Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Pollinators By Allie Staples

Pollinators
                                                          By Allie Staples

      There are many problems that are causing pollinator population decrease but the most important issue that is occurring is due to pesticides and chemicals. This is the biggest problem with the most consequences for pollinators. For example if pollinators keep dying then people will have to pollinate plants with their own hands and that could be very tiring to us humans. Pollinators play a huge part for traveling from plant to plant to provide food for not just humans but animals too because pollinators are carrying pollen and spreading it everywhere which is helping flowers and is giving food to pollinators, humans, and animals.

       One reason why pollinators are dying is because of the pesticides that business workers are spraying onto the flowers and plants that the pollinators pollinate from. For example, “Approximately 90% of all flowering plants require pollinators to survive but the pesticides are one of the many threats to pollinators” said Beyond Pesticides. Pesticides are definitely the most threatening to pollinators because bees and birds that pollinate from the plant that has pesticides can't tell when there is pesticides on the plant. In recent years billions of bees have died from a disease called colony collapse disorder better known as (CCD) has caused most deaths to bees and other pollinators.

     Pollinators have a huge roll for making food for other living things because the pollinators travel from plant to plant to gather pollen and to feed themselves and other living things. For example as Washington Post had said, “The humble bee is most famous for its buzz and sting which is a big part of American food.” This is important because the humble bee is a pollinator that can produce a lot of food around the country. That is a huge part for the food source.

    Another reason is how many consequences there are for this issue and how this affects the environment. One consequence of lowering pollinator population is that if there isn't pollinators than us humans will have less food. Such as what Pesticide Action Network said, “⅓ of the food we eat depends on bees or any animal that is a pollinator.” This shows most of our food we eat depends on all pollinators and if we don't have pollinators then there is no food for us and we will starve.

     My fourth reasoning relates to what is being done to address this problem. To address this pollinator issue is that businesses are making a lot less toxic pesticide that won't hurt pollinators as much as the regular pesticides do. Evidence for this is that “Sustainable practices that don't allow toxic pesticides” once said the CCD. This is important because some stores are trying to address this problem such as Lowe’s. Lowe's has agreed to phase out most toxic pesticides they use. Some laws have been made that don't allow toxic pesticides at some places. Since 2006 30% of pollinator population has been decreasing per year up until now.

    Next the  fifth reason is that at MMS we are being activists by building a habitat for pollinators and planting milkweed and other flowers for the pollinators to live off of and so they have a place to be safe. We are writing letters and contacting companies that are threats to pollinators. On team Carrabassett we tested soil and everything to make sure it would be a nice place to plant flowers and milkweed. There are a lot of places where we can plant flowers for most pollinators. Our goal is to plant as much flowers as we can to make bees, birds, and all pollinators to pollinate around our school too.

     In conclusion, pollinator population is decreasing everyday because of pesticides and chemical. People do not realize that hummingbirds, bats, or beetles actually help with the food source. But the pollinator population is going down hill everyday because of most neon in pesticides. The pesticide problem is probably the biggest challenge to overcome because most pesticides are killing all pollinators around the globe. Although there is some non toxic pesticides but they don't get used often, some stores try to have practices to either label the plants that have toxic pesticides or just use non toxic pesticides or chemicals. All pollinators play an important part in the good source because they give food to not just humans but other animals too. Trying to reduce pollinator population is a major step to overcome but with effort and support it can be risked to normal and not endangered.

1 comment:

  1. Great job staying on topic in each paragraph! But I wasn't sure why in your intro you talked about hand pollinating but never explained it in your writing. Also don't forget to put the website names in parethasis.

    ReplyDelete