Farmland birds

The nature of receptor binding by imidacloprid is of fundamental importance for risk assessment. If, as Bayer and Syngenta-sponsored scientists now infer, receptor binding is reversible, the toxicity of imidacloprid would be concentration-dependent only, and there would likely be a threshold

Der Bestand an Brutvögeln im landwirtschaftlichen Raum ist in Europa während der vergangenen Jahrzehnte um mehr als die Hälfte zurückgegangen. Der Hauptgrund ist die intensive Landwirtschaft. Seit 1980 ist der Bestand an Vögeln des Kulturlands in der EU um rund 56 Prozent eingebrochen. Zu den betroffenen Arten gehören beispielsweise Feldlerche, Star (Sturnus vulgaris) oder Kiebitz (Vanellus vanellus). Das geht aus den gesammelten Daten des European Bird Census Council hervor, einem Zusammenschluss europäischer Vogelexperten mit Sitz im niederländischen Nijmegen.

Pesticide use is driving an “alarming” decline in the world’s insects that could have a “catastrophic” impact on nature’s ecosystems, researchers have warned. More than 40 per cent of insect species are at risk of extinction with decades, with climate change and pollution also to blame, according to a global scientific review. Their numbers are plummeting so precipitously that almost all insects could vanish within a century, the study found.

Millions of birds have been lost from New Zealand countryside over the past 30 years. Most of them were introduced birds so have not been missed, but surely someone should have recognised that their loss indicated something had gone very wrong with farmland ecosystems. It is the decline of insects that has had the greatest impact on birds. There is no monitoring of insects in New Zealand to my knowledge.

The bird population has been declining in Czech farmland, with the decline accelerating since the country's EU entry in 2004, experts from Charles University's Faculty of Sciences write in a study published by the Conservation Letters international journal. The joint European policy and system of agricultural subsidies are unfavourable to birds and wildlife, the study says, cited by the Czech Society for Ornithology (CSO).

Scientists with the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph and Environment and Climate Change Canada examined the livers of 40 wild turkeys in southern Ontario and found nine had detectable levels of neonicotinoids, a group of insecticides that coat the seeds of cash crops such as corn and soy beans to protect them from pests. The insecticide is taken up by the plant and distributed through its tissue as it grows.

A while back we took note of a study that showed populations of airborne insects have declined by 76 percent in protected areas in Germany over the past 27 years. Part of the picture was that the disappearance of bugs is likely to pose problems for other animals in the food chain. Now a recent study by French scientists revealed that bird populations in France’s farming areas have declined by more than one-third in the past 17 years. Both resident and migrant species have decreased sharply.