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  • Ecological risks of insecticide contamination in water and sediment around off-farm irrigated rice paddy fields

    The ecological impacts of insecticides in aquatic areas around agricultural lands have long been ignored in the regulation scheme of pesticides in Japan. Upon the scheme, the predicted concentration of an insecticide in the main stream of a river is the only parameter considered, suggesting that the ecological impacts of insecticides on local biodiversity around agricultural fields is underestimated. To fill this knowledge gap, we measured insecticide concentrations in surface water and sediment in aquatic areas around paddy fields at 35 locations across Japan. Among the 18 insecticides considered, 15 were detected somewhere in Japan and their concentrations were generally higher in the southwestern region in Japan (e.g. Hiroshima, Saga, or Kagoshima prefectures). Most insecticides were accumulated at higher concentrations in sediment than in surface water, consistent with previous studies. We also detected insecticides applied to nursery boxes at high concentrations in surrounding aquatic areas, although such application is generally considered to have low environmental risks. In addition, derivatives of fipronil, which have similar toxicity as that of fipronil, were often detected in sediment at higher concentrations than fipronil itself. Concentrations of dinotefuran in water at two sampling points were higher than the 5% hazardous concentration (HC5), indicating a possibility of a risk of acute toxicity to aquatic organisms. Our findings indicate that ecological risk assessments of insecticides and their derivatives should be expanded to include concentrations in sediment and water around paddy fields as well.

    Source: Shunsuke Furihata et al. Environmental Pollution, Available online 7 May 2019
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749118358275

  • ‘Catastrophe’ as France’s bird population collapses due to pesticides

    Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said. Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other covering a large agricultural region in central France. “The situation is catastrophic,” said Benoit Fontaine, a conservation biologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History and co-author of one of the studies.

    “Our countryside is in the process of becoming a veritable desert,” he said in a communique released by the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which also contributed to the findings. The common white throat (Sylvia communis), the ortolan bunting (Emberiza hortulana), the Eurasian skylark (Alauda arvensis) and other once-ubiquitous species have all fallen off by at least a third, according a detailed, annual census initiated at the start of the century. A migratory song bird, the meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis), has declined by nearly 70%.

    The museum described the pace and extent of the wipe-out as “a level approaching an ecological catastrophe”. The primary culprit, researchers speculate, is the intensive use of pesticides on vast tracts of monoculture crops, especially wheat and corn. The problem is not that birds are being poisoned, but that the insects on which they depend for food have disappeared. “There are hardly any insects left, that’s the number one problem,” said Vincent Bretagnolle, a CNRS ecologist at the Centre for Biological Studies in Chize.

    Source: The Guardian, 21 March 2018
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/21/catastrophe-as-frances-bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticides?fbclid=IwAR2pHJKGhzgVW0AI3saN-diBcL85JdfvNW-F78XoMrrIwdtwCoLfPokXVLI

  • Die Feldlerche ist im Sturzflug

    Die Feldlerche (Alauda arvensis) galt unseren Vorfahren noch als Frühlingsbote. Ihr Gesang vom frühen Morgen bis zum Sonnenuntergang war früher allen Menschen vertraut. Heute kennt sie jedoch außer den Vogelliebhabern fast niemand mehr. 2019 wurde die Feldlerche deshalb zum Vogel des Jahres gewählt. Vor 20 Jahren wurde schon einmal versucht, den Rückgang der Feldlerche mit dieser Wahl in das Bewusstsein der Bevölkerung und der Umwelt- und Naturschutzpolitik zu rücken. Offenbar blieb dies aber vergebens. Nach aktuellen Schätzungen ist ihr Bestand in Deutschland seitdem um etwa weitere 25 Prozent zurückgegangen. Von einem noch in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts häufigen und verbreiteten Singvogel ist sie zu einer heute seltenen Art geworden, deren Vorkommen in Deutschland bedroht sind (Rote Liste Kategorie 3 , also gefährdet).

