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Lack of fluoride, dentists leaves rural America at risk

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Sunday, March 30, 2025

In the wooded highlands of northern Arkansas, where small towns have few dentists, water officials who serve more than 20,000 people have for more than a decade openly defied state law by refusing to add fluoride to the drinking water.For its refusal, the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority has received hundreds of state fines amounting to about $130,000, which are stuffed in a cardboard box and left unpaid, said Andy Anderson, who is opposed to fluoridation and has led the water system for nearly two decades. This Ozark region is among hundreds of rural American communities that face a one-two punch to oral health: a dire shortage of dentists and a lack of fluoridated drinking water, which is widely viewed among dentists as one of the most effective tools to prevent tooth decay. But as the anti-fluoride movement builds unprecedented momentum, it may turn out that the Ozarks were not behind the times after all.“We will eventually win,” Anderson said. “We will be vindicated.”Fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral, keeps teeth strong when added to drinking water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Dental Association. But the anti-fluoride movement has been energized since a government report last summer found a possible link between lower IQ in children and consuming amounts of fluoride that are higher than what is recommended in American drinking water. asaDozens of communities have decided to stop fluoridating in recent months, and state officials in Florida and Texas have urged their water systems to do the same. Last week, Utah became the first state to ban it in tap water.Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long espoused fringe health theories, has called fluoride an “industrial waste” and “dangerous neurotoxin” and said the Trump administration will recommend it be removed from all public drinking water.Separately, Republican efforts to extend tax cuts and shrink federal spending may squeeze Medicaid, which could deepen existing shortages of dentists in rural areas where many residents depend on the federal insurance program for whatever dental care they can find.Dental experts warn that the simultaneous erosion of Medicaid and fluoridation could exacerbate a crisis of rural oral health and reverse decades of progress against tooth decay, particularly for children and those who rarely see a dentist.“If you have folks with little access to professional care and no access to water fluoridation,” said Steven Levy, a dentist and leading fluoride researcher at the University of Iowa, “then they are missing two of the big pillars of how to keep healthy for a lifetime.”Many already are.James Flanagin, the only dentist in the tiny Arkansas town of Leslie, treats patients in the back of an antique store and, with hand-painted lettering, advertises his clinic and himself as a “pretty good dentist.” (Katie Adkins for KFF Health News)Katie AdkinsOverlapping ‘dental deserts’ and fluoride-free zonesNearly 25 million Americans live in areas without enough dentists — more than twice as many as prior estimates by the federal government — according to a recent study from Harvard University that measured U.S. “dental deserts” with more depth and precision than before.Hawazin Elani, a Harvard dentist and epidemiologist who co-authored the study, found that many shortage areas are rural and poor, and depend heavily on Medicaid. But many dentists do not accept Medicaid because payments can be low, Elani said.The ADA has estimated that only a third of dentists treat patients on Medicaid.“I suspect this situation is much worse for Medicaid beneficiaries,” Elani said. “If you have Medicaid and your nearest dentists do not accept it, then you will likely have to go to the third, or fourth, or the fifth.”The Harvard study identified over 780 counties where more than half of the residents live in a shortage area. Of those counties, at least 230 also have mostly or completely unfluoridated public drinking water, according to a KFF analysis of fluoride data published by the CDC. That means people in these areas who can’t find a dentist also do not get protection for their teeth from their tap water.A Flourish data visualizationThe KFF Health News analysis does not cover the entire nation because it does not include private wells and 13 states do not submit fluoride data to the CDC. But among those that do, most counties with a shortage of dentists and unfluoridated water are in the south-central U.S., in a cluster that stretches from Texas to the Florida Panhandle and up into Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.In the center of that cluster is the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority, which serves the Arkansas counties of Boone, Marion, Newton, and Searcy. It has refused to add fluoride ever since Arkansas enacted a statewide mandate in 2011. After weekly fines began in 2016, the water system unsuccessfully challenged the fluoride mandate in state court, then lost again on appeal.Anderson, who has chaired the water system’s board since 2007, said he would like to challenge the fluoride mandate in court again and would argue the case himself if necessary. In a phone interview, Anderson said he believes that fluoride can hamper the brain and body to the point of making people “get fat and lazy.”“So if you go out in the streets these days, walk down the streets, you’ll see lots of fat people wearing their pajamas out in public,” he said.Nearby in the tiny, no-stoplight community of Leslie, Arkansas, which gets water from the Ozark system, the only dentist in town operates out of a one-man clinic tucked in the back of an antique store. Hand-painted lettering on the store window advertises a “pretty good dentist.”James Flanagin, a third-generation dentist who opened this clinic three years ago, said he was drawn to Leslie by the quaint charms and friendly smiles of small-town life. But those same smiles also reveal the unmistakable consequences of refusing to fluoridate, he said.“There is no doubt that there is more dental decay here than there would otherwise be,” he said. “You are going to have more decay if your water is not fluoridated. That’s just a fact.”Flanagin, the only dentist in the tiny Ozark town of Leslie, Arkansas, runs his clinic in the back of an antique store. He says the town suffers from high levels of tooth decay because the local drinking water is not fluoridated.(Katie Adkins for KFF Health News)Fluoride seen as a great public health achievementFluoride was first added to public water in an American city in 1945 and spread to half of the U.S. population by 1980, according to the CDC. Because of “the dramatic decline” in cavities that followed, in 1999 the CDC dubbed fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.Currently more than 70% of the U.S. population on public water systems get fluoridated water, with a recommended concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter, or about three drops in a 55-gallon barrel, according to the CDC.Fluoride is also present in modern toothpaste, mouthwash, dental varnish, and some food and drinks — like raisins, potatoes, oatmeal, coffee, and black tea. But several dental experts said these products do not reliably reach as many low-income families as drinking water, which has an additional benefit over toothpaste of strengthening children’s teeth from within as they grow.Two recent polls have found that the largest share of Americans support fluoridation, but a sizable minority does not. Polls from Axios/Ipsos and AP-NORC found that 48% and 40% of respondents wanted to keep fluoride in public water supplies, while 29% and 26% supported its removal.Chelsea Fosse, an expert on oral health policy at the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, said she worried that misguided fears of fluoride would cause many people to stop using fluoridated toothpaste and varnish just as Medicaid cuts made it harder to see a dentist.The combination, she said, could be “devastating.”“It will be visibly apparent what this does to the prevalence of tooth decay,” Fosse said. “If we get rid of water fluoridation, if we make Medicaid cuts, and if we don’t support providers in locating and serving the highest-need populations, I truly don’t know what we will do.”Multiple peer-reviewed studies have shown what ending water fluoridation could look like. In the past few years, studies of cities in Alaska and Canada have shown that communities that stopped fluoridation saw significant increases in children’s cavities when compared with similar cities that did not. A 2024 study from Israel reported a “two-fold increase” in dental treatments for kids within five years after the country stopped fluoridating in 2014.Despite the benefits of fluoridation, it has been fiercely opposed by some since its inception, said Catherine Hayes, a Harvard dental expert who advises the American Dental Association on fluoride and has studied its use for three decades.Fluoridation was initially smeared as a communist plot against America, Hayes said, and then later fears arose of possible links to cancer, which were refuted through extensive scientific research. In the ‘80s, hysteria fueled fears of fluoride causing AIDS, which was “ludicrous,” Hayes said.More recently, the anti-fluoride movement seized on international research that suggests high levels of fluoride can hinder children’s brain development and has been boosted by high-profile legal and political victories.Last August, a hotly debated report from the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program found “with moderate confidence” that exposure to levels of fluoride that are higher than what is present in American drinking water is associated with lower IQ in children. The report was based on an analysis of 74 studies conducted in other countries, most of which were considered “low quality” and involved exposure of at least 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water — or more than twice the U.S. recommendation — according to the program.The following month, in a long-simmering lawsuit filed by fluoride opponents, a federal judge in California said the possible link between fluoride and lowered IQ was too risky to ignore, then ordered the federal Environmental Protection Agency to take nonspecified steps to lower that risk. The EPA started to appeal this ruling in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump administration could reverse course.The EPA and Department of Justice declined to comment. The White House and Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to questions about fluoride.Despite the National Toxicology Program’s report, Hayes said, no association has been shown to date between lowered IQ and the amount of fluoride actually present in most Americans’ water. The court ruling may prompt additional research conducted in the U.S., Hayes said, which she hoped would finally put the campaign against fluoride to rest.“It’s one of the great mysteries of my career, what sustains it,” Hayes said. “What concerns me is that there’s some belief amongst some members of the public — and some of our policymakers — that there is some truth to this.”Not all experts were so dismissive of the toxicology program’s report. Bruce Lanphear, a children’s health researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, published an editorial in January that said the findings should prompt health organizations “to reassess the risks and benefits of fluoride, particularly for pregnant women and infants.”“The people who are proposing fluoridation need to now prove it’s safe,” Lanphear told NPR in January. “That’s what this study does. It shifts the burden of proof — or it should.”Cities and states rethink fluorideAt least 14 states so far this year have considered or are considering bills that would lift fluoride mandates or prohibit fluoride in drinking water altogether. In February, Utah lawmakers passed the nation’s first ban, which Republican Gov. Spencer Cox told ABC4 Utah he intends to sign. And both Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller have called for their respective states to end fluoridation.“I don’t want Big Brother telling me what to do,” Miller told The Dallas Morning News in February. “Government has forced this on us for too long.”Additionally, dozens of cities and counties have decided to stop fluoridation in the past six months — including at least 16 communities in Florida with a combined population of more than 1.6 million — according to news reports and the Fluoride Action Network, an anti-fluoride group.Stuart Cooper, executive director of that group, said the movement’s unprecedented momentum would be further supercharged if Kennedy and the Trump administration follow through on a recommendation against fluoride.Cooper predicted that most U.S. communities will have stopped fluoridating within years.“I think what you are seeing in Florida, where every community is falling like dominoes, is going to now happen in the United States,” he said. “I think we’re seeing the absolute end of it.”If Cooper’s prediction is right, Hayes said, widespread decay would be visible within years. Kids’ teeth will rot in their mouths, she said, even though “we know how to completely prevent it.”“It’s unnecessary pain and suffering,” Hayes said. “If you go into any children’s hospital across this country, you’ll see a waiting list of kids to get into the operating room to get their teeth fixed because they have severe decay because they haven’t had access to either fluoridated water or other types of fluoride. Unfortunately, that’s just going to get worse.”Methodology: How We CountedThis KFF Health News article identifies communities with an elevated risk of tooth decay by combining data on areas with dentist shortages and unfluoridated drinking water. Our analysis merged Harvard University research on dentist-shortage areas with large datasets on public water systems published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The Harvard research determined that nearly 25 million Americans live in dentist-shortage areas that span much of rural America. The CDC data details the populations served and fluoridation status of more than 38,000 public water systems in 37 states. We classified counties as having elevated risk of tooth decay if they met three criteria:--More than half of the residents live in a dentist-shortage area identified by Harvard.--The number of people receiving unfluoridated water from water systems based in that county amounts to more than half of the county’s population.--The number of people receiving unfluoridated water from water systems based in that county amounts to at least half of the total population of all water systems based in that county, even if those systems reached beyond the county borders, which many do.Our analysis identified approximately 230 counties that meet these criteria, meaning they have both a dire shortage of dentists and largely unfluoridated drinking water.But this total is certainly an undercount. Thirteen states do not report water system data to the CDC, and the agency data does not include private wells, most of which are unfluoridated.KFF Health News data editor Holly K. Hacker contributed to this article.

