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Not Just the Bees: Bayer's Pesticide May Harm Birds, Too
By Tom Philpott| Wed Mar. 27, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
Once again this spring, farmers will begin planting at least 140 million acresa land mass roughly equal to the combined footprints of California and Washington statewith seeds (mainly corn and soy) treated with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Commercial landscapers and home gardeners will get into the act, tooneonics 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 showsincluding 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.
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.
Full Article: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/03/not-just-bees-bayers-pesticide-may-harm-birds-too
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Not Just the Bees: Bayer's Pesticide May Harm Birds, Too (Original Post)
polly7
Mar 2013
OP
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)1. The ill effects run all the way up to people too.
Are harvested crops even washed with water? Even so the polluted water goes back into water table eventually. Does my rinsing fruits and vegetables do any good, does it require soap? Not to mention all the nitrogen fertilizers (produced from oil) that pollute the ground water. No wonder cancer is so prevalent.
polly7
(20,582 posts)2. Exactly, and good points.
This article is kind of a NSS type of thing, but I'm glad to see more and more studies being done that come right out and say it. For all the good it does.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)3. Now preservatives, on the other hand, might preserve me?