Almost all corn crops today are treated with neonics, as are soybeans, potatoes, leafy greens, nuts, beets, and most fruit trees. The list is long. Trees are treated to prevent invaders like the Emerald Ash Borer and Wooly Adelgid; within sixty days the entire tree is infused with the neurotoxin from the trunk to the tip of the tallest twig, and the insects living on the host tree cannot thrive. What happens to birds like woodpeckers and warblers, which comb the bark and leaves of these trees for insects? Do they ingest the poisoned ones? Or do they starve because there are no more insects? Has anyone done tests on these insectivores that may take hundreds of insects a day, especially when feeding their young? The answer is no—not to date, anyway. It was enough for scientists at Bayer AG and the FDA to green-light neonicotinoids when tests showed that mammals were not susceptible to low doses of the pesticide—high doses such as a spill, yes. Well, I guess spills never happen, right? Sound familiar?
By 2006 Honeybees were suffering what came to be known as colony collapse disorder. While all problems for bees may not be attributable to neonicotinoids, clothianidin in particular has been shown to interfere with their ability to return to the hive and for the queen to thrive, a kind of nerve gas for insects.
Bayer AG’s profits are a billion dollars annually on the sale of neonics, the most-used pesticides in the world today. Bayer may have convinced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that their science was sound, and government regulators may have bought into it, but the science did not take into account the cumulative effect of many years of ingestion by our littlest creatures. It has taken less than twenty years for the most wondrous pollinators on earth, our bees, to begin to suffer.
The birds declining most rapidly today are the insectivores—swallows, swifts, nightjars, flycatchers, small raptors, warblers, thrushes, and many more. But almost all birds will eat insects some of the time. When neonicotinoids get into water in runoff from fields, the pesticides are highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates, on which many fish and some birds feed.
Scientists in the Netherlands became deeply concerned with the high neonicotinoid concentrations in insectivorous birds, estimating a decline of 3.5 percent annually, hardly sustainable in the long run. In 2014 they pointed to “potential cascading effects of neonicotinoids on ecosystems.”
A cascading effect, or trophic cascade, is when the entire infrastructure of an ecosystem collapses like dominoes. It often begins from the top down when an apex predator is no longer around. Or, in the case of pesticides, it can happen from the bottom up. The neonics leave residue on flowering crops or garden flowers, which is then ingested by bees, wasps, or aphids, which are in turn eaten by insectivorous birds, large insects, or small mammals, which are in turn eaten by larger scavengers or carnivores. Or the neonicotinoids kill the insect populations on the crops or garden flowers or tree leaves, leading again to the poisoning or starvation of insectivorous creatures. The loss of these birds and insects means the loss of food sources for larger birds and animals higher up the food chain until at the top the predators are left with fewer prey and the system approaches collapse.
“Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?” Rachel Carson wrote this more than fifty years ago. Not much has changed in our attitudes, and the situation has gotten worse. The Silent Spring of our generation is the insidious and deadly game of harmful chemicals in almost every arena of our lives: herbicides, pesticides, processed food, public water, synthetic fabrics, medicines, and energy sources.
Rachel Carson’s dedication over fifty years ago changed the course of history in North America when DDT was banned. I gaze in awe today at the sight of a Bald Eagle or a Peregrine Falcon, giving thanks for this remarkable woman and the legislators who finally listened to her, after first repudiating her science as that of a hysterical woman. It is what gives me hope for the future. What also gives me hope are the many people who are growing and buying natural chemical-free food and products and trying to make them available to those from all walks of life. Farmers’ markets have become weekend community gatherings in towns all across America.
You may have noticed a decline in the number of butterflies, fireflies, dragonflies, or swallows, and yes, even mosquitoes, where you live. Pay attention. Think poison.