Two recent polls have found that the largest share of Americans support fluoridation, but a sizable minority does not. Utah just became the first state to ban it.

In the wooded highlands of northern Arkansas, where small towns have few dentists, water officials who serve more than 20,000 people have for more than a decade openly defied state law by refusing to add fluoride to the drinking water.

For its refusal, the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority has received hundreds of state fines amounting to about $130,000, which are stuffed in a cardboard box and left unpaid, said Andy Anderson, who is opposed to fluoridation and has led the water system for nearly two decades.

This Ozark region is among hundreds of rural American communities that face a one-two punch to oral health: a dire shortage of dentists and a lack of fluoridated drinking water, which is widely viewed among dentists as one of the most effective tools to prevent tooth decay. But as the anti-fluoride movement builds unprecedented momentum, it may turn out that the Ozarks were not behind the times after all.

“We will eventually win,” Anderson said. “We will be vindicated.”

Fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral, keeps teeth strong when added to drinking water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Dental Association. But the anti-fluoride movement has been energized since a government report last summer found a possible link between lower IQ in children and consuming amounts of fluoride that are higher than what is recommended in American drinking water.

asaDozens of communities have decided to stop fluoridating in recent months, and state officials in Florida and Texas have urged their water systems to do the same. Last week, Utah became the first state to ban it in tap water.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long espoused fringe health theories, has called fluoride an “industrial waste” and “dangerous neurotoxin” and said the Trump administration will recommend it be removed from all public drinking water.

Separately, Republican efforts to extend tax cuts and shrink federal spending may squeeze Medicaid, which could deepen existing shortages of dentists in rural areas where many residents depend on the federal insurance program for whatever dental care they can find.

Dental experts warn that the simultaneous erosion of Medicaid and fluoridation could exacerbate a crisis of rural oral health and reverse decades of progress against tooth decay, particularly for children and those who rarely see a dentist.

“If you have folks with little access to professional care and no access to water fluoridation,” said Steven Levy, a dentist and leading fluoride researcher at the University of Iowa, “then they are missing two of the big pillars of how to keep healthy for a lifetime.”

Many already are.

rural dentists

James Flanagin, the only dentist in the tiny Arkansas town of Leslie, treats patients in the back of an antique store and, with hand-painted lettering, advertises his clinic and himself as a “pretty good dentist.” (Katie Adkins for KFF Health News)Katie Adkins

Overlapping ‘dental deserts’ and fluoride-free zones

Nearly 25 million Americans live in areas without enough dentists — more than twice as many as prior estimates by the federal government — according to a recent study from Harvard University that measured U.S. “dental deserts” with more depth and precision than before.

