In Defense of Nature

You Reap What You Sow—Pesticide Usage Guarantees Collateral Damage

This Ortho ad hanging in front of its product line at a store could not have made any clearer the attempt to persuade an unknowing public to unnecessarily use poison on an insect that would only be around for a limited period of time.

ALL TEXT AND PHOTOS © Marlene A. Condon

 

Almost 60 years ago, Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, was published. Warning us of the danger pesticides posed to wildlife, especially birds, it impacted people’s feelings towards these products that are meant for only one purpose: to put an end to life. For some time afterwards, neither environmental activists nor people who cared about nature would employ pesticides in the landscape.

 

But, just as the effort back then to get society to view women as equal counterparts to men, rather than as sex objects, has somehow backfired (today’s women and teenaged girls routinely dress in clothing that brings sex to mind), so too has Ms. Carson’s admonition about pesticides been turned on its head.

 

Today, people treat these poisons as innocuous substances. Pesticides line shelves in stores for homeowners and gardeners to employ as they see fit (although this retail practice should be discontinued).

 

Thus, in the spring of 2021, when humongous numbers of periodical cicadas emerged in several areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states, it’s quite possible that many people may have decided they should employ pesticides, even though these other-worldly insects would only be around for 3-4 weeks, at most. (They exit the ground to mate so females can lay fertilized eggs in twigs to start the cycle of life all over again; then all the adults die.)

 

Although no agency is saying it has determined the cause to be pesticides (or anything else, for that matter), there are many factors pointing strongly towards that conclusion.

 

·    Ortho has blatantly advertised one of its more potent insect-killing brands precisely for the killing of periodical cicadas (see photo).

 

·    Most of the affected birds were fledglings (they’d only recently left the nest) of species likely to eat large cicadas: Common Grackles, Blue Jays, American Robins, and European Starlings. Young, inexperienced birds would be more likely to make a meal of the abundant and easily caught insects.

 

·    Pesticides affect neurological function, such as the seizures exhibited by dying birds.

 

·    The fact that bird deaths precisely coincided with the time-frame of the periodical cicada emergence, and has subsided with the end of this event, is highly unlikely to be mere coincidence.

 

You reap what you sow—pesticide usage guarantees collateral damage. If the insects were poisoned, birds eating them would also suffer the effects of these chemicals. (Yes, it’s cruel to employ pesticides for insects, as if they are somehow not worthy of a humane death.)

 

On neighborhood blogs, people exhibit little patience with wildlife, especially insects that they’ve been led to believe can be very dangerous to them or their plants. Not having much knowledge of periodical cicadas (most people nowadays know far too little about wildlife), folks may have feared the great numbers of these insects would destroy their plantings (ignorance is a prime instigator of apprehension).

 

In this age of the Internet, too many faux “experts” effortlessly spread misinformation far and wide. Those working in the gardening industry are perhaps the lead offenders in this regard, telling people these insects will kill the branch tips of small trees and thus “harm” them. But this notion is wrong.

 

Plants exist to support animal life, which they can do quite successfully if their local environment is functioning properly. In other words, when predator/prey relationships are in balance, insects and other forms of life do not overwhelm plants with their presence, which is why everyone should create nature-friendly gardens. Sure, critters may injure plants, but not enough to cause serious harm. Plants are extremely resilient and bounce back from a bit of loss; otherwise, life would not persist as it has for eons.

 

Now, you may not like to see dead branchlets on your tree, but within a year, your tree will be flush with new growth while many of the lifeless branchlets will have fallen to the ground. As most birds require those twigs for nest building, periodical cicadas obviously help provide them with the “lumber” they need.

 

This incident should make abundantly clear to folks the havoc they are wreaking upon this planet with pesticides. Our wildlife is struggling to survive, as we certainly will if we don’t wake up and recognize how much we depend upon wildlife for our own welfare. People must learn to live in agreement with nature instead of fighting it at every turn. And they must learn this lesson much sooner rather than later.

  

NATURE ADVICE:

 

When someone talks about doing right by the environment these days, it’s virtually guaranteed they will bring up so-called invasive plants that need to be gotten rid of. And how is that often accomplished? By employing pesticides.

 

You can rest assured that even though there may not be many (yes, there are some) species of insects that feed upon the leaves of alien plants, many kinds of critters make use of these plants. An overlooked aspect of “invasive” plants is that they do provide structure. Structure is a necessary component of a nature-friendly garden as it affords animals of many kinds a place to hide from predators, to rest a bit, or to build a nest (think web-weaving spiders). No one looks for these animals before spraying with deadly chemicals that will kill them, and no one would be able to locate all of them anyway.

 

Pesticides are meant to kill, and they do. No one needs to use chemicals that bring further harm to our environment on a home property or in what’s supposed to be a natural area.