Spare a thought for our missing insect population

ONE OF the problems I’ve encountered during many long motorcycle journeys across the country has been caused by kamikaze insects dive-bombing my helmet’s visor. It may seem like a minor gripe, but bikers know a locust smacking your face at 120km/h can pack quite a hefty punch.

I must have mentioned this to a friend while chatting about the delights of motorbike touring, because he became thoughtful and asked: “When did you last have an insect fly into your visor?”

I considered this for a moment and replied I couldn’t remember. Come to think of it, I could hardly remember when I last had a gogga splattered on my car’s windscreen either.

There was a time when almost any car journey of significant distance ended up with a couple of splattered insects that had to be scraped off the windscreen. It was part of every petrol attendant’s job to remove bugs from windscreens when cars came in for refuelling. Where have all the insects gone?

A friend from England mentioned that this odd puzzle had been raised in several newspaper reports.

My first thought was that modern cars had such steeply sloping windscreens that insects couldn’t get a good grip on them.

I don’t think this is correct. I think there are significantly fewer insects around than there used to be a few years ago. Aerosol insecticides have made it all too easy to wipe out whole populations of crawling or flying insects with hardly a second thought.

An annoying fly comes buzzing about your head as you try to concentrate on your book, so you grab the spray can, give a quick burst and the fly vanishes. You don’t give a thought to the fact that your squirt of fly spray also killed three spiders and a passing bee.

At the same time we read of the declining bee population with grave concern. Farmers need bees to pollinate their fruit trees. Gardeners will not grow roses if they don’t have bees to help them.

When we talk about nature conservation most of think immediately of saving the rhinos or protecting the whales. We have posters of the “Big Five” all over the place and gather in crowds to help rescue a stranded dolphin.

This is rather unfair and like so many of our activities, it reveals typical double standards.

Why do we never see bumper stickers saying: “Save the Bee” or “Adopt a Fly”.

They are important links in preserving the delicate chain of life on our wonderful planet.

Last Laugh

A young Texas boy came home from school and told his mother he needed some stuff to take to school the next day. “What do you need?” She asked. “I need two revolvers, a gun belt and a box of .38 ammunition,” the boy said.

His mother was shocked. “You surely don’t need that for school,” she said “whatever for?”

“The teacher says they are going to teach us to draw.”