Hawazin Elani, a Harvard dentist and epidemiologist who co-authored the study, found that many shortage areas are rural and poor, and depend heavily on Medicaid. But many dentists do not accept Medicaid because payments can be low, Elani said.

The ADA has estimated that only a third of dentists treat patients on Medicaid.

“I suspect this situation is much worse for Medicaid beneficiaries,” Elani said. “If you have Medicaid and your nearest dentists do not accept it, then you will likely have to go to the third, or fourth, or the fifth.”

The Harvard study identified over 780 counties where more than half of the residents live in a shortage area. Of those counties, at least 230 also have mostly or completely unfluoridated public drinking water, according to a KFF analysis of fluoride data published by the CDC. That means people in these areas who can’t find a dentist also do not get protection for their teeth from their tap water.

A Flourish data visualization

The KFF Health News analysis does not cover the entire nation because it does not include private wells and 13 states do not submit fluoride data to the CDC. But among those that do, most counties with a shortage of dentists and unfluoridated water are in the south-central U.S., in a cluster that stretches from Texas to the Florida Panhandle and up into Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

In the center of that cluster is the Ozark Mountain Regional Public Water Authority, which serves the Arkansas counties of Boone, Marion, Newton, and Searcy. It has refused to add fluoride ever since Arkansas enacted a statewide mandate in 2011. After weekly fines began in 2016, the water system unsuccessfully challenged the fluoride mandate in state court, then lost again on appeal.

Anderson, who has chaired the water system’s board since 2007, said he would like to challenge the fluoride mandate in court again and would argue the case himself if necessary. In a phone interview, Anderson said he believes that fluoride can hamper the brain and body to the point of making people “get fat and lazy.”

“So if you go out in the streets these days, walk down the streets, you’ll see lots of fat people wearing their pajamas out in public,” he said.

Nearby in the tiny, no-stoplight community of Leslie, Arkansas, which gets water from the Ozark system, the only dentist in town operates out of a one-man clinic tucked in the back of an antique store. Hand-painted lettering on the store window advertises a “pretty good dentist.”

James Flanagin, a third-generation dentist who opened this clinic three years ago, said he was drawn to Leslie by the quaint charms and friendly smiles of small-town life. But those same smiles also reveal the unmistakable consequences of refusing to fluoridate, he said.

“There is no doubt that there is more dental decay here than there would otherwise be,” he said. “You are going to have more decay if your water is not fluoridated. That’s just a fact.”

Flanagin, the only dentist in the tiny Ozark town of Leslie, Arkansas, runs his clinic in the back of an antique store. He says the town suffers from high levels of tooth decay because the local drinking water is not fluoridated.(Katie Adkins for KFF Health News)

Fluoride seen as a great public health achievement

Fluoride was first added to public water in an American city in 1945 and spread to half of the U.S. population by 1980, according to the CDC. Because of “the dramatic decline” in cavities that followed, in 1999 the CDC dubbed fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.

Currently more than 70% of the U.S. population on public water systems get fluoridated water, with a recommended concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter, or about three drops in a 55-gallon barrel, according to the CDC.

Fluoride is also present in modern toothpaste, mouthwash, dental varnish, and some food and drinks — like raisins, potatoes, oatmeal, coffee, and black tea. But several dental experts said these products do not reliably reach as many low-income families as drinking water, which has an additional benefit over toothpaste of strengthening children’s teeth from within as they grow.

Two recent polls have found that the largest share of Americans support fluoridation, but a sizable minority does not. Polls from Axios/Ipsos and AP-NORC found that 48% and 40% of respondents wanted to keep fluoride in public water supplies, while 29% and 26% supported its removal.

Chelsea Fosse, an expert on oral health policy at the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, said she worried that misguided fears of fluoride would cause many people to stop using fluoridated toothpaste and varnish just as Medicaid cuts made it harder to see a dentist.

The combination, she said, could be “devastating.”

“It will be visibly apparent what this does to the prevalence of tooth decay,” Fosse said. “If we get rid of water fluoridation, if we make Medicaid cuts, and if we don’t support providers in locating and serving the highest-need populations, I truly don’t know what we will do.”

Multiple peer-reviewed studies have shown what ending water fluoridation could look like. In the past few years, studies of cities in Alaska and Canada have shown that communities that stopped fluoridation saw significant increases in children’s cavities when compared with similar cities that did not. A 2024 study from Israel reported a “two-fold increase” in dental treatments for kids within five years after the country stopped fluoridating in 2014.

Despite the benefits of fluoridation, it has been fiercely opposed by some since its inception, said Catherine Hayes, a Harvard dental expert who advises the American Dental Association on fluoride and has studied its use for three decades.

Fluoridation was initially smeared as a communist plot against America, Hayes said, and then later fears arose of possible links to cancer, which were refuted through extensive scientific research. In the ‘80s, hysteria fueled fears of fluoride causing AIDS, which was “ludicrous,” Hayes said.

More recently, the anti-fluoride movement seized on international research that suggests high levels of fluoride can hinder children’s brain development and has been boosted by high-profile legal and political victories.

Last August, a hotly debated report from the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program found “with moderate confidence” that exposure to levels of fluoride that are higher than what is present in American drinking water is associated with lower IQ in children. The report was based on an analysis of 74 studies conducted in other countries, most of which were considered “low quality” and involved exposure of at least 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water — or more than twice the U.S. recommendation — according to the program.

The following month, in a long-simmering lawsuit filed by fluoride opponents, a federal judge in California said the possible link between fluoride and lowered IQ was too risky to ignore, then ordered the federal Environmental Protection Agency to take nonspecified steps to lower that risk. The EPA started to appeal this ruling in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump administration could reverse course.

The EPA and Department of Justice declined to comment. The White House and Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to questions about fluoride.

Despite the National Toxicology Program’s report, Hayes said, no association has been shown to date between lowered IQ and the amount of fluoride actually present in most Americans’ water. The court ruling may prompt additional research conducted in the U.S., Hayes said, which she hoped would finally put the campaign against fluoride to rest.

“It’s one of the great mysteries of my career, what sustains it,” Hayes said. “What concerns me is that there’s some belief amongst some members of the public — and some of our policymakers — that there is some truth to this.”

Not all experts were so dismissive of the toxicology program’s report. Bruce Lanphear, a children’s health researcher at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, published an editorial in January that said the findings should prompt health organizations “to reassess the risks and benefits of fluoride, particularly for pregnant women and infants.”

“The people who are proposing fluoridation need to now prove it’s safe,” Lanphear told NPR in January. “That’s what this study does. It shifts the burden of proof — or it should.”

Cities and states rethink fluoride

At least 14 states so far this year have considered or are considering bills that would lift fluoride mandates or prohibit fluoride in drinking water altogether. In February, Utah lawmakers passed the nation’s first ban, which Republican Gov. Spencer Cox told ABC4 Utah he intends to sign. And both Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller have called for their respective states to end fluoridation.

“I don’t want Big Brother telling me what to do,” Miller told The Dallas Morning News in February. “Government has forced this on us for too long.”

Additionally, dozens of cities and counties have decided to stop fluoridation in the past six months — including at least 16 communities in Florida with a combined population of more than 1.6 million — according to news reports and the Fluoride Action Network, an anti-fluoride group.

