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The elegant native butterfly, the forest ringlet or Dodonidia helmsii, is on the brink of extinction, experts claim. Up until the 1970s, forest ringlet butterflies were found throughout New Zealand districts, ranges and regional parks. However, over the last few decades it has experienced a major decline in both numbers and distribution.

Urban populations of 28 butterfly species have fallen 69 percent across the UK since 1995, while in America monarch butterflies are down 80 percent since the mid-1990s and 27 percent since this time last year. The decline is worrying, say scientists, because butterflies are recognized as environmental indicators due to their rapid responses to small changes in climate and habitat.

Coenonympha nipisiquit, also known as the maritime ringlet, lives in just 10 salt marshes in Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada, and was first listed as endangered in New Brunswick in 1996. Between 2011 and 2015, visual counts were conducted on a daily basis during the butterfly’s flight period in four of those marshes, and the resulting data revealed declining numbers overall. “The maritime ringlet is still at risk of extirpation from its natural range, despite conservation efforts and past introductions of the species into unoccupied salt marshes.

With this week bringing summer-like weather across much of France, swallows have also started to arrive in numbers – but those numbers are down on previous years. Swallows and house martin populations have fallen about 40% since the first count was done in France in 1989 – with man being the main reason for their decline. A study by the Fondation 30 Millions d’Amis said swallows were 42% down and house martins (Delichon urbicum) 39% down as an already reduced population was hit by the effects of droughts when they were over-wintering in Africa.

Neonicotinoid insecticides are widespread in surface waters across the agriculturally intensive Midwestern United States. We report for the first time the presence of three neonicotinoids in finished drinking water and demonstrate their general persistence during conventional water treatment. Periodic tap water grab samples were collected at the University of Iowa over 7 weeks in 2016 (May−July) after maize/soy planting. Clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam were ubiquitously detected in finished water samples at concentrations ranging from 0.24 to 57.3 ng/L.

One of the most dangerous pesticides, neonicotinoids, has been found in drinking water, a new study reveals. Neonicotinoids, most of which were released in the 1990s, were designed to be the most environmentally-friendly chemicals on the market and soon became the most widely used, especially in the Midwest. The compounds don't just coat leaves and stems but work their way into plant tissue, meaning fewer sprays are needed. But the neonics, as they are nicknamed, became reputable for being something else - a bee killer, wreaking havoc on insect nervous systems.

Curlew (Numenius arquata) numbers in one of the birds' strongholds in southern England have experienced a "shocking decline", conservationists have said. Figures released by Wild New Forest (WNF) show a two-thirds decline in breeding pairs in the national park over the past 12 years. In 2004, about 100 breeding pairs were identified, compared with 40 recorded by volunteers in 2016. The curlew, with its long down-curved bill, is Europe's largest wading bird and it typically nests in open areas of heath and bog at ground level.

Small watercourses are contaminated with large numbers of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. A study commissioned by the Federal Office for the Environment and published today shows that the legal requirements specified for water quality are not met in any of the five Swiss streams investigated. Indeed, thresholds for acute toxicity to aquatic organisms were also exceeded. Bioassays indicate that biological communities are adversely affected by mixtures of substances.

Current admission policies for pesticides follow a controlled experimental tiered risk assessment approach, giving results that are difficult to extrapolate to a real-world situation. Later analyses of compounds such as DDT and neonicotinoid pesticides clearly show that the actual chemical impacts frequently affect many more components of an ecosystem than a priori suggested by risk assessment. Therefore, to manage the actual risks for ecosystems imposed by manufactured compounds, it is proposed that current admission policies for chemicals be enriched by using postregistration monitoring.

The number of corncrake (Crex crex) - one of the enduring sounds of the Irish countryside - is now in "critical" decline despite more than €2m being spent on the battle to save the species from national extinction. The bird used to be widespread in Ireland but is now found only along the north coast of Donegal and in the west of Mayo and Connemara. According to the National Parks & Wildlife Service, numbers here have plummeted by 85pc since 1978. In 2016, a total of 108 corncrakes were recorded in Donegal and 60 pairs in west Connaught.