    Quelle: Saarbrücker Zeitung, 12.04.19
    https://www.saarbruecker-zeitung.de/saarland/saar-pfalz-kreis/sanktingbert/nabu-st-ingbert-zum-vogel-des-jahres-der-feldlerche_aid-38083021

  • Salton Sea pelican population declining at startling rate

    A new report paints a grim future for birds that rely on the Salton Sea habitat. Audubon California-released report uses bird-monitoring data from several different sources to show just how the destruction of the Salton Sea ecological habitat has decimated the populations of both pelicans and cormorants endemic to the area. As the Salton Sea recedes, the body of water’s salinity increases, which kills off its tilapia population. Without tilapia, the birds starve.

    According to surveys, there were approximately 20,000 American White Pelicans in 2008. According to Aerial surveys conducted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, that number now sits at 100. Audubon’s own research backs up this decline.

    According to the report, the Salton Sea has been known to support massive percentages of several different North American Bird Species. According to the report. during the winter months, the Salton Sea habitat harbors:

    – An estimated 30% of the population of North American White American Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)
    – Approximately 50% of the Pacific Flyway population of Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis)
    – An estimated 25-90% of the population of North American Eared Grebes Podiceps nigricollis (1 to 3 million birds). (In open water and Salton Sea area impoundments in the 1980’s & 1990’s)

    Source: News Channel 3. April 25, 2019
    https://www.kesq.com/news/salton-sea-pelicans-dying-off-at-startling-rate/1072486463

  • Harmful pesticides found in the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries

    Harmful pesticides such as glyphosate, atrazine and neonicotinoids were found in nearly all samples of water from the St. Lawrence River and its tributaries, with many samples containing levels higher than the guideline to protect aquatic life, according to new research. The St. Lawrence River is one of North America’s major water systems—draining a 500,000 square mile watershed that contains the Great Lakes. “The freshwater inputs of the St. Lawrence provide a source of drinking water production for more than half of the population of the province of Quebec,” the authors wrote.

    The study, published in Environmental Pollution, found that 99 percent of 68 water samples collected from the large water system contained at least one of the 10 pesticides researchers tested for and 31 percent of the samples contained neonicotinoids at levels higher than Canada allows. “I wasn’t that surprised to find that [the pesticides] are ubiquitous, it’s difficult to find water not covered with them,” Sébastien Sauvé, senior author of the study, researcher and Vice Dean at the Faculty of Arts and Science at the Université de Montréal, told EHN. “What did surprise me was the number of times the environmental guidelines were exceeded.”

    Neonicotinoids—insecticides made from nicotine widely used on corn, cotton, sorghum, soybeans and on some other fruits and vegetables—are thought to be at least partially behind bee declines in recent years and also have been linked to widespread impacts on aquatic insects and invertebrates. Scientists in 2016 concluded “the decline of many populations of invertebrates, due mostly to the widespread presence of waterborne residues and the extreme chronic toxicity of neonicotinoids, is affecting the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems.”

    Source: Environmental Health News, May 1, 2019
    https://www.ehn.org/pesticides-are-all-over-the-st-lawrence-river-many-at-levels-that-hurt-fish-and-invertebrates-2635826209.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

  • Top UN scientists warn humans at risk from biodiversity crisis

    A landmark report by the United Nations’ scientific panel on biodiversity warns that humans are at dire risk unless urgent action is taken to restore the plants, animals and other natural resources they depend on to survive. The report, which was issued in Paris on Monday by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), describes a world where living and future generations of people face the threat of worsening food and water shortages, because of habitat and species loss.

    The rate at which plant and animal life are now disappearing from the earth is tens or hundreds of times faster than in the past, according to the report. More than 1 million species on earth face extinction – many within decades – because they “have insufficient habitat for long-term survival”. If biodiversity continues to decline at the current pace, there will be dire consequences for humans, who depend on nature to provide food, drinking water, clean air and energy. Yet the report’s authors found that human activity has been the main driving force behind species loss. “We are indeed threatening the potential food security, water security, human health and social fabric” Robert Watson, a British environmental scientist who chairs the IPBES, told The Associated Press. He added that the poor in less developed countries will bear the brunt of the burden.

    Source: France 24, May 6, 2019
    https://www.france24.com/en/20190506-biodiversity-major-un-report-describes-human-risk-animal-plant-species-decline

  • 60% of wild coffee species are threatened with extinction

    The first ever IUCN Red List assessment has been conducted on all 124 wild coffee species, and the implications of these findings predict a concerning future for global coffee production. The newly published research reveals that 60 per cent of all wild coffee species are under threat of extinction. This includes wild relatives of Coffea arabica, the world’s most widely traded coffee, which are designated as an Endangered species on the Red List, largely due to climate change projections.