Stuart Cooper, executive director of that group, said the movement’s unprecedented momentum would be further supercharged if Kennedy and the Trump administration follow through on a recommendation against fluoride.

Cooper predicted that most U.S. communities will have stopped fluoridating within years.

“I think what you are seeing in Florida, where every community is falling like dominoes, is going to now happen in the United States,” he said. “I think we’re seeing the absolute end of it.”

If Cooper’s prediction is right, Hayes said, widespread decay would be visible within years. Kids’ teeth will rot in their mouths, she said, even though “we know how to completely prevent it.”

“It’s unnecessary pain and suffering,” Hayes said. “If you go into any children’s hospital across this country, you’ll see a waiting list of kids to get into the operating room to get their teeth fixed because they have severe decay because they haven’t had access to either fluoridated water or other types of fluoride. Unfortunately, that’s just going to get worse.”

Methodology: How We Counted

This KFF Health News article identifies communities with an elevated risk of tooth decay by combining data on areas with dentist shortages and unfluoridated drinking water. Our analysis merged Harvard University research on dentist-shortage areas with large datasets on public water systems published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The

Harvard research determined that nearly 25 million Americans live in dentist-shortage areas that span much of rural America.

The CDC data details the populations served and fluoridation status of more than 38,000 public water systems in 37 states. We classified counties as having elevated risk of tooth decay if they met three criteria:

--More than half of the residents live in a dentist-shortage area identified by Harvard.

--The number of people receiving unfluoridated water from water systems based in that county amounts to more than half of the county’s population.

--The number of people receiving unfluoridated water from water systems based in that county amounts to at least half of the total population of all water systems based in that county, even if those systems reached beyond the county borders, which many do.

Our analysis identified approximately 230 counties that meet these criteria, meaning they have both a dire shortage of dentists and largely unfluoridated drinking water.

But this total is certainly an undercount. Thirteen states do not report water system data to the CDC, and the agency data does not include private wells, most of which are unfluoridated.

KFF Health News data editor Holly K. Hacker contributed to this article.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Costa Rica Ghost Net Cleanup Saves Marine Life in Puntarenas

For the Oceans Foundation successfully completed the first stage of its ghost net rescue campaign in Costa de Pájaros, Puntarenas, removing approximately 15 tons of abandoned fishing nets from the seabed, enough to nearly fill a 20-ton truck, according to social media reports and foundation statements. The initiative aims to eliminate these silent killers that […] The post Costa Rica Ghost Net Cleanup Saves Marine Life in Puntarenas appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

For the Oceans Foundation successfully completed the first stage of its ghost net rescue campaign in Costa de Pájaros, Puntarenas, removing approximately 15 tons of abandoned fishing nets from the seabed, enough to nearly fill a 20-ton truck, according to social media reports and foundation statements. The initiative aims to eliminate these silent killers that harm marine life and promote sustainable fishing practices in Costa Rica’s coastal communities, a critical step toward preserving ourcountry’s rich biodiversity. Ghost nets are abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear that continue to trap marine life, such as fish, sea turtles, dolphins, and sharks, while damaging coral reefs and seagrass beds. Globally, an estimated 640,000 tons of ghost gear pollute the oceans, contributing to 10% of oceanic litter, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. In Costa Rica, these nets threaten iconic species like the hawksbill turtle and disrupt artisanal fishing livelihoods, exacerbating ocean pollution and habitat loss. The cleanup effort united 20 artisanal fishing families, professional rescue divers, and more than 60 volunteers, showcasing community-driven conservation. The operation was led by Captain Gabriel Ramírez of UDIVE 506, with eight fishing boats navigating the Gulf of Nicoya’s challenging currents. Reportedly, organizations including the Parlamento Cívico Ambiental, ACEPESA, Coast Guard, Red Cross, IPSA, REX Cargo, and Cervecería y Bebidas San Roque provided logistical support, transportation, hydration, and assistance with sorting and processing the recovered nets. Marine Biology students from the National University (UNA) played a key role by preparing the nets for recycling, ensuring minimal environmental impact. “Each of us can contribute to the environment. This is not for me or for you—it’s for Costa Rica, for the planet, and for marine life,” said Jorge Serendero, Director of Fundación For the Oceans. This cleanup builds on Costa Rica’s leadership in marine conservation, with over 30% of its territorial waters protected as of 2021, a global benchmark. The foundation reported a tense moment when a diver became entangled in a drifting net due to strong currents. Thanks to the quick action of his colleagues, he was freed unharmed, underscoring the risks of such operations. This campaign highlights the power of collective action in protecting marine ecosystems, a priority for Costa Rica as it expands marine protected areas like Cocos Island. Fundación For the Oceans plans additional cleanups in 2025 to address ghost nets across Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. Interested individuals can contact For the Oceans Foundation at info@fortheoceansfoundation.org or +506 8875-9393 to volunteer, donate, or learn about upcoming initiatives to safeguard the oceans. The post Costa Rica Ghost Net Cleanup Saves Marine Life in Puntarenas appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

Commercial salmon season is shut down — again. Will California’s iconic fish ever recover?

While it’s an unprecedented third year in a row for no commercially caught salmon, brief windows will be allowed for sportsfishing in California.

