Horrifyingly but perhaps unsurprisingly, scientists now believe that bees aren’t the only animals that are adversely affected by neonicotinoids. Many bird species, too, appear to be in decline.” The pesticide that caused bee colonies to collapse is killing birds now,” Salon, August 18, 2020
Hummingbird by Carlos Espinosa
A new research paper suggests that those same chemicals that are so toxic to bee populations are also killing off birds at an alarming rate. “Insecticides are killing bees, birds, and who knows what else,” BGR, August 19, 2020
What have I been saying for the past several years? Neonics are going into the environment annually at a toxic equivalent to 400 billion pounds of DDT, on top of billions remaining from previous years. Despite the chemical industry’s best efforts, it is becoming harder and harder to hide the environmental devastation they have wrought.
If anything the findings in this study in Nature Sustainability are lower than what is actually occurring. The honey bee losses, for example, are reported to be about 43% annually, statistics coming from the Bee Informed Partnership, but if you talk to commercial beekeepers those figures are more like 80% or more, and for many of them there may be a complete turnover of their colony population in the course of a year.
