Four decades ago, in the year of the first Earth Day, Joni Mitchell took out her guitar and sang, “Hey farmer, farmer, put away that DDT, give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees … please!”
Amazingly, people and politicians listened and acted, and for the sake of the birds and bees, the toxic chemical DDT was banned. Briefly, it looked good for busy, buzzing, chirping and warbling creatures. But their numbers have gone into a tailspin.
In the 40 years since Joni Mitchell’s wake-up call, it’s been estimated that we’ve lost nearly half our birds. York University biologist Bridget Stutchbury (Silence Of The Songbirds) blames the destruction of forest habitat as well as poisoning due to pesticides. She recommends we buy organic produce and shade-grown coffee from farms that have preserved trees.
Ironically, bird-killing pesticides put us on a deadly treadmill because fewer insect-eating birds mean more bugs and even more toxic chemicals. And dwindling forests threatened by wood-eating insects will get smaller still if there aren’t enough birds to eat the bugs. We all know birds need trees. How many of us think about the fact that trees need birds?
Pesticides are also killing bees and their dramatic population decline threatens our food supply. One-third of our diet comes from flowering plants pollinated by insects, mostly bees.
Recent bee die-offs have been called a mystery because scientists cannot agree on which of several factors is most important. But some widely used pesticides are known bee killers, and it might not be wise to suspend judgment until all the bees are gone. Because the one certainty is if that happens, we’ll be the ones to get stung.
The birds and the bees are not only a metaphor for the miracle of procreation. In terms of ecosystem health, they’re like canaries in a coal mine. If they’re in trouble, we’re in trouble. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee (organic and shade-grown, please.) Otherwise, we will all be singing the saddest line in Joni Mitchell’s song: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