20
Bhutan
Transiting from India to Bhutan makes clear what the weight of 1.2 billion people can do to the land. Our van plowed through the dusty, highly congested streets of the northern city of Assam, Guwahati, dodging bicycles, horse carts, pickup trucks, and sacred cows. In the hours it took to reach the border of southeastern Bhutan we birded from our windows and in the shimmering heat of the afternoon managed to see two huge Storks on roadside trees. They sat there in their white flowing feathers like prelates on a Sunday morning, oblivious to the melee beneath them and claiming ownership of the spot as they had for millennia. The Greater Adjutant Stork is an endangered species, its territories diminished through the years by the incessant influx of more and more people. Indians respect animals; they allow them free rein and let them live—if they can. This accounts for odd juxtapositions such as the Storks we witnessed that day, unfazed by the industry below. They hang on, barely.
But there are no vultures. India’s vultures are almost completely gone, in the most rapid decline ever documented. In 1985 the White-rumped Vulture was considered perhaps the most abundant bird of prey in the world. Two decades later 99 percent of its population had collapsed, as had those of other vulture species in India. Only the collapse of the Passenger Pigeon, considered the most abundant species in North America in the late nineteenth century, is comparable.
In the case of the vultures, diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug commonly prescribed by veterinarians, is the main culprit. India, a Hindu country, reveres its cattle as the repository of former humans waiting to be reincarnated. They wander at will through the streets, the fields, and the alleyways. The old arthritic bovines responded so well to the injection of diclofenac to reduce pain that the practice became widespread. The animals also die in the open. The vultures are supremely effective at picking the carcasses clean within hours of death, thereby preventing the spread of disease. Unfortunately, the birds cannot tolerate the drug the cows have been given and the birds die—millions of them.
This presents a huge problem for India as free-ranging dogs take over the business of carcass disposal. There are eighteen million of these dogs in India; thirty thousand human beings die annually from rabies because of dog bites. The packs of dogs running through neighborhoods are frightening to behold as they seek food wherever they can get it.
For the Parsi, a small sect that consecrates its dead to the vultures on its “tower of silence,” the absence of the scavengers has been disastrous. Vultures are the intermediaries between heaven and earth, and without them the bodies of the dead can languish in the open for as long as six months, disturbing the cycle as well as the peace of mind of Parsi relatives.
As soon as diclofenac was identified as the killer, India banned it in 2006, followed by Nepal and Pakistan. The alternative drug meloxicam does not seem to affect the vultures and has widely replaced diclofenac for veterinary use, although not for human use, so there are still some dying birds. India has spent billions of dollars on the problems resulting from the crash of the vulture population. The birds are worth their weight in gold, almost literally. The vultures will come back—nature is resilient if given half a chance—but it will take a long time.
Our Bhutanese team. Hishey Tsering, our guide, is on the right, 2012.
We passed into Samdrup Jongkhar, Bhutan’s most southerly territory, and into the mythical Shangri-la of the world. The difference from India was readily apparent. Assam has 6 million people, and Bhutan has 800,000. There is room to breathe; foliage draped the wet
embankments as we began to climb the winding roads, wide enough for only one vehicle.
Up and up we went, stopping for birds whenever a good spot allowed. Wildlife was abundant. In the first twenty-four hours we saw two large cat species, the Jungle Cat and the rarely seen Golden Cat. The latter, a quarter the size of a Cougar, dashed across the road at dusk, leapt up the embankment, and disappeared into the forest. Wild cats are rarely seen at all, and the Golden Cat is seen less than most. The “golden” in the cat was not visible to us in the low light—we saw only a sleek brown body—but the powerful grace with which it lifted off the roadside is the mark of all great cats and thrilled us with its wildness. Later, at dinner, when we congratulated ourselves on seeing this most elusive animal, our guide Hishey said that I made it possible. “How’s that?” I said. “Remember, you asked for a pit stop a half hour before? We never would have crossed paths with the Golden Cat if we hadn’t stopped earlier.” Ah, we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
And we were not. The thinking was different, and this became more apparent every day as we traveled from the very rural eastern part of Bhutan to the more developed west. Places were not far apart—Bhutan is only as big as Switzerland—but it takes time on the perilous mountain roads to get from one place to another. There was not a lot of traffic, but when there was, it was hair-raising. The vehicles coming in the opposite direction were usually big brightly decorated trucks with fanciful tiger faces painted on the grille; they belched acrid diesel fuel as they squealed to a stop on a turnout inches from the edge of a five-hundred-foot drop. These drivers were masterful, and ours, Pala, was the best driver I have ever known. He seemed to have a sixth sense and while driving managed to spot birds at the same time, shouting out where they could be seen.
