English

A newly published atlas which maps all 47 different ladybirds in Ireland and Britain reveals that, in the UK, 10 species of the speckled insect have been decreasing in the past 20 years. Dr Helen Roy, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and one of the authors of the atlas, the result of a six-year research project, said: “What's quite striking is that in the same way as butterflies and moths have seen very common species going into decline, we're seeing the same happen with ladybirds. They are telling us there are changes going up through the food chain. Ladybirds can be used as indicators of wider changes in our environment.”

The nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos could become extinct in Britain within 30 years if nothing is done to stop its rapid decline, scientists have warned. Since 1998, numbers of the iconic bird have dropped by 50 per cent as its former breeding grounds empty.

We have been pondering on the significance of the laboratory evidence from Bee Researchers in France and the US that the administration of tiny amounts of a systemic neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, to bees was associated with a weakening of bee immunity, such that they became more susceptible to bee diseases. and decided to look more closely at the patterns of recent deaths/epidemics in the UK, Europe and the US, involving a variety of other wildlife. According to scientists from Turkey “thousands of bumblebee colonies are reared in the laboratories and they are being shipped to different countries over the last 10 years”. The development of breeding techniques has allowed pollination to be controlled “especially during the off seasons”. Health concerns by the importing countries led them to investigate pathogens in wild populations of bumble bees [1].

We have been pondering on the significance of the laboratory evidence from Bee Researchers in France and the US that the administration of tiny amounts of a systemic neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, to bees was associated with a weakening of bee immunity, such that they became more susceptible to bee diseases. and decided to look more closely at the patterns of recent deaths/epidemics in the UK, Europe and the US, involving a variety of other wildlife. Massive declines in wild bumble bees in the US and Canada were reported in the late 1990s.

We have been pondering on the significance of the laboratory evidence from Bee Researchers in France and the US that the administration of tiny amounts of a systemic neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, to bees was associated with a weakening of bee immunity, such that they became more susceptible to bee diseases. and decided to look more closely at the patterns of recent deaths/epidemics in the UK, Europe and the US, involving a variety of other wildlife. In the UK, reports of chaffinches Fringilla coelebs appearing in gardens with white, crusty growths on their legs and feet caused by a papilloma virus began in 2005; the mortality is said to be about 20%, so the disease kills more slowly than with the greenfinch (Carduelis chloris) Trichomonas infections [1].

We have been pondering on the significance of the laboratory evidence from Bee Researchers in France and the US that the administration of tiny amounts of a systemic neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, to bees was associated with a weakening of bee immunity, such that they became more susceptible to bee diseases. and decided to look more closely at the patterns of recent deaths/epidemics in the UK, Europe and the US, involving a variety of other wildlife. In the UK, greenfinch deaths (maximum number of deaths in the months August to October) from infections with Trichomonas gallinae, a protozoal organism which invades the bird‟s crop and mucosal lining of the beak, started around 2005 and has devastated the populations throughout Europe [1].

We have been pondering on the significance of the laboratory evidence from Bee Researchers in France and the US that the administration of tiny amounts of a systemic neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, to bees was associated with a weakening of bee immunity, such that they became more susceptible to bee diseases. and decided to look more closely at the patterns of recent deaths/epidemics in the UK, Europe and the US, involving a variety of other wildlife. In March 2009 (published Feb 2010), Puechmaille et al. found the White-nose Syndrome Fungus (Geomyces destructans) on a single bat in a cave in France, but without other evidence of disease [1]. They raised the possibility that the fungus was not the primary cause of death “but acts as an opportunistic pathogen in bats already immune-compromised by other pathogens such as viruses or bacteria”.

We have been pondering on the significance of the laboratory evidence from Bee Researchers in France and the US that the administration of tiny amounts of a systemic neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, to bees was associated with a weakening of bee immunity, such that they became more susceptible to bee diseases. and decided to look more closely at the patterns of recent deaths/epidemics in the UK, Europe and the US, involving a variety of other wildlife. It was 2006 when White Nose Syndrome (WNS), a virulent and fatal fungus disease of hibernating bats, came to the attention of ecologists [1]. It was first found in a cave in New York State in the 2005/6 winter and rapidly spread through the north-eastern states. A powdery white nose tip was pathognomonic of the disease and when the powder was cultured a fungus, Geomyces destructans was grown. This infected the skin and wing membranes of bats and was associated with unprecedented numbers of deaths. It affected six different species of bat.

In the US the systemic neonicotinoids were introduced in 1991 and in the UK in 1994. The percentage of UK cropland treated with neonicotinoids has gone from 0.65% in 1994, to 24.4% in 2008. But the biggest increases have occurred in the last 10 years, from 1 million acres in 2000, to 2.5 million acres in 2008. We have collated a series of replies that we have personally received, or have seen, from the various Environmental Protection Agencies in Europe and the US. Uniformly, they all declined to impose a ban, because of „lack of evidence‟ that bees are being harmed. 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).