Pesticides have
been mass-murdering bees all over the world. As a
result, farms, nurseries, and orchards in many places
rely on commercial shipments of bees in order to
pollinate their crops. Otherwise, we wouldn't
have apples, oranges, blueberries, watermelons, almonds,
and more. Delta Airlines is fairly familiar with this
situation. Many times in the past, it has handled
shipments of millions of bees, heading from Sacramento,
California to beekeepers in Anchorage, Alaska. But last
month was different. This time, Delta
neglected the pollinators to death. It abandoned
crates filled with five million pollinators to
starve and bake to death on an airport tarmac — in hot
Atlanta, Georgia.
The whole
catastrophe started when Delta rerouted the
bees. Then, it delayed their travel to the
correct destination for days. And finally, it
ignored their care instructions. Delta was
fully aware from previous shipments that the bees had to
be kept cool, with temperature control, and to have easy
access to their food sources. Yet personnel stacked the
bees' hundreds of crates out directly in the Atlanta
sun, where it was upwards of 80 degrees outside
— far too hot for the little captive creatures.
Then, the airline just left
them there.
East
Coast beekeepers tried to rush to the bees' rescue, but
it was already too late. By the time the first
helper arrived, a full one-quarter of the bees had died.
By the end of the day, very few remained alive at all.
Those that survived found new homes with Georgia-based
beekeepers and nurseries. Delta has supposedly
apologized to the Alaska beekeeper who coordinates such
shipments, and she is filing a reimbursement claim with
the corporation after its epic, deadly mishandling. But
that's not sufficient: millions of lives have still been
lost. The pollinators of the world
need Delta to take real responsibility. Delta must
immediately commit to helping bees by donating to
bee-protecting projects! Sign the petition if you
agree.
