It sounds like a science fiction movie.

 Mysterious diseases pop up and threaten the world's food supply. Time is running out for our hero to save the day...

 But this is real.

Some of the animals most central to food production are disappearing under strange circumstances and at alarming rates recently. NRDC has been focused on the frightening phenomenon of abandoned bee hives that has come to be called colony collapse disorder (CCD). And bats are succumbing to a different mystery illness, descriptively named white-nose syndrome for the tell-tale powder found on the dead.

Sadly, there is no hero in this story. Though lately, there have been some hopeful plot twists lately:

Envirovore reports that the Farm Bill has, for the first time, money devoted to pollinator conservation. While the nearly $13 million in honeybee protections and research are a pittance compared to the $15 billion dollar role that the insects play in our food economy, it is good to see the problem gaining profile in DC.

And the EPA has been responding to our Freedom of Information Act suit to get information on a pesticide that might be contributing to CCD available to the public and researchers. We still have not gotten all the information that we are seeking, but the government has posted about half of the documents we requested on their Web site.

There are more pressing problems out there right now.

But in the long run, not many of them have the same horrific outcomes as the loss of pollinators. After all, honeybees alone are responsible for pollinating the food in one out of every three mouthfuls chomped in America.

There is hope for a heartwarming date movie ending as long as we can keep national funding and attention on these essential critters.

Photo by David Blaikie