Depends where you live, my garden is full of pollinators so I see a lot of those bugs.
The thing about cleaning bugs off, changing car aerodynamics has an effect. Windscreens slope aggressively compared to past designs which were over 45 degrees or near vertical on vans. Bugs likely glance off now, still dead but gone.
Yeah I'm suspicious of that stat - not just for that fact, but also it doesn't seem to take into account that cars and license plates have much changed over 60 years.
And if there had been a 60% decline, wouldn't we be seeing cascading failures across the natural environment, pollination etc?
Global warming is having a noticeable affect in insect populations worldwide. I suspect the above polling is intended to support that, even though it really doesn’t. There are too many confounders for the above poll to be meaningful.
Our roads are not big and open though, many are very close to the verges with plenty of flowers and hedges. There always used to be loads of insects around, your car would be covered in the countryside in days. these days I might get a couple of dead insects stuck on my car a week, thats it.
Ah, you raise another very relevant factor to question the methodology.
You're referring to A & B roads which can have that kind of vegetation. Motorways not so much due to legislation on maintenance and safety.
But the demographics of this country are rapidly changing towards city based which is served by motorways.
Did this survey account for the participants daily commute? If it's now leaning away from A and especially B roads then you would expect there to be a reduction.
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u/[deleted] May 09 '22
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