    “This is the first time an IUCN Red List assessment has been carried out to find the extinction risk of the world’s coffee, and the results are worrying,” says Eimear Nic Lughadha, senior research leader in Kew’s Conservation Department and lead scientist for Kew’s Plant Assessment Unit. “A figure of 60 per cent of all coffee species threatened with extinction is extremely high, especially when you compare this to a global estimate of 22 per cent for plants. Some of the coffee species assessed have not been seen in the wild for more than 100 years, and it is possible that some may already be extinct. We hope this new data will highlight species to be prioritised for the sustainability of the coffee production sector so that appropriate action can be taken to safeguard their future.”

    Source: BBC Wildlife Magazine, May 2019
    https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/wild-coffee-species-threatened-with-extinction/

  • After peaking in 2004, prairie chickens have been on a steady decline in Grand Forks County

    Prairie chicken numbers in Grand Forks County are dwindling. From a peak of more than 300 males in the early 2000s, prairie chickens in the county have declined to about 25 males, which gather on mating grounds called leks and produce an eerie “booming” sound by inflating air sacs on their necks to attract a mate. The prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) that remain west of Grand Forks are remnants of an intensive translocation effort in the 1990s to re-establish the birds in Grand Forks County, where the grouse had all but disappeared.

    Erik Fritzell, a retired wildlife biologist and professor, recalls counting chickens in 1966 and 1967 as a UND student; the census was his first real biology job. There weren’t many prairie chickens left even in those days, Fritzell said.
    Then, as part of a project that included the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, the North Dakota Chapter of The Wildlife Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Prairie Chicken Society and the Grand Forks County Wildlife Federation, partners from 1992 to 1998 released 357 prairie chickens on grasslands west of Manvel. Project organizers used prairie chickens from Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska for the releases.

    Historically, the Game and Fish Department contracted with Wisconsin prairie chicken researcher John Toepfer to conduct the Grand Forks County survey work after the translocation project began. The birds did well until about 2004, said Gary Huschle, a retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who assisted with the initial releases and ran the survey route for Toepfer for more than a decade until Toepfer’s death in October 2018.

    The population peaked in 2004 at 330 males on their booming grounds, Huschle said. Then, the numbers started going south and kept dropping. Game and Fish offered a prairie chicken season from 2004 through 2009, issuing a limited number of permits by lottery, but discontinued the season in 2010.

    Last spring, his final year of running the survey, Huschle said he counted only nine prairie chicken males on one pure booming ground north of U.S. Highway 2 and four single males displaying with sharptails on their dancing ground leks.

    Source: In Forum, May 2019
    https://www.inforum.com/sports/outdoors/1016320-After-peaking-in-2004-prairie-chickens-have-been-on-a-steady-decline-in-Grand-Forks-County

  • Irish butterfly populations showing a decline

    The Irish Butterfly Monitoring Scheme, organised by Tomás Murray at the Waterford-based National Biodiversity Data Centre, began in 2008 so the details of the scheme are now well established. The overall trend in Irish butterfly populations since 2008 shows a decline of 6%. The recently-published Newsletter No 11 reveals that last year, 110 volunteers walked 115 transects and recorded more than 46,000 butterflies. The Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus) experienced the strongest decline.

    Source: Irish Independent, May 4, 2019
    https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wicklowpeople/lifestyle/irish-butterfly-populations-showing-a-decline-38066364.html

  • Nearly 70 per cent decline in numbers of curlew breeding in North Wales

    THE latest Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) report shows that the Welsh breeding curlew population has fallen by 68 per cent between 1995 and 2017. As a result of the precipitous decline in breeding numbers, the curlew (Numenius arquata), long been associated with Welsh upland and farmland, is one of UK’s most pressing conservation issues. Its decline in Wales is mirrored with an overall decline of 48% across the UK. It’s not good news for Welsh swifts (Apus apus) either. Their breeding population is down by 69 per cent over the same period.

    Source: The Free Press, 2 May 2019
    https://www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/17613387.drastic-decline-in-numbers-of-curlew-breeding-in-north-wales/