Animal News

Some good news but more bad news in the animal kingdom these days. First of all, authorities in South Carolina have managed to kill millions of bees in an attempt to reduce the possibility of Zika by reducing the mosquito population. Traditionally, South Carolina has used Naled, a pesticide that kills mosquitos on contact but also disperses rather quickly, by dispersing it from trucks that traveled mosquito infested areas. But for some reason, officials in Dorchester County decided to use aircraft to dispense the pesticide. Having posted an announcement in the newspaper and put up a Facebook post on Friday, airplanes began dispensing Naled across a wide are over a two hour period early Sunday morning, despite the fact that Naled is known to be highly toxic to bees. Unfortunately, Sunday morning was extremely hot, hot enough that bees abandon the inside of their hive and cluster in massive groups outside in order to cool down, leaving them totally exposed to the insecticide. Death was immediate. At just one apiary in the county, over 2.5 million bees that had been in 46 hives died. And other beekeepers around the county shared a similar experience. As one said, the apiary "looks like it's been nuked". You have to wonder what other insects were also decimated by the improper use of this pesticide which was, in reality, overkill.

An even more depressing story comes from Africa where a continent-wide census of elephants primarily funded by Microsoft's Paul Allen showed fewer elephants than previously believed and a population that is plummeting due to poaching. A 1979 study estimate there were about 1.3 million elephants in Africa but by 2007 that number had dropped to around 500,000. And in the nine years between 2007 and 2016, that number plummeted by 30% to around 350,000. Poaching is the primary cause of this horrific decline. And the expectation is that the elephant population will probably be cut in half in another decade. Elephants are incredibly smart, social animals and the death of a matriarch can and usually does lead to a catastrophe for the other members of the family. And all this is carnage is in the pursuit of ivory, a luxury good if there ever was one.  It is just so disgusting and disheartening.

Finally, in a piece of good news, it looks like Tasmanian devils are developing a resistance to cancer that was threatening to drive the species into extinction. The cancer has already decimated the devils, causing an 80% decline in their population. But the remaining populations managed to survive far longer that scientist had predicted and some were surviving beyond the time when they could reproduce. DNA testing showed that the devils were "evolving immune-modulated resistance that could aid in species persistence in the face of this devastating disease." Hopefully, over time, the species will keep building this immunity to the devastating cancer and start to repopulate. Then perhaps the only remaining threat to their survival will be humans. Too bad they can't build an immunity to that.