The Bhutanese are kind people, and playful. One afternoon I spied Hishey on a forest road trying to catch leaves as they drifted to the ground, jumping in the air like a basketball star and then scooping a leaf into his arms. He was joyful, as were the other Bhutanese who accompanied us and whom we met on our way. He was also one of the brightest men I have met in my travels—intuitively bright, well educated, and knowledgeable about wildlife.
Bhutan is the last monarchy of the Himalayan countries. They have managed to repel forces from India, Tibet, and elsewhere repeatedly through the ages. The five “Dragon Kings” of the last one hundred years have ruled wisely, and the current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, has the status of a rock star among the people. They hang his portrait and that of his beautiful queen prominently in their homes, next to Guru Rinpoche, who brought Tibetan Buddhism to Bhutan in 747 AD.
They are a beautiful couple who came to the throne when Jigme Khesar was only twenty-six. His father, Jigme Singye, realizing that most of the population was under thirty years old, insisted on a transition to a modern democracy and abdicated in 2006 so his young son could assume power and spearhead the new electorate. Jigme Singye also introduced the concept of “Gross National Happiness” as a national policy, promoting the idea that development of a nation was not solely based on economics but on a number of factors including health, education, and community well-being. Government surveys regularly assess the happiness of their citizens through interviews and community meetings.
The current king and his queen, like the reigning monarchs of England, travel throughout the country meeting with Bhutanese everywhere and gauging how they are. In one inn where we stayed there was a little temple next door with a picture on the wall. Our innkeeper’s husband was in a wheelchair as a result of a terrible car accident. In the picture King Khesar is touching him gently under the chin. “You have suffered much, being paralyzed so young,” he said.
This compassion seems inherent in the general populace, not just the monarchy. My husband, who has some difficulty walking, was out at dawn one morning trying to keep up with us birders on a narrow path outside a small village. He urged us to go ahead and sat on a large rock to wait for our return an hour hence. In the houses nearby families were starting their day; children were washing their faces and brushing their teeth from cold-water buckets by the door, as woodsmoke unfurled from fire pits and breakfast grains bubbled in pots.
Bhutanese houses are fairly uniform in their architecture; the government prescribes a general style as part of its larger plan of one culture. It is a pleasing look. A symmetrical rectangle of whitewashed stone or pounded earth is fronted above by wood decorated in colorful patterns of animals and plants, and then roofed in a graceful slope. The cornice might have a bright red phallus dangling from it, as a symbol of fertility.
Ed took up his spot on the smooth rock a few hundred feet from some houses and began to meditate as the sun came over the mountain. We had not left him more than ten minutes when a man emerged from his home in the chill air concerned for Ed’s well-being. Ed assured him he was fine, whereupon the man invited him to join his family for breakfast. And so Ed passed a delightful hour drinking hot tea and eating biscuits while the rest of us combed the surrounding hills with growling stomachs. He encountered more acts of kindness in the weeks that followed.
Because hunting is uncommon and the human population is low, one experiences Bhutan as a more balanced natural landscape than elsewhere. Some mountains are off-limits to human beings entirely, being the sacred domain of gods, as in neighboring Sikkim. This includes the highest unclimbed mountain in the world, Gangkar Puensam, at 24,735 feet. Tigers have been spotted at the extraordinary altitude of 15,000 feet, and while they are not plentiful anywhere Bhutan seems to have a few hidden in its forests.
