally possible for both of these to be true. Pollution can go down at the same time that animal populations are suppressed for some other reason.
I also remember more snow as a child. I found a source once that had yearly snowfall in DC and it's gone down a fair bit in the last 30 years.
2. Habitat loss to humans
3. Climate change
4. Bugs have decreased, many birds rely on bugs
5. Pesticides and pollutants harm birds directly