In summary While it’s an unprecedented third year in a row for no commercially caught salmon, brief windows will be allowed for sportsfishing in California. Facing the continued collapse of Chinook salmon, officials today shut down California’s commercial salmon fishing season for an unprecedented third year in a row.  Under the decision by an interstate fisheries agency, recreational salmon fishing will be allowed in California for only brief windows of time this spring. This will be the first year that any sportfishing of Chinook has been allowed since 2022. Today’s decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council means that no salmon caught off California can be sold to retail consumers and restaurants for at least another year. In Oregon and Washington, commercial salmon fishing will remain open, although limited. “From a salmon standpoint, it’s an environmental disaster. For the fishing industry, it’s a human tragedy, and it’s also an economic disaster,” said Scott Artis, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, an industry organization that has lobbied for river restoration and improved hatchery programs.  The decline of California’s salmon follows decades of deteriorating conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year, including the Sacramento and Klamath rivers. California’s salmon are an ecological icon and a valued source of food for Native American tribes. The shutdown also has an economic toll: It has already put hundreds of commercial fishers and sportfishing boat operators out of work and affected thousands of people in communities and industries reliant on processing, selling and serving locally caught salmon.  California’s commercial fishery has never been closed for three years in a row before.  Some experts fear the conditions in California have been so poor for so long that Chinook may never rebound to fishable levels. Others remain hopeful for major recovery if the amounts of water diverted to farms and cities are reduced and wetlands kept dry by flood-control levees are restored.  This year’s recreational season includes several brief windows for fishing, including a weekend in June and another in July, or a quota of 7,000 fish.   Jared Davis, owner and operator of the Salty Lady in Sausalito, one of dozens of party boats that take paying customers fishing, thinks it’s likely that this quota will be met on the first open weekend for recreational fishing, scheduled for June 7-8.   “Obviously, the pressure is going to be intense, so everybody and their mother is going to be out on the water on those days,” he said. “When they hit that quota, it’s done.” One member of the fishery council, Corey Ridings, voted against the proposed regulations after saying she was concerned that the first weekend would overshoot the 7,000-fish quota. Davis said such a miniscule recreational season won’t help boat owners like him recover from past closures, though it will carry symbolic meaning. “It might give California anglers a glimmer of hope and keep them from selling all their rods and buying golf clubs,” he said.  “It continues to be devastating. Salmon has been the cornerstone of many of our ports for a long time.”Sarah Bates, commercial fisher based in San Francisco Sarah Bates, a commercial fisher based at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, said the ongoing closure has stripped many boat owners of most of their income.  “It continues to be devastating,” she said. “Salmon has been the cornerstone of many of our ports for a long time.” She said the shutdown also has trickle-down effects on a range of businesses that support the salmon fishery, such as fuel services, grocery stores and dockside ice machines. “We’re also seeing a sort of a third wave … the general seafood market for local products has tanked,” such as rockfish and halibut. She said that many buyers are turning to farmed and wild salmon delivered from other regions instead. Davis noted that federal emergency relief funds promised for the 2023 closure still have not arrived. “Nobody has seen a dime,” he said.  Fewer returning salmon Before the Gold Rush, several million Chinook spawned annually in the river systems of the Central Valley and the state’s northern coast. Through much of the 20th century, California’s salmon fishery formed the economic backbone of coastal fishing ports, with fishers using hook and line pulling in millions of pounds in good years.  But in 2024, just 99,274 fall-run Chinook — the most commercially viable of the Central Valley’s four subpopulations — returned to the Sacramento River and its tributaries, substantially lower than the numbers in 2023. In 2022, fewer than 70,000 returned, one of the lowest estimates ever. About 40,000 returned to the San Joaquin River. Fewer than 30,000 Chinook reached their spawning grounds in the Klamath River system, where the Hoopa, Yurok and Karuk tribes rely on the fish in years of abundance.  The decline of California’s salmon stems from nearly two centuries of damage inflicted on the rivers where salmon spend the first and final stages of their lives. Gold mining, logging and dam construction devastated watersheds. Levees constrained rivers, turning them into relatively sterile channels of fast-moving water while converting floodplains and wetlands into irrigated farmland.  Today, many of these impacts persist, along with water diversions, reduced flows and elevated river temperatures that frequently spell death for fertilized eggs and juvenile fish. The future of California salmon is murky Peter Moyle, a UC Davis fish biologist and professor emeritus, said recovery of self-sustaining populations may be possible in some tributaries of the Sacramento River.  “There are some opportunities for at least keeping runs going in parts of the Central Valley, but getting naturally spawning fish back in large numbers, I just can’t see it happening,” he said. Jacob Katz, a biologist with the group California Trout, holds out hope for a future of flourishing Sacramento River Chinook. “We could have vibrant fall-run populations in a decade,” he said.  That will require major habitat restoration involving dam removals, reconstruction of levee systems to revive wetlands and floodplains, and reduced water diversions for agriculture — all measures fraught with cost, regulatory constraints, and controversy.  “There are some opportunities for at least keeping (salmon) runs going in parts of the Central Valley, but getting naturally spawning fish back in large numbers, I just can’t see it happening.”Peter moyle, uc davis fish biologist State officials, recognizing the risk of extinction, have promoted salmon recovery as a policy goal for years. In early 2024, the Newsom administration released its California Salmon Strategy for a Hotter, Drier Future, a 37-page catalogue of proposed actions to mitigate environmental impacts and restore flows and habitat, all in the face of a warming environment.  Artis of Golden State Salmon Association said the state’s salmon strategy includes some important items but leaves out equally critical ones, like protecting minimum required flows for fish — what Artis said are threatened by proposed water projects endorsed by the Newsom administration. “It fails to include some of the upcoming salmon-killing projects that the governor is pushing like Sites Reservoir and the Delta tunnel, and it ignores the fact that the Voluntary Agreements are designed to allow massive diversions of water,” he said. Experts agree that an important key to rebuilding salmon runs is increasing the frequency and duration of shallow flooding in riverside riparian areas, or even fallow rice paddies — a program Katz has helped develop through his career.  On such seasonal floodplains, a shallow layer of water can help trigger an explosion of photosynthesis and food production, ultimately providing nutrition for juvenile salmon as they migrate out of the river system each spring.  Through meetings with farmers, urban water agencies and government officials, Rene Henery, California science director with Trout Unlimited, has helped draft an ambitious salmon recovery plan dubbed “Reorienting to Recovery.” Featuring habitat restoration, carefully managed harvests and generously enhanced river flows — especially in dry years — this framework, Henery said, could rebuild diminished Central Valley Chinook runs to more than 1.6 million adult fish per year over a 20-year period.  He said adversaries — often farmers and environmentalists — must shift from traditional feuds over water to more collaborative programs of restoring productive watersheds while maintaining productive agriculture. As the recovery needle for Chinook moves in the wrong direction, Katz said deliberate action is urgent.  “We’re balanced on the edge of losing these populations,” he said. “We have to go big now. We have no other option.” more about salmon ‘No way, not possible’: California has a plan for new water rules. Will it save salmon from extinction? by Alastair Bland December 16, 2024December 16, 2024 A third straight year with no California salmon fishing?  Early fish counts suggest it could happen by Alastair Bland October 30, 2024October 30, 2024

Weedkiller maker moves to settle suit over claims that its product causes Parkinson’s

Syngenta has been besieged by lawsuits from people claiming its product caused the neurological diseaseBesieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s disease, its manufacturer, Syngenta, has entered into an agreement aimed at settling large swaths of those claims.A court filing yesterday confirmed that a letter of agreement between the parties had been signed. In a court hearing on Tuesday, one of the lead plaintiff lawyers, Khaldoun Baghdadi, said the terms of the settlement should be completed within 30 days. Continue reading...

Besieged by thousands of lawsuits alleging that its paraquat weedkiller causes Parkinson’s disease, its manufacturer, Syngenta, has entered into an agreement aimed at settling large swaths of those claims.A court filing yesterday confirmed that a letter of agreement between the parties had been signed. In a court hearing on Tuesday, one of the lead plaintiff lawyers, Khaldoun Baghdadi, said the terms of the settlement should be completed within 30 days.Syngenta did not respond to a request for comment.The move to settle comes amid mounting calls from state and federal lawmakers to ban paraquat, and as growing numbers of Parkinson’s patients blame the company for not warning them of paraquat risks. Numerous scientific studies have linked Parkinson’s to exposure to paraquat, a weedkiller commonly used in agriculture, though Syngenta has said the weight of scientific evidence shows its pesticide does not cause the disease.In response to past reporting, the company said that no “peer-reviewed scientific publication has established a causal connection between paraquat and Parkinson’s disease”.The agreement would not resolve all of the cases filed in the United States against Syngenta, but could resolve the majority of them.As of mid-April, there were more than 5,800 active lawsuits pending in what is known as multidistrict litigation (MDL) being overseen by a federal court in Illinois. There were more than 450 other cases filed in California, and many more scattered in state courts around the country.The agreement notice applies to people whose lawsuits are part of the MDL, and could provide settlements for plaintiffs in the cases outside the MDL as well, said Baghdadi.Syngenta’s effort to settle the litigation before any high-profile trials comes after Monsanto’s owner, Bayer, was rocked by similar litigation alleging its Roundup weedkiller causes cancer. After the company lost the first Roundup trial, its stock price plummeted, and Bayer has spent years and billions of dollars fighting to end the ongoing litigation.Lawyers for paraquat plaintiffs in cases outside the MDL expressed frustration with the situation, saying they were not included in the settlement discussions, and were not being given details about the settlement.They fear their cases may be delayed or otherwise negatively affected by a settlement that benefits some plaintiffs but may not actually provide value to the majority of them.“These plaintiffs are dying every day,” Majed Nachawati, a lawyer whose clients are outside the MDL, told a judge in a California court hearing on Tuesday on the matter. He said the news of the settlement was a “shock” because he was not apprised of the settlement negotiations by the other plaintiffs’ lawyers, as he should have been.Paraquat has become one of the most widely used weed-killing chemicals in the world. In the United States, the chemical is used in orchards, wheat fields, pastures where livestock graze, cotton fields and elsewhere.Internal Syngenta documents revealed by the Guardian and the New Lede show the company was aware many years ago of scientific evidence that paraquat could affect the brain in ways that cause Parkinson’s, and that it secretly sought to influence scientific research to counter the evidence of harm.This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group

