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The European Food Safety Authority was asked by the European Commission to assess the scientific information on some neonicotinoids (i.e. thiamethoxam, clothianidin and imidacloprid) and fipronil gathered by the Italian authorities with a funded project named “APENET” and to identify whether this new scientific information might require a change in the assessment of these substances as regards their effects on bees. APENET is a multidisciplinary monitoring and research project, mainly aimed at evaluating the bee health status, the dust dispersal during the sowing of maize coated seeds with thiamethoxam, clothianidin, imidacloprid and fipronil, the lethal effects on bees exposed to this dust, and homing behaviour and orientation effects. Potential synergism between clothianidin and bee pathology was also considered. EFSA evaluated in particular the scientific information as reported in the project report from 2011 (APENET, 2011), which was brought to the attention of the European Commission.

To determine whether environmentally realistic levels of imidacloprid are capable of making a demographic impact on bumble bees, we exposed queenless microcolonies of worker bumble bees, Bombus terrestris, to a range of dosages of dietary imidacloprid between zero and 125 μg L−1 and examined the effects on ovary development and fecundity. Microcolonies showed a dose-dependent decline in fecundity, with environmentally realistic dosages in the range of 1 μg L−1 capable of reducing brood production by one third. In contrast, ovary development was unimpaired by dietary imidacloprid except at the highest dosage. Imidacloprid reduced feeding on both syrup and pollen but, after controlling statistically for dosage, microcolonies that consumed more syrup and pollen produced more brood. We therefore speculate that the detrimental effects of imidacloprid on fecundity emerge principally from nutrient limitation imposed by the failure of individuals to feed.

A huge proportion of Canada’s bird species are in serious decline. Overall, there’s been a 12 per cent drop in bird populations since 1970, says the 36-page report, entitled The State of Canada’s Birds 2012. Forty-four per cent of Canada’s 460-plus species have fallen in number, 66 of them so dramatically they are considered endangered. At the top of the list of most endangered birds is the spotted owl Strix occidentalis, whose numbers have dropped to a mere “handful”, and the great sage grouse Centrocercus urophasianus, with fewer than 100 males, down from thousands 20 years ago. Populations of grassland birds, such as meadowlarks and bobolinks Dolichonyx oryzivorus, have fallen by 45 per cent since 1970; some species that thrive in the long grasses of the Prairies or the farms of Eastern Canada are vulnerable, with numbers that have dropped by 90 per cent. Birds known as aerial insectivores — basically such species as barn swallows Hirundo rustica, chimney swifts Chaetura pelagica and flycatchers that snatch insects on the wing — are still relatively common, but have seen an overall descent in numbers of 64 per cent.

Australian bird species are in crisis with at least 50 endangered or critically endangered. Federal Environment Department figures show 23 birds are already extinct. BirdLife Australia chief executive Graeme Hamilton said the IUCN Red List four-yearly update on birds released yesterday described a global tragedy that was mirrored in Australia. "In the 200-plus years since Europeans arrived in Australia we have so diminished our natural capital that 234 Australian birds are either extinct, threatened with extinction or near threatened," Dr Hamilton said. Critically endangered birds include the orange-bellied parrot Neophema chrysogaster, regent honeyeater Anthochaera phrygia, grey-headed albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma, Christmas Island frigatebird Fregata andrewsi, Norfolk Island Tasman parakeet Cyanoramphus cookii, western ground parrot Pezoporus flaviventris and the star finch Neochmia ruficauda, which is possibly extinct.

For millennia, the flute-like song of the Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) signaled the beginning of spring in the Willamette Valley. But, to quote Rachel Carson, spring in the Willamette Valley now comes unheralded, and the “early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.” This may seem an exaggeration for anyone lucky or unlucky enough to be woken by bird song at daybreak, a not uncommon occurrence for spring in the Valley. Nonetheless the Western Meadowlark’s unique warbling call has declined substantially. Studies vary, but there are indications that, since 1968, the Willamette Valley’s meadowlarks have been declining at 10% a year—the highest rate of decline among all grassland bird species in the Valley. One study reported a 59% decline in detections of meadowlarks between 1996 and 2008. Because of this, Western Meadowlarks have been identified as the “Species of Greatest Conservation Need” by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. Their breeding habitats are grasslands, prairies, pastures, and abandoned fields, all of which may be found from across western and central North America to northern Mexico. They mainly eat insects, although they will devour seeds and berries.

For most of 1961, the American biologist Rachel Carson had locked herself in her cottage in Colesville, Maryland, to complete her book, Silent Spring. Serialised in the New Yorker during the summer of 1962, Silent Spring was published that September. It remains one of the most effective denunciations of industrial malpractice ever written and is widely credited with triggering popular ecological awareness in the US and Europe. At the Women's National Press Club, Rachel Carson denounced the links that had been established between science and industry. "When a scientific organisation speaks," she asked, "whose voice do we hear – that of science or of the sustaining industry?" The question remains as pertinent today as it did in 1962. Nor have matters improved. Neonicotinoids, insecticides used in seed dressing, have been linked to colony collapse disorder in honeybees, a condition that saw 800,000 hives wiped out in the US in 2007 alone. As Carson wrote: "Chemical war is never won and all life is caught in its violent crossfire." Attached is an article on the influence of Bayer Cropscience on Dutch policy makers (which appeared in the magazine "Vrij Nederland" on April 4, 2012)

The RSPB's annual wildlife survey has recorded the lowest number of starlings in UK gardens for 30 years. Since the Big Garden Birdwatch began in 1979, the average number of starlings Sturnus vulgaris spotted by participants has dropped from 15 to just three. Although the species was the number two "most spotted" bird, it was seen in fewer than half of UK gardens. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) confirmed that starlings were a "conservation concern".

Biologists at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have discovered that a small dose of the commonly used neonicotinoid crop pesticide imidacloprid turns honey bees into “picky eaters” and affects their ability to recruit their nestmates to otherwise good sources of food. The results of the experiments, detailed in this week’s issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, shed light on one of the main culprits suspected to be behind the recent declines in honeybee colonies and detail the particular ways that the substance impedes the functions of the colony.