Our group of twelve was here with George Archibald, cofounder of the International Crane Foundation, primarily to see the Black-necked Cranes on their wintering grounds in two valleys. We were not doing any hard-core birding, descending into the brush to search for a particular species, nor were we going off-road for mammals. Our van stopped often, however, and we were rewarded with many sightings of both.
I awakened each dawn snuggled under my comforter in the heatless rooms of monasteries and inns, to the song of the Blue Whistling Thrush outside. This sweet songbird is as ubiquitous as our American Robin and as welcome. As the day commenced, birds came to life everywhere in song and flight. The scenery was spectacular, from sunrises that bathed the snowy mountaintops a baby pink to golden fields of wheat studding the valleys and still threshed by hand.
In the Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary we saw our first Black-necked Cranes, which had flown over the Himalayas to settle in the harvested rice paddies for the winter, gleaning the leftover grain in the runoff. Their numbers were down due to recent flooding of the paddies in the river valley and dog incursion. Dogs were everywhere, foraging in small packs and chasing whatever they could. They were not vicious, probably because the Bhutanese respect all living things and do not beat them. Puppies spilled out of baskets on village streets, narrowly missing the wheels of a whizzing truck. The dogs procreate with abandon, and this causes problems for threatened species like cranes.
On the sand islands of the low river in Bumdeling we counted only seventeen of these magnificent birds, with their whitish-gray bodies and black necks, strutting the banks like stately priests on high holy days. They are almost five feet tall, and, as with all fifteen species of crane, they are one of the oldest orders of birds in the world, from the Eocene period, ten million years after the demise of the dinosaurs. If the Pterosaurs hadn’t gone extinct I might have believed cranes were their heirs.
All crane species are in trouble due to human incursion, despite the fact that they are revered from Japan through India. They are found on the five continents of Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America. In the United States and Canada we have the Sandhill Crane, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and the Whooping Crane, with less than four hundred in the wild, making it the rarest crane on earth. We do not revere the birds as Asians do. There is still hunting of Sandhill Cranes every autumn, with guns blasting them out of the sky as flocks migrate south fo
r the winter.
George Archibald is one of the most famous ornithologists in the world. He helped bring the Whooping Crane back from sure extinction when there were only a few dozen left in the wild. As a student in the 1970s he obtained a young captive-raised whooper from Texas and named her Tex. He spent many days studying her in her enclosure, and before long this lanky six-foot-tall avian Texan fell in love with George, chasing away all humans who paid attention to him. Tex had no interest in any male crane and had eyes only for George, which presented a problem, since he was hoping to breed her. So George did the only thing a self-respecting young biologist could do: he danced with her, mirroring her excited courtship leaps and whirls, prancing around her until she was ready to be held and artificially inseminated. There is a charming video of George and Tex dancing. A captive-bred chick was born months later, named Gee Whiz, and he went on to father a number of chicks of his own.
George realized that imprinting on human beings was problematic and began using crane hand puppets to feed the new hatchlings and later human beings dressed as cranes as they matured. Today the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, continues breeding Whooping Cranes and teaches them to follow an ultralight plane costumed like a giant crane on their migration south, reintroducing them to ancestral homes in Florida and elsewhere. The ICF is the only place in the world where one can see all fifteen species of cranes.
In Asia the draining of marshes and wetlands for human development and agricultural purposes presses the cranes into smaller and smaller areas and their numbers decline. George travels much of the year to countries like Russia, Mongolia, China, South Korea, and Africa, meeting with heads of state, local leaders, villagers, and scientists to encourage everyone to protect these remarkable birds. He is one of the most gracious men I know, with an abiding love of his fellow human beings. He has taught me that the most important thing in conservation is inclusion, embracing one and all in the protection of species, and letting them know about the valuable natural resources people have in their area so they can be proud and protect them.
Wild Things, Wild Places Page 23