A New Bee Crisis Could Make Your Food Scarce and Expensive

Scientists are racing to stop a tiny mite that could devastate the pollinators and agriculture

Sammy Ramsey was having a hard time getting information. It was 2019, and he was in Thailand, researching parasites that kill bees. But Ramsey was struggling to get one particular Thai beekeeper to talk to him. In nearby bee yards, Ramsey had seen hives overrun with pale, ticklike creatures, each one smaller than a sharpened pencil point, scuttling at ludicrous speed. For each parasite on the hive surface, there were exponentially more hidden from view inside, feasting on developing bees. But this quiet beekeeper’s colonies were healthy. Ramsey, an entomologist, wanted to know why.The tiny parasites were a honeybee pest from Asia called tropilaelaps mites—tropi mites for short. In 2024 their presence was confirmed in Europe for the first time, and scientists are certain the mites will soon appear in the Americas. They can cause an epic collapse of honeybee populations that could devastate farms across the continent. Honeybees are essential agricultural workers. Trucked by their keepers from field to field, they help farmers grow more than 130 crops—from nuts to fruits to vegetables to alfalfa hay for cattle—worth more than $15 billion annually. If tropi mites kill those bees, the damage to the farm economy would be staggering.Other countries have already felt the effects of the mite. The parasites blazed a murderous path through Southeast Asia and India in the 1960s and 1970s. Because crops are smaller and more diverse there than in giant American farms, the economic effects of the mite were felt mainly by beekeepers, who experienced massive colony losses soon after tropilaelaps arrived. The parasite spread through northern Asia, the Middle East, Oceania and Central Asia. And now Europe. That sighting sounded alarms on this side of the Atlantic because the ocean won’t serve as a barrier for long. Mites can stow away on ships, on smuggled or imported bees. “The acceleration of the tropi mite’s spread has become so clear that no one can deny it’s gunning for us,” said Ramsey, now an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, on the Beekeeping Today podcast in 2023.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Ramsey, who is small and energetic like the creatures he studies, had traveled to Thailand in 2019 to gather information on techniques that the country’s beekeepers, who had lived with the mite for decades, were using to keep their bees alive. But the silent keeper he was interviewing was reluctant to share. Maybe the man feared this nosy foreigner would give away his beekeeping secrets—Ramsey didn’t know.But then the keeper’s son tapped his father on the shoulder. “I think that’s Black Thai,” he said, pointing at Ramsey. On his phone, the young man pulled up a video that showed Ramsey’s YouTube alter ego, “Black Thai,” singing a Thai pop song with a gospel lilt. Ramsey, who is Black—and “a scientist, a Christian, queer, a singer,” he says—had taught himself the language by binging Thai movies and music videos. Now that unusual hobby was coming in handy.Without bees the almond yield drops drastically. Other foods, such as apples, cherries, blueberries, and some pit fruits and vine fruits, are similarly dependent on bee pollination.The reticent keeper started to speak. “His face lit up,” Ramsey recalls. “He got really talkative.” The keeper described, in detail, the technique he was using to keep mite populations down. It involved an industrial version of a caustic acid naturally produced by ants. Ramsey thinks the substance might be a worldwide key to fighting the mite, a menace that is both tiny and colossal at the same time.Ramsey first saw a tropilaelaps mite in 2017, also in Thailand. He had traveled there to study another damaging parasite of honeybees, the aptly named Varroa destructor mites. But when he opened his first hive, he instead saw the stunning effect of tropilaelaps. Stunted bees were crawling across the hive frames, and the next-generation brood of cocooned pupae were staring out of their hexagonal cells in the hive with purple-pigmented eyes, exposed to the elements after their infested cell caps had been chewed away by nurse bees in a frenzy to defend the colony. At the hive entrances, bees were trembling on the ground or wandering in drunken circles. Their wings and legs were deformed, abdomens misshapen, and their bodies had a greasy sheen where hairs had worn off. The colony was doomed. “I was told there was no saving that one,” Ramsey says. He had never seen anything like it.When he got home, he started reading up on the mites. There was not much to read. Somewhere in Southeast Asia in the middle of the last century, two of four known species of tropilaelaps (Tropilaelaps mercedesae and T. clareae) had jumped to European honeybees from Apis dorsata, the giant honeybee with which it evolved in Asia. Parasites will not, in their natural settings, kill their hosts, “for the same reason you don’t want to burn your house down,” Ramsey said at a beekeeping conference in 2023. “You live there.”A tiny tropi mite (on bee at left) crawls on a bee.The giant honeybees in Asia, a species not used in commercial beekeeping, long ago had reached a mutual accommodation with the mites. But the European bees that Asian beekeepers raised to make honey were entirely naïve to the parasites. When the mites encountered one of those colonies, they almost always killed it. Because beekeepers cluster their beehives in apiaries, moving them en masse from one bee yard to the next, the mite could survive the loss of its host colony by jumping to a new one. “It would normally destroy itself,” Ramsey said at the conference, “if not for us.”Kept alive by human beekeepers, the mite moved through Asia, across the Middle East and, most recently, to the Ukraine-Russia border and to the country of Georgia. “It is westward expanding, it is eastward expanding, it is northward expanding,” says University of Alberta honeybee biologist Olav Rueppell. This move into Europe is ominous, Ramsey and Rueppell say. Canada has, in the past, imported queen bees from Ukraine. If the mite arrived in Canada on a Ukrainian bee, it could be a matter of only weeks or months before it crossed the northern U.S. border.Today between a quarter and half of U.S. bees die every year, forcing keepers to continually buy replacement “packages” of bees and queens to rebuild.The almond industry would be especially hard-hit by the mite. Two thirds of the national herd of commercial bees—about two million colonies—are trucked to California’s Central Valley every February to pollinate nearly 1.5 million acres of almond trees. Without bees the almond yield drops drastically. Other foods, such as apples, cherries, blueberries, and some pit fruits and vine fruits, are similarly dependent on bee pollination. We wouldn’t starve without them: corn, wheat and rice, for instance, are pollinated by wind. But fruits and nuts, as well as vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, celery, cucumbers and herbs, would become more scarce and more expensive. Because the cattle industry depends on alfalfa and clover for feed, beef and dairy products would also cost a lot more.Damage from tropilaelaps, many experts say, could vastly exceed the harm seen from its predecessor pest, the V. destructor mite. The varroa scourge arrived in the U.S. in 1987, when a Wisconsin beekeeper noticed a reddish-brown, ticklike creature riding on the back of one of his bees. Like tropilaelaps, varroa mites originated in Asia and then swept across the world. At first beekeepers were able to keep managed colonies alive with the help of easy-to-apply synthetic pesticides. But by 2005 the mites developed resistance to those chemicals, and beekeepers suffered the first wave of what has become a tsunami of losses. Today between a quarter and half of U.S. bees die every year, forcing keepers to continually buy replacement “packages” of bees and queens to rebuild. This past winter keepers saw average losses ranging upward of 70 percent. Scientists believe varroa mites are culprits in most of those losses, making bees susceptible to a variety of environmental insults, from mite-vectored viruses to fungal infections to pesticides. “In the old days we were shouting and swearing if we had an 8 percent dud rate; now people would be happy with that,” says beekeeper John Miller. He serves on the board of Project Apis m. (PAm), a bee-research organization that is a joint venture of the beekeeping and almond industries and was one of Ramsey’s early funders.When Ramsey joined the University of Maryland’s bee laboratory as a grad student in 2014, he began working on varroa. He discovered that the mites fed not on the bloodlike hemolymph of adult bees, as generations of scientists before him had assumed, but on “fat bodies,” organs similar to the liver. “For the past 70 years research done around varroa mites was based on the wrong information,” Ramsey says. (Recently published research indicates that the mites also feed on hemolymph while reproducing in a developing brood.)Ramsey’s finding helped to explain how varroa mites make the effects of all the other insults to honeybee health—pesticides, pathogens, poor nutrition—so much worse. Honeybees’ detoxification and immune systems reside in the fat bodies, which also store the nutrients responsible for growth and for protein and fat synthesis. Bees’ livers protect them from pesticides, Ramsey says. But when varroa mites attack honeybee livers, the pollinators succumb to pesticide exposures that would not ordinarily kill them.Entomologist Sammy Ramsey says such mites can destroy the American bee population.Now Ramsey is going after tropilaelaps as well as varroa mites. He continues his research into countermeasures and teaches both entomology and science communication classes in Boulder. In the years since he first sang as Black Thai, he has also become “Dr. Sammy,” a popular science communicator who is using his growing social media platform to sound the alarm about the parasites.In April 2024 I was watching him lead a graduate seminar when his watch chimed. “There’s a freezer alert in my lab,” he said. The temperature appeared to be off. We climbed the stairs to his lab overlooking the university’s soccer fields and examined the freezer, which didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. Inside, stacked in boxes, lay an extensive archive of honeybees and mites that prey on them. Ramsey pulled out a tube of tropi mites.It was easy to see the enormity—or rather the minusculity—of the problem. The mites are about half a millimeter wide, one-third the size of varroa—“on the margins of what we are capable of seeing with the unassisted eye,” Ramsey says. Seen on video, they crawl so quickly that it looks as if the film speed has been doubled or tripled. Unlike varroa mites, which are brownish-red and relatively easy to spot, to the naked eye tropi mites are “almost devoid of color,” says Natasha Garcia-Andersen, a biologist for the city of Washington, D.C., who traveled to Thailand in January 2024 with