Retire that metaphor!

On reflection, I think it's time to retire the metaphor of canary in the mine, at least in our assessment of environmental well-being. I nominated honey bees for that role a couple of days ago, and their disappearance is dramatic and ominous. But any review of the range of precipitous species decline and destruction offers so many other candidates for that grim distinction that I imagine a mine more full of innocent birds and beasts than miners. Consider only the birds. I don't know how canaries are faring, but Audubon Society research published in 2004 says 70 percent of grassland bird species, 36 percent of shrub-land birds and 25 percent of forest birds are declining.