“If The Bee Disappeared Off The Face Of The Earth, Man Would Only Have Four Years Left To Live.�

[Coss]

Taken not in isolation, this 'could' be a serious problem if extrapolated world wide. but...

 

Many farmers (in the UK I read) are now planting 'nature' strips in their fields, fostering the locals.

 

As to the extinction question, evolution can act relatively quickly, sometimes measured in tens of years. Other species can and will quickly step in to exploit the resources left unused. Nature abhors a vacuum. Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands are a good example of speciation filling available niches.

 

In NZ there is a species of bird that is called a 'white eye' it is not native to NZ. Best guess is that it was wind blown from Australia some 1,000 or so years ago, before man. It has either exploited an un-used niche to become common, or has replaced an existing species through competition. Entirely without man.

 

What people don't realise is that species go extinct all the time and are replaced by others adapting or evolving to fill the niche.

 

Even if we could guarantee the extinction of all bees, some beetle, butterfly, of even bird or mammal would fill that role relatively quickly.

 

Take chickens. If we could 'extinct' all chickens, there are still Jungle Fowl hanging out in the jungles of SEA. We could easily rebreed the chicken from these in a short time, This not to mention the numerous other species of chicken-like birds that could be domesticated and utilised - guinea fowl for example.

 

Whilst I would hate to see man reduce the number of species on the planet to cockroaches, rats, pigeons and pigs. I don't think we're up to it. Nature is infinitely more variable than we are.

 

There are many examples of species wiping each other out - sans man.

 

One of the problems here is that the media report from an un-educated background. I still remember reportage of a zoo having bred some tiger cubs, the photo was of some leopard cubs.

 

I'm sure you'll remember the headlines from years ago that coffee causes cancer - based on feeding rats the human equivalent of 3 or 4 buckets of strong coffee a day. I could go on.

 

I also remember the same types of people who are now assuring us that we will kill the planet through Global Warming (cleverly renamed Climate Change) were the same types of people in the 1970s that were predicting an imminent Ice Age.

 

The serious scientists can and do make important discoveries that affect us all. These are not the same people you see on the news. In fact I'd go so far as to say that if a politician is propounding a certain view, it is likely to be wrong in the medium to long term, after all it only has to be popular until the next election.

[gobbledonk]

coss, I have three letters for you - moa.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa

 

We still have the Emu, but the Maori managed to wipe out a 250kg+ flightless bird that survived predation by an eagle which - by my calculation - was roughly the size of a small helicopter.

 

 

Effectively, you've swapped the moa for the budgie : not sure Colonel Sanders would see it your way.

[cavanami]

Honeybees trained in Croatia to find land mines

 

 

http://www.mail.com/int/scitech/news/2095934-honeybees-trained-croatia-to-find-land-mines.html#.1272-stage-hero1-2

 

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Mirjana Filipovic is still haunted by the land mine blast that killed her boyfriend and blew off her left leg while on a fishing trip nearly a decade ago. It happened in a field that was supposedly de-mined.

Now, unlikely heroes may be coming to the rescue to prevent similar tragedies: sugar-craving honeybees. Croatian researchers are training them to find unexploded mines littering their country and the rest of the Balkans...

[Coss]

coss, I have three letters for you - moa.

 

 

Ahh yes, but I'm not defending the Maori and their hunting practises. Seamen were principally responsible for the extinction of the Dodo I believe, another large, flightless tame bird.

 

The point here, is that we're still here and eating plants and animals for food, despite these extinctions.

[huumlaar]

"to cockroaches, rats, pigeons and pigs"

 

Isaan smorgosboard