It’s biblical, it’s big news and it’s giving plenty of fodder to conspiracy theorists. But are mass deaths of wildlife an early warning sign of the damage humankind is doing to the planet? When thousands of birds fall out of the sky – as they’ve been doing across the world this last week – it’s eerie to say the least.
But the mass bird deaths may not be just a freak of nature; they could be an indication of how we’ve poisoned our planet.
Birds are disappearing and dying off en masse across the world because the insects on which they depend for vital protein are being wiped out by toxic pesticides, according to new scientific evidence.
Dutch toxicologist Dr Henk Tennekes warns the dire prediction of a “silent spring” made in the 1960s could yet come true.
“Declining bird species appear to be short on insect food, their prime protein source, because insects are being killed on a massive scale by modern pesticides,” he told the Sunday Herald. “This leads to failing reproduction and an increased vulnerability of birds to stress factors.”
In the UK, the number of house sparrows has dropped by 67% since 1977, and there have been big falls in swifts, starlings and other birds.
Multinational pesticide companies dispute that their products are to blame for insect deaths, but Matt Shardlow, chief executive of Buglife, which campaigns to protect insects, says: “It is highly likely that neonicotinoid pesticides are reducing the abundance of a wide range of insects.
“Almost all birds rely on insects for the protein in their diet. Hungry or weakened birds are more likely to forage in inappropriate weather, take risks and become diseased – and hence pesticides could be associated with these ‘bird-fall’ events.”
Source: Sunday Herald, 9 January 2010
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/bird-deaths-the-fallout-1…
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