A while back I wrote a post about shifting baseline syndrome. (handy link below) For those not familiar with the term, it refers to the tendency for each generation to accept their personal (usually childhood) experience of the world as normal, as the baseline for evaluating change over time. The concept often comes up in discussions of wildlife populations. If I walked a certain stream in my youth to look for turtles and typically saw one every 30 yards, I would unconsciously use this average as a baseline to evaluate the relative health of the stream during future turtle hunting trips. I would be disturbed to find fewer (and excited to find more!) than I had in the past. While this might seem on the surface to be a good way to do citizen science, it doesn't take into account the fact that my mother observed 10 turtles in her youth, while my grandmother saw 20 turtles along the same stretch.
I don't come from a long line of turtle hunters. I've made all this up to illustrate SBS. It's important to understand how it works because it explains why there's so little panic in the general population about declining animal populations. If I've only witnessed a slight decline in the turle population, I instinctively feel that it's not too late to turn things around. If I could see the changes over the last 500 years I might think otherwise. Had I lived in the 1850s, I would have been accustomed to huge flocks of passenger pigeons blocking the sun for hours and producing a deafening cacophony as they passed. By the 1890s I would have noticed and been concerned by the greatly reduced numbers of the birds. But I experienced childhood in the 20th century, completely unaware that such incredibly bounty had existed and not bothered by its lack. To paraphrase Muddy Waters, you can't miss what you ain't never had.
While many examples of great natural abundance still exist in the animal kingdom, the ones I have witnessed personally have been limited to order Insecta. The emergence of billions of periodic cicadas from the ground to deafen residents of the eastern U.S. and leave their discarded exoskeletons on every vertical surface. Tent caterpillars so thick on the ground that a walk to the car entailed crushing hundreds. Honey bees swarming in their thousands. These events may be small potatoes in comparison to a flock of passenger pigeons, but they showcase the teeming abundance of nature. Unfortunately rather than inspire awe, such displays often trigger insectiphobia, the irrational fear of insects. The combination of shifting baseline syndrome and entomophobia, as it is also known, means there's not only unconcern for falling insect numbers, but a dedicated effort to kill off as many insects as possible.
I have concluded from the steady stream of frantic inquiries in online gardening groups that insectiphobia is epidemic in the gardening population. Individual sightings of unknown bugs incite alarm, while large infestations are cause for hysteria. The prevailing opinion seems to be that the only good bug is a dead bug, butterflies excluded. While swarms of certain insects can lead to extensive plant damage and indicate an ecosystem out of balance, it is disheartening and disturbing that an insect horde is always perceived as plague rather than bounty. A typical plea from the gardener whose plot has been infested states that a certain insect is suddenly present in large numbers and advice is needed, with no description of any damage being caused or evidence of such in accompanying photos. It is the mere presence of the bugs as well as the imminent damage they may cause that is feared.
We're in the midst of a global insect apocalypse, if the constant reminders from memes and scholarly articles are to be believed. What hope do we have of reversing this trend while insectiphobia runs unchecked among the very people who could make a difference by eshewing pesticides and inviting insects to their yards with native plants? With shifting baseline syndrome at work, each generation is poised to be less tolerant of insects as they become less accustomed to seeing any large populations of anything except Japanese beetles, squash bugs, aphids, and the like. The campaign to raise awareness of the plight of the monarch butterfly inspired gardeners to plant milkweed and create healthy, pesticide-free habitat for the imperiled creatures. Could similar crusades create sympathy for dung beetles, box elder bugs, and fall webworms? As unlikely as this seems, it might be exactly what we need to treat rampant insectiphobia, end the insect apocalypse, and turn plague into bounty.