a group of North American apiary inspectors to learn about the mites. “You see it, and you can’t tell—Is that a mite or dirt or debris?”Auburn University entomologist Geoff Williams led that Thailand mission. “There’s a decent chance that inspectors might be the first ones to identify a tropi mite in North America,” Williams says. The Thailand journey allowed them to see firsthand what they might soon be contending with. “It was eye-opening, watching these bee inspectors saying, ‘Holy crap, look at these tiny mites. How are you supposed to see that?’”Daniel P. Huffman; Source: Mallory Jordan and Stephanie Rogers, Auburn University. November 5, 2024, map hosted by Apiary Inspectors of America (reference); Data curated by: Rogan Tokach, Dan Aurell, Geoff Williams/Auburn University; Samantha Brunner/North Dakota Department of Agriculture; Natasha Garcia-­Andersen/District of Columbia Department of Energy and the EnvironmentRather than looking for the mites, Thai beekeepers diagnose tropilaelaps infestations by examining the state of their bees, says Samantha Muirhead, provincial apiculturist for the government of Alberta, Canada, and another of the inspectors on the Thailand expedition. “You see the damage,” she says—uncapped brood cells, chewed-up pupae, ailing adults. An unaccustomed North American beekeeper, however, would probably attribute the destruction to varroa mites. “You have to change the way you’re looking,” she says.Williams and his team at Auburn are also investigating alternative ways of detection. They are working to develop environmental DNA tests to identify the presence of tropilaelaps DNA in hives. Inspectors would swab the frames or bottom boards of “sentinel hives”—surveillance colonies—to detect an invasion. But any systematic monitoring for tropi mites using this kind of DNA is still years away.For now scientists are struggling to formulate a plan of action against a menace they don’t fully understand. “We have this huge void of knowledge,” says California beekeeper and researcher Randy Oliver. Scientists don’t know how the mites spread between colonies. Where do they go when colonies swarm? No one has any idea. Can they infect other vulnerable bee species? Do they feed on fat bodies, hemolymph, some combination of the two, or something else entirely? Studies show that tropi mites carry at least two of the same viruses as varroa mites. How many more might they carry? “Part of the rush to action now is the paucity of information,” Rueppell says.Existing varroa research does provide some knowledge by analogy, but there are several differences between the two mites. Varroa mite populations double in a month, for instance, but tropilaelaps populations do so in a matter of days. Varroa mites tend to bite their bee victims only once; tropi mites feed from multiple entry wounds, creating disabling scar tissue. And for many years scientists thought tropi mites couldn’t survive in colder climates like that of the northern U.S., because the parasites appeared to have a significant evolutionary disadvantage compared with varroa: Tropi mites can feed only on developing bees because their small mouths can’t penetrate adult bee exoskeletons. Queens stop laying eggs in cold weather, so in theory tropi mites shouldn’t have enough food to last the winter. But about a decade ago the mites were found in colder regions of Korea—and then in northern China and Georgia. “We thought they wouldn’t survive in colonies that overwinter,” says Jeff Pettis, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture research scientist who now heads Apimondia, an international beekeeping federation. “We know they get through the winter now,” he says. Scientists just don’t know how.“It’s worse than varroa, and I don’t think we’ll ever be prepared fully.” —John Miller, beekeeperOne theory is that the mites disperse onto mice or rats that move into beehives during the cold months—the 1961 paper that first described tropilaelaps noted there were mites on rats in the Philippines. Scientists are exploring other overwintering theories as well. Perhaps the mites feed for brief, broodless periods on other pests in the hive, such as hive beetles and wax moths.Another possibility, highlighted by Williams’s recent research, is that more bee larvae may persist in colder climates than previously thought, perhaps enough to feed the mites. His team has found small amounts of brood snug in wax-covered cells in hives as far north as New York State and Oregon in the winter. “My gut feeling is that these colonies might have a little bit of brood through the winter,” Williams says.In 2022 Ramsey returned to Thailand and set up several research apiaries for what he calls his “Fight the Mite” initiative, testing different treatments to kill tropi mites. It isn’t easy. Whereas varroa mites live on adult bees for much of their life cycle, tropi mites live mostly inside brood cells, safe from most pesticides, which can’t penetrate the wax-capped hexagons.A close-up view of a tropi mite.But Ramsey learned from the Thai beekeepers he met on his 2019 visit that many of them had been using formic acid, the compound produced by ants that can get into capped cells. The beekeepers had been dipping paint stirrers in industrial-grade cans of the stuff and sticking the blades under hive entrances. Fumes then seeped through the wax caps and killed the mites. Ramsey experimented with various formulations and applications in 2022 and found that this method worked, although the chemical is highly volatile, caustic and difficult to apply. It’s hard on both bees and beekeepers. “Heat treatments”—heating hives to more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit for two-plus hours—also took a dent out of mite populations in Ramsey’s tests.Williams, meanwhile, has been studying “cultural techniques” for controlling the mites, such as strategic breaks in brood cycles. Beekeepers in Thailand typically keep fewer bees in relatively small colonies, much tinier than the thousands or tens of thousands that some North American commercial outfits maintain. And when mite loads get bad, some Thai beekeepers also will discard their brood completely and start over. “They’re not afraid to quite literally throw away brood frames when they have mites,” Williams says.These strategies are difficult to apply at the scale of North American industrial apiculture. But large commercial outfits, which can keep anywhere from dozens to tens of thousands of colonies, may be able to adopt other tactics such as “indoor shedding”—storing all their hives in refrigerated sheds for a number of weeks to force an extended brood break. It’s likely that an effective approach will employ not one silver bullet but rather some combination of strategies—chemicals, heat, brood breaks—to avoid developing resistance. “You want to be able to rotate treatments to pound away at the mite,” Oliver says.Honeybees crawl over a comb of hexagonal hive cells, some filled with honey and pollen.These different techniques highlight the need for both varied approaches and, Ramsey believes, a varied group of scientists attacking the problem. “To study insects is to study diversity,” Ramsey says. “It is not a glitch in biology that the most successful group of animals on this planet is the most diverse group of animals. One of the key features of diversity is the capacity to solve problems in different ways.” To stave off the tropi mite, scientists will need to attack the problem from every angle they can conceive.On an afternoon in late May 2024, Ramsey, clad in a protective suit, opened a test hive in a holding yard on the east side of Boulder. The last cold day of spring was behind us, and everything had come into bloom at once—a riot of flowering locust, linden, lilac; glowing hay fields; distant, rock-spiked mountains curving northward out of sight. Massive bumblebees flew from flower to flower on a black locust tree above us, hovering like dark blimps in the sky.These were supposed to be Ramsey’s “pampered” bees, a control group to compare with more infested hives. They had, of course, been spared the ravages of tropi mites, which were still an ocean away. But they had been given frequent treatments for varroa mites. On the first frame Ramsey pulled, however, he saw sick bees everywhere. “This young lady clearly has a virus,” he said, noting a female’s “greasy,” prematurely bald abdomen. He pointed to a sinister dot the color of dried blood between another bee’s wings: a varroa mite. The bees were cranky, swooping and dive-bombing, and there weren’t enough brood cells on the frame. Ramsey sang to the bees in his gospel-tinged tenor, puffing at the hive with his smoker. “It seems like some of our best treatments for varroa mite are failing,” he said, examining another frame.The American practice of beekeeping is built on abundance—stacks of bee boxes, fields of flowers, vats of honey, teeming hives and expanses of wax-capped brood. But in Thailand, where tropilaelaps has been established for decades, beekeeping often is an exercise in scarcity—small colonies, meager honey production, uncapped pupae. Beekeepers there think far less about varroa mites than they worry about tropilaelaps, which outcompeted varroa years ago.There are so many threats facing modern honeybees—a daunting diversity, and we are ready for none of them. In 2023 the Georgia Department of Agriculture confirmed the presence of the yellow-legged hornet—Vespa velutina—in the U.S. Like the northern giant “murder” hornet found in Washington State in 2019 and declared eradicated in the U.S. last year, the yellow-legged insect is a “terrible beast,” says PAm executive director Danielle Downey. It hovers in front of beehives—a behavior called hawking—and rips the heads, abdomens and wings from returning foragers like a hunter field-dressing game. Then the hornet takes the thorax back to its nest. When the hornet first arrived in Europe, beekeepers lost 50 to 80 percent of their colonies. “The thing eats everything. One nest can eat 25 pounds of insects,” Downey says. “We’ve identified a lot of problems. How many crises can we handle?”In the spring of 2024, when the research paper confirming tropi mites were in Europe was published, Canada suspended all imports of Ukrainian hives and queens. For now that means this route for the mite’s arrival in North America is off the table. But trade—legal or surreptitious—could start again, and with the mites’ ferocious reproduction rates, it takes only one female to infect an entire continent. So this reprieve is probably only temporary. “We know the pathway and the threat it poses,” Downey says.A beekeeper with an infestation could spread the mite across the continent within a year; beehive die-offs would probably begin several months later. “It’s worse than varroa, and I don’t think we’ll ever be prepared fully,” Miller says.But Ramsey and his colleagues are racing to make sure they know every option available to them—formic acid, heat treatments, rotation, brood breaks—so that when the tropilaelaps mite does, at last, inevitably arrive, they will be ready. Researchers and beekeepers, Ramsey says, are trying to murder these parasites.

