Weekly Reader | Lead Story

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ishermen may soon become an endangered species on the U.S. west coast. The Chinook salmon population that the fishermen catch in the waters of the Pacific Ocean from northern Oregon to Mexico has collapsed by 75 percent this winter. The U.S. government will almost certainly cancel this year’s four–month salmon fishing season, which would normally begin May 1.

The collapse of the salmon population is the latest in a series of mysterious wildlife vanishing acts. Two years ago, U.S. beekeepers began noticing the disappearance of honeybee hives across the country. At last count, nearly one quarter of the country’s 2.4 million colonies of honeybees had died from what scientists call colony collapse disorder (CCD).

Then, last year, scientists began receiving reports of bats dying by the thousands in the U.S. northeast. The die–off has hit at least eight major bat nesting sites in New York and Vermont. One hard–hit cave, which was once the home of 15,000 bats, has only 1,500 now.

So far, no one has come up with a clear–cut explanation for any of the die–offs. Many, but not all, of the dying bats have a white fungus growing on them, which takes the form of a white ring circling their noses. But, ask scientists, is the fungus the prime cause of the deaths? Or are the bats vulnerable to the fungus because they are already weak for some other reason?

Scientists probing CCD believe the honeybees may be the victims of anything from pesticides to a foreign virus to mites. Or, possibly, a combination of all those factors may be to blame.

The same may also be true for the salmon crash. Some scientists think that recent ocean currents have failed to bring young salmon their usual feast of plankton and krill, and the fish died of starvation. But some fishermen say the California government has mismanaged the state’s rivers, draining them of so much water that salmon can’t survive in them.

“We used to think that the major threat to wildlife species around the world was loss of habitat,” Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, told Weekly Reader. “We now realize that other factors are becoming involved, such as the spread of diseases and diseases from other countries.”

Might global warming be one of those factors? “We can’t say for certain but we suspect it is,” says Dinerstein. “So we should do all that we can to keep Earth’s temperature within a safe range for people and wildlife.”

What effect might a disappeance of salmon, honeybees, and bats have on the environment as a whole?

Check out this video about California researchers who are conducting breeding experiments so the state has enough honeybees to pollinate its crops.

Check out how bat researchers used a night vision camera to see what goes on in the largest bat hibernation mine in Pennsylvania.

Bats, Salmon, and Honeybees have gone missing. Can you find them—and other words related to the story “Lost”—in this word search?

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