It's Not Just the Bees: Bayer's Pesticide May Harm Birds Too

It is not just bees which are disappearing in vast numbers across Europe; a recent EU report found that over 300 million European birds have vanished in just 20 years.

Blue Tit

A recent EU/ BTP/ RSPB report confirms that over 300,000,000 birds are missing from the EU annual census of farmland/ garden birds. Where have they gone? What killed them? In the UK the RSPB and BTO surveyed 19 species of common farmland birds and discovered that all 19 species had declined by an average of at least 50-60% in the last 20 years. Some species have declined far more: skylarks are down by 86%, partridges by 90% - and the decline is getting steeper. Sparrows have declined by 16% in just one year (2012).
Source

Swallow

Once again this spring, farmers will begin planting at least 140 million acres—a land mass roughly equal to the combined footprints of California and Washington state—with seeds (mainly corn and soy) treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Commercial landscapers and home gardeners will get into the act, too—neonics are common in lawn and garden products. If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know all of that is probably bad news for honeybees and other pollinators, as a growing body of research shows—including three studies released just ahead of last year's planting season.

But bees aren't the only iconic springtime creature threatened by the ubiquitous pesticide, whose biggest makers are the European giants Bayer and Syngenta. It turns out that birds are too, according to an alarming analysis co-authored by Pierre Mineau, a retired senior research scientist at Environment Canada (Canada's EPA), published by the American Bird Conservancy. And not just birds themselves, but also the water-borne insect species that serve as a major food source for birds, fish, and amphibians.

The article isn't peer-reviewed, but Mineau is a formidable scientist. In February, he published a peer-reviewed paper in PLoS One concluding that pesticides, and not habitat loss, have likely been driving bird-population declines in the United States.

That paper didn't delve into specific pesticides. For his American Bird Conservancy paper, Mineau and his co-author, Cynthia Palmer, looked at a range of research on the effects of neonics on birds and water-borne insects, from papers by independent researchers to industry-funded studies used in the EPA's deregulation process and obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
For the most vulnerable bird species, they found, consuming even two corn seeds coated with Bayer's blockbuster neonic clothianidin can have lethal effects. ...
By Tom Philpott

It is time to STOP supporting the pesticide companies by buying their products! By buying non-organic food you are still supporting the pesticide industry! Please stop NOW and save all the wild species we have left before its TOO LATE! Please start growing your own food and buy organic food especially the one locally produced.

The main problem is the loss of habitat. We replaced rich biodiverse environment with mono-crop fields and on top of that we poison all the insects these birds feed on. The most deadly of all pesticides are the Neonicotinoids which are proven to cause Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in Honey Bees. US alone had 50% honey bee loses only this year! Are there people out there who do not feel that this IS natural catastrophe? 

Make sure you dont use pesticides and make sure your government knows that you are against the use of pesticides

Its not just banning Neonics that is needed to save the catastrophe we are creating. The main reason for the use of pesticides IS the mono-crop agriculture! Loss of bio-diverse habitat leads to pests attacking mono-crops.

We must realize this and give up on such devastating agriculture and adapt and develop and support local small scale organic farming based on biodiversity where farmers plant for the nature NOT against it.

We need a government which will encourage such small scale farmers by lowering their taxes for the first 20 years (approximate time needed to rebuild a damaged eco-system).

We need a government issuing a law which is against animal abuse in form of pesticide use and habitat loss.

Once the Neonicotinoid pesticides are banned it is time for the big action; to ban large scale mono-crop agriculture.

We can change our agriculture methods towards a sustainable biodiverse one if we only want to. We have such advanced technology ... hell, we have satellites orbiting around the earth ... we have robot vehicles on Mars! No one can convince me that we cant create a sustainable biodiverse agriculture which creates even more food as we have now, with less food wasting that is (bought, grown locally).

By buying organic food and growing some yourself you are directly acting against the pesticide use.

Be wise, be aware, bee friendly :)

Lets not be the generation which killed its own Mother!