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> Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon Are the eight states from the title. Though it seems New York should be
by update 5y ago
> Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon
Are the eight states from the title. Though it seems New York should be included since it says "The bumblebee species have declined by 99 percent in New York."
Also noteworthy
> In the Midwest and Southeast, population numbers have dropped by more than 50 percent.
To nobodies surprise, the culprit is pesticides. Interestingly the west's bumblee population isn't listed as being in trouble.
- cratermoon 5y ago> the west's bumblee population isn't listed as being in trouble What do you call Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon?
- bombcar 5y ago“The West” means “California” to many.
- whartung 5y agoWell, at one point, "West" meant Ohio.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoAlso Illinois. Why else would northwestern university be in Chicago and not Seattle?
- update 5y agoi actually was just thinking of the west cost. i'm a los angeles native, guess that shows. sorry.
- ISL 5y agoWell, that's incorrect :).
- speedybird 5y agoNorth Dakota is generally considered the mid-west, no? I suppose mid-west is a sort of west, but I tend to think "the west" starts when the Rocky Mountains start; about half-way through Montana.
- bagacrap 5y agoby this definition still 3 of the 4 states listed are in the West
- cratermoon 5y agoOne common definition is west of the 100th meridian, or about halfway through North Dakota. Montana is firmly in the west, as are the other 3 states mentioned, plus Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and Washington.
- desert_boi 5y agoDo you have a source pointing at that common definition? I lived a majority of my life in the West US (ID, MT, WA), and have never heard North Dakota referred to as the West. Maybe it's a Canadian thing? -100W is the border of Manitoba and Alberta?
- rascul 5y agohttps://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us...
- JeremyTerps 5y agoNorth Dakotan, can confirm, never heard that.
- msrenee 5y agoI've heard it used for bird ecology for sure. The 100th meridian is the general cutoff between eastern bird species and western bird species. I think it holds true in other areas of biology. I've driven back and forth across it a lot. Obviously it's a gradient and not some magic barrier the great-tailed grackles cannot cross. And we do get western kingbirds a couple hundred miles east as well as western meadowlarks. It's still a handy boundary so that you know more or less what to expect in a given area ecologically. https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-meridian-where-the-great-plains-used-to-begin-now-moving-east/ https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-merid... https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-04-12-100th-meridian-great-plains-shifting https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2018-04-12-100t...
- olah_1 5y agoI read somewhere that we used to use nicotine-based pesticides in the past and the bee issue happened when we switched away from that. I guess China still uses nicotine-based pesticides?
- ambientenv 5y agoNeonicotinoids - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
- StanislavPetrov 5y agoAnecdotally I live in New York and have seen plenty of bumblebees this year.
- pc86 5y agoIs this type of comment helpfully, generally? Ancedotes are typically ignores because they don't show the full picture. If we have verifiable evidence of a staggering decline in population of a given species, "yeah well I've seen plenty of 'em!" doesn't seem particularly useful - to the larger discussion, toward any sort of objective "truth," or really... anything.
- t-3 5y agoAnecdotes can be useful in aggregate, where they can validate or give reason to question a claim. There is a lot of sloppy science and reporting on environmental subjects like these - look at the stuff about feral cats being a danger to songbirds estimating annual predation levels higher than the regional songbird population.
- msrenee 5y agoCan I get a link to the feral cat info you're talking about? My Google skills are weak.
- C19is20 5y agoAs much for the full picture, i come to hn for the anecdotes. So yes, 'useful', to me. And, just to be super-clear, i come for the comments, and rarely the articles.
- msrenee 5y agoSo even though you have no way of knowing if the species of bee this person is seeing is the same one in the article, you find the information valuable?
- msrenee 5y ago
- 5faulker 5y agoThis is another example of "progress trap" that we didn't see coming until it's too late to act.
- metagame 5y agoWe've known what we're doing to all types of bees for a long time. Here's a paper from 01999 talking about pesticides and their toxicity to bees: https://ucanr.edu/sites/uccemerced/files/40411.pdf https://ucanr.edu/sites/uccemerced/files/40411.pdf There are many articles that have found viral audiences throughout the 02000s about how other bee species are on extinction spirals because of the American agriculture industry's lack of regulation. This happening to the bumblebee is not a real surprise and we've definitely seen it coming within the window to act.
- bamboozled 5y agoWhy do you pad years with an added 0? Looks weird.
- metagame 5y agoY10K compliance, of course.
- Kaibeezy 5y agoMakes me want to party like it’s 9999.
- bamboozled 5y agoWhy would HN comments need to be Y10K compliant? What about catering for people reading your comments in the year 199999?
- metagame 5y agoI think that, given current estimates on lifespans and advances in nanotechnology, it's plausible that I'll be around when Y10K happens, and being able to search through my collected writings in a simple, uniform way will be nice. I'm lazy, and would be unlikely to write a script to convert the dates automatically. I think it is significantly less likely that I'll be around when Y100K hits. I don't particularly care about anything that happens after my death. That's somebody else's problem.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoIowa, haven't seen one in years.
- bitcurious 5y ago> To nobodies surprise, the culprit is pesticides. Interestingly the west's bumblee population isn't listed as being in trouble. To my surprise. There is very little farm land in New Hampshire. For the East Coast, it’s very wild.
- taeric 5y agoPer Wikipedia, the American bumblebee doesn't live in the west. Such that the Midwest states listed are as far west as it goes. Or am I reading the page wrong?
- Tagbert 5y agoThere are other bumble bee species in “the west”. that seems likely to be true in other areas. In the Seattle area there are: yellow bumble bee tricolored bumble bee yellow-faced bumble Western Bumble Bee Franklin's bumble bee Rusty patched bumble bee I have seen reports that at least some of these species ranges are greatly reduced.
- taeric 5y agoRight. I didn't mean to imply there are no bees here. My question/point was more on it most folks were getting distracted by other species. I've also heard most bees are effectively invasive, at this point. And now they we have murder hornets... I really don't know what to think we far as actionable things. Not that I'm arguing for giving up. Or rampant insecticide.