DUBAI: About 5 million honeybees bound for Alaska last weekend got waylaid when Delta Air Lines routed them through Atlanta.
Most of the bees died after being left for hours in crates on the ground during hot weather.
The bees were the first of two shipments ordered by Alaska beekeeper Sarah McElrea from a distributor in California. The bees were to be used to pollinate apple orchards and nurseries in Alaska, where they are not native.
But the bees were bumped from their original route to Anchorage, Alaska, and instead put on a flight to Atlanta, where they were to be transferred to an Anchorage-bound plane, according to Alaska Public Media.
McElrea said she worried when the 800-pound shipment didn’t arrive in Atlanta in time to make the connecting flight. The next day, she said, Delta told her some bees had escaped, so airline workers put the crates holding the bees outside.
In a panic, McElrea reached a beekeeper in Atlanta, who rushed to the airport and discovered that most of the bees had died from the heat, according to McElrea.
Delta called it an “unfortunate situation.”
In an emailed statement, Delta spokeswoman Catherine Morrow told The Associated Press on Friday that that the airline “was made aware of the shipment situation ... and quickly engaged the appropriate internal teams to assess the situation. We have taken immediate action to implement new measures to ensure events of this nature do not occur in the future.”
Morrow said Delta apologized to McElrea. The airline declined to make anyone available for an interview.
The beekeeper in Atlanta, Edward Morgan, called more than a dozen people to go to the airport and try to save any bees that were still alive.
“This is a disaster,” Gina Galucci of the Georgia Beekeepers Association told Atlanta broadcaster WABE. “We did mobilize very, very quickly. We did that because we know they’re going to die.”
McElrea, who runs a business called Sarah’s Alaska Honey, told The New York Times that she had received previous shipments of honeybees on Delta from Sacramento, California, to Anchorage via Seattle many times. The airline told her that last weekend’s shipment didn’t fit on the plane, so they were rerouted through Atlanta.
McElrea said her supplier in California will replace the shipment, which was worth about $48,000. She said she is hoping Delta provides some help, although she acknowledged that shipping live animals carries risk.
Millions of bees used in pollination die in airline shipping
https://arab.news/wq3ep
Millions of bees used in pollination die in airline shipping
- The bees were the first of two shipments ordered by Alaska beekeeper Sarah McElrea from a distributor in California
- The bees were to be used to pollinate apple orchards and nurseries in Alaska, where they are not native
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
