Its worst than we think

[Guest sandpipper]

I dont know if its my lifestyle but i now live in a sort of town where as before i grew up on a farm bit when i was small i used to catch slow worms,lizards,crickets,grasshoppers,tiny grass-snakes,frogsporn in the spring, let them grow up then let them go. there used to be tonnes of wasp`s and bee`s, you would wake up in the morning too cookoo`s and birds cheeping away at night go to bed with the crows making a din. we had no street lights so at night it was pitch black and on the edge of the woods would be masses of fireflys, we often had deer in the back garden and foxes and rabbits and rats n mice. My point is i was nine then and my son is nine now so i took him back to where i used to play as a boy and everything felt dead no singing birds no deer nothing we come across a sheet of tin yes i thought slow-worms, not a thing, so when i read about guys on here talking about the lack of fish i dont think its just the fish we should be worry about its all the animals, on the fishing side of things your all right i remember being only 5-6 years old and my dad and i would catch lots of plaice/flounders in the solent we would keep the biggest ones and put the rest back, in 1976/77/78 we were doing the same thing with the cod.look at it now, weve got to do some thing now before its to late, we as humans are killing everthing. its got to stop now, im only thing about whats happend in the last 30 years that i know about,it makes me cry to think about whats going to be left in the next 30 years, A BIG WORLD OF NOTHING. There about 6 thousand poeples names on here i think, what say we all write a letter to tony blair asking what he`s doing about it,thats too many letters to ignore and push under the carpet, half an hour of our time isnt a lot to ask. perhaps someone on here could draft up a letter we all print it off and on the same day we all post it. I know others on here feel the same way as i do so lets do something. Tony

[hembo]

your right this year there has been hardly any wasps or bees . i live in a rural town so hardly see any birds where i live due mainly to the amount of cats and removal of hedges shrubs etc;plus coupled by the amount of slug pellets going down (im sure if they worked outhow much slug pellets were sold in the uk that if it was compared to iraq (the quantity )would be considered a wmd.this all gets drained into the soil etc etc.all we will be left with is species that can tolerate change and have resistance to chemicals .so natural history documentaries will consist of slugs rats and cock roaches

[Zigs]

its not just the governments fault, its all of us.

we want cheap food without thinking of the consequences. pararie farming with all the pesticides & herbicides are destroying the wild life. ( think about what its doing to our insides too ) make the switch to organic food & you will have far more effect than a letter, you will be part of a consumer led revolution back to sustainable agriculture. while working in turkey, i was amazed at the variety & abundance of wild life. then i looked at the system, they cant afford chemicals, so the whole family gets out in the field to weed. yes, they have some pest damage, but what the hell if your cabage has got a few holes in it, i'd rather see the butterflies.

 

over here, light is a major problem for night flying insects, look how many get trapped & die in places where the lights are left on all night. and how many generations of moths are wipped out by banging away at a street light all night instead of doing what moths should do. think... switch it off when its not needed.

[Ken L]

Fireflies. In Southampton ?

[DavyR]

ziggy searchfield:

but what the hell if your cabage has got a few holes in it, i'd rather see the butterflies.

Whilst I agree with every word you say, most people in this country couldn't give a monkey's. They live in an increasingly artificial world and wouldn't even notice if 99% of the wildlife disappeared. Where I live, it's a 10 minute walk into open countryside with hares, partridges, water voles, etc. Most of my neighbours have never seen any of it, because they can't drive there.

And they probably never eat cabbage, holes or otherwise, because you can't buy it ready-prepared in a supermarket plastic bag. Cynical? Moi?

[Guest sandpipper]

Ken you seem suprised:Fireflies. In Southampton ?

 

infact i lived just outside southampton a tiny little village called mottisfont and if my memory serves me right it was only the males that glowed to atract the females but only in mating season also it would be about the same time as the flying ants came out just before a thunder storm. they were the same colour as the starlights you use on the end of your fishing rods,for years i believed as my dad told me they were fairys(i must tackle him about that)

[yoxer]

if only theyd gotton their act together earlier we could still of had dynasours

[yoxer]

ohhhhhhhhhhhh we have

[Tony U]

Still lots of fireflies out on the Hoo Peninsular and we get lots of slow-worms in our garden on the downs above Chatham in a sub-urban area.

But I do agree with you on the decline of insects in general we do not get any where near the numbers of crickets as we used to and whilst the number of moths we see has remained high the number of species has declined.

 

[ 26. September 2005, 02:57 PM: Message edited by: Tony U ]

[DavyR]

yoxer, I assume you're confusing "conservation" with "preservation"?

 

Catastrophic changes in the climate (whether caused by man or asteroid) are in any case no respecters of man or dinosaurs.