A quirky look at wildlife. To be taken with a pinch of salt, but with more than a
grain of truth!

Knowingly or otherwise we are all consuming Cocktails on a daily basis. The recipe varies in each of us, according to where we live, what we eat, drink, use and have in our homes and workplaces.

Some two days after I wrote my last column drawing attention to the decline in Moths and Butterflies, the Butterfly Conservation Society published a report stating that there had been a 32% fall in the number of larger Moths since 1968. The figures are frightening and explain why I haven't seen a Garden Tiger in years. One of the reasons for the decline is laid at the door of the cocktail of chemicals - pesticides and herbicides - used in agriculture. A further report from the same organisation shows a similar decline in Butterflies.

The loss of Moths and many other insects is considered instrumental in the decline of House Sparrows. I have only seen two Sparrows at McWebbie's Diner in two years. Without the caterpillars to feed their young they cannot survive. Some moths have declined by 67%. Others by as much as 95%-98%. There are, of course, other reasons contributing to the decline, but to me this is one of the most serious. It must have affected birds and animals, too, as each feeds upon the other and we see the results in deformities, growths, infertility and decline throughout the natural world.

Nature has its own store of poisons with which to control predators, attract prey and warn pests. Many of those are familiar to us and in minuscule quantities prove 'efficacious' for all sorts of ailments as 'Lily the Pink' would have said! Foxglove(digitalis), Deadly Nightshade(Bella Donna) to name but two. Every plant has a defence mechanism of one kind or another and a place in nature's society. Others commonly found, such as Hemlock, Rhubarb leaves and Laburnum are perhaps not so helpful, unless you have mayhem in mind, but they all have a purpose! The man-made chemicals are a different kettle of fish.

Years ago we grew our own fruit and vegetables, with no pesticides, and very nice it was too. There is nothing quite like going out in the garden/allotment and picking fresh what you are to eat for lunch. However, when I realised that all our lovely fresh fruit and veg was coated in Benzene from train diesel fumes and that several neighbours, who had grown their own vegetables for 30 years or so had all died of cancer, I began to think. Any connection? I am not sure, but we stopped growing our own.

Those of us born in the last fifty years or so have been treated to a daily 'cocktail' of minute amounts of 'harmless' chemicals from just about every source - the air, water and soil, food and just about every imaginable modern-day product. We are told that in these concentrations they will do us no harm. However, no tests have been done to see the reactions brought about by a mixture in any formulation you care to imagine. One often hears older people say 'food doesn't taste like it used to'. Maybe part of that is down to failing taste buds, but when younger people notice it too, something is wrong. Recent studies suggest that most of our fruit, vegetables, salad, meat and milk show a 50-75% decrease in essential vitamins and minerals, probably due to forced, out-of-season growing and intensive farming.

The move towards growing food properly with respect for the environment and wildlife is already having proven benefits but there is still a long way to go.

Obesity is on the increase. Those of us who survived one or two World Wars, when food was strictly rationed, will have heard the expression in our childhood 'his eyes are bigger than his belly!' when a child looked longingly for a second helping. That was considered 'Greed before Need'. Is it always 'Greed before Need' now though? Is it possible that our bodies are asking for more food because they are not getting the nutrients they need? We are just not good at reading the signs, taking the need for vitamins and minerals as just wanting more food, be it sugar, fat or salt, because only trained nutritionists recognise the signs of ill health brought on by a poor diet. If our food had taste and nutritional value, without being doused in 'ruby murrays' and all manner of gunk, perhaps we would not be inclined to eat so much. Obviously it varies from person to person, which is why some people remain slim. If we were all the same every epidemic, or pandemic, of the past would have wiped us all out.

I have a personal interest in chemicals, having been chemical sensitive for most of my life. Vehicle fumes make me ill, as do bleach, new carpets, wallpaper paste, wood treatments and some paints and varnishes. All contain solvents, fungicides, insecticides, etcetera. I have been ridiculed ceaselessly for imagining these ills, but gradually people are realising what is happening and I am ridiculed less.

Three years ago I had the chance to have my blood tested for what the Americans call our 'body burden' - that is the chemical load carried in our blood and passed from mother to child. I jumped at the chance. Along with other volunteers I was tested for 70 of the commonest chemicals and, in spite of a life-long avoidance of chemicals wherever possible, I found I had significant levels of 27 chemicals in my blood. People younger had as many as 39. One volunteer referred to himself as a 'walking chemical dump'!

'I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.'

- E B White, American author.

If we are to have a healthy population, both human and wildlife (and they are most definitely interactive!) we have to re-assess what we eat, how we grow it and how we treat our soil and animals, farmed or wild. Chemicals are showing up in huge quantities in the Polar regions in Polar Bears, Orcas(killer whales), in fish, birds and marine mammals too, so we are not alone in our chemical cocktail 'Happy Hour' but we are alone in being able to do something about it.

'When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.'

- John Muir, conservationist.

Doing talks and slide shows I am often told that people are more important than the Environment. Hence more roads, more cheap food and all the material goods we can consume or throw away, are apparently more important than wildlife! It seems to escape the notice of some people that 'the environment' is not something 'out there' and someone else's responsibility, but part and parcel of our everyday lives and, without a healthy respect for it, all of us will be in a very sorry state indeed.

Every day I wonder how the tiny birds that visit my garden survive not only what Nature throws at them, but what we have chosen to inflict on them over the past fifty years or more. That they survive is a tribute to the tenacity of Nature against all odds. Now we are faced with a possible cull of Badgers who are blamed for Bovine Tuberculosis in cattle, and a cull of poultry and possibly migratory birds blamed for carrying Avian 'flu. What next?

How I look forward to the Happy Hour when human beings wake up to their responsibilities and start to fight back against corporate bullying, making multi-nationals give us what we want, instead of what they think we should have in order to feed their 'bottom line'. They are most certainly morbidly obese and ripe for culling.

I will surely drink more than a few glasses of organic cocktails should that ever happen! Cheers!

Websailors Wacky Wildlife World Archive

Websailor

09.03.06 Front Page

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