Insecticides

The River Irwell appears to have been polluted for a second time in three weeks. Countless fish and insects died following reports a pesticide which was poured down a drain and devastated a 25-mile stretch of the river from Rawtenstall into Manchester city centre earlier this month. Now a second incident has been reported on a section of the Irwell north of Bury. The incident has been reported to the Environment Agency. Mike Duddy, chief executive of the Mersey Basin Rivers Trust, said virtually no river life had survived the previous incident.

Surface water monitoring for pesticides in agricultural areas of California is one of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s (CDPR’s) key environmental monitoring activities. The Salinas, Santa Maria and Imperial valleys have previously been designated as high priority areas for long-term surface water monitoring due to high pesticide use. This 2013 study is a continuation of the agricultural monitoring project.

Pesticide occurrence was determined in two suburban surface waters in eastern Massachusetts, USA during 2009 and 2010. Out of 118 collected samples, 45 samples showed detections of one or more target pesticides. Among the herbicides, 2,4-D was the most frequently detected and imidacloprid was the most frequently detected insecticide. Regulatory phaseout of chlorpyrifos and diazinon from residential use by 2004 was reflected in the results by the absence of chlorpyrifos detections and lower detection frequencies of diazinon.

Honeybees -- employed to pollinate crops during the blooming season -- encounter danger due to lingering and wandering pesticides, according to a new Cornell University study that analyzed the bee's own food. Researchers used 120 pristine honeybee colonies that were placed near 30 apple orchards around New York state. After allowing the bees to forage for several days during the apple flowering period, the scientists examined each hive's "beebread" -- the bees' food stores made from gathered pollen -- to search for traces of pesticides.

Der Hang liegt am Keilstein bei Regensburg, mitten in einem Naturschutzgebiet. Jan Christian Habel besucht diesen Ort gern mit seinen Studenten. Habel ist Schmetterlingsexperte, er hat einen Lehrstuhl für Terrestrische Ökologie an der Technischen Universität München. Mitte Juli war Habel wieder mit einer Gruppe am Hang. Es war eine traurige Expedition. „Seltene Falterarten waren nicht mehr vorhanden“, sagt er. „Wir haben nur Trivialarten gefunden.“ Aber auch von diesen eigentlichen häufig vorkommenden Schmetterlingen entdeckten Habel und die Studenten viel weniger Exemplare als sonst.

"Ja, wo laufen sie denn?", hätte Loriot die Situation wohl humoristisch umschrieben. Doch zum Lachen ist die Suche nun wahrlich nicht. Denn obwohl der Frühling auch in Gütersloh Einzug gehalten hat, sind bisher weit weniger Kröten zu ihren Laichgewässern gewandert als noch vor wenigen Jahren. Regina Rottmann engagiert sich seit 2005 im Amphibienschutz und hilft den Lurchen am Postdamm in Isselhorst über die Straße, um sie so vor dem Tod durch Autoreifen zu bewahren. Doch in den Eimern, die sich hinter den eigenes aufgestellten Krötenzäunen im Boden befinden, landen immer weniger der Tiere.

A 15-mile stretch of the River Irwell has been poisoned after a suspected pollution incident. Conservation experts say all invertebrates along the waterway from Rossendale to Radcliffe, via Bury, have been 'wiped out', possibly by the dumping of a harmful pesticide. The vast majority of the bugs have also been wiped out from Radcliffe to Manchester city centre. An investigation has been launched by the Environment Agency after the incident was reported to the watchdog by the Mersey Basin Rivers Trust, which monitors the Irwell.

In 2010, my life changed when Dr Henk Tennekes and I traded books. His was: The systemic insecticides: a disaster in the making and ours was: The Year of the Bumblebee: Observations in a small Nature Reserve. Dr Henk Tennekes, an independent toxicologist based in the Netherlands, was the first researcher to recognise the extreme toxicity of low levels of systemic neonicotinoid insecticides that have become widespread in the environment.