Agriculture Department cancels $3B grant program for climate-friendly crops

The Trump administration canceled a $3.1 billion grant program for climate-friendly crops, the Agriculture Department announced Monday. In a press release, the department said that it was canceling Biden-era Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which funded 141 projects that sought to advance climate-friendly farming practices. Projects funded under the program supported things like planting cover crops, which...

The Trump administration canceled a $3.1 billion grant program for climate-friendly crops, the Agriculture Department announced Monday.  In a press release, the department said that it was canceling Biden-era Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which funded 141 projects that sought to advance climate-friendly farming practices. Projects funded under the program supported things like planting cover crops, which prevent soil erosion, and managing soil nutrients to minimize farming’s environmental impacts.  The Biden administration estimated that the program would reach more than 60,000 farms and cut more than 60 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of taking 12 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year. However, the Trump administration said that most of the projects “had sky-high administration fees which in many instances provided less than half of the federal funding directly to farmers.” It also said that “select projects” could continue if they can show that a “significant” amount of their funds will go to farmers. “The Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative was largely built to advance the green new scam at the benefit of NGOs, not American farmers,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in a written statement.  “I have heard directly from our farmers that many of the USDA partnerships are overburdened by red tape, have ambiguous goals, and require complex reporting that push farmers onto the sidelines,” Rollins added.  The cancellation comes amid a broader effort from the Trump administration to axe funding for climate- and environment-related programs. 

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