Studies link common pesticides to 50% decline in honeybee populations

by | Mar 30, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Toxification

By Damian Carrington / The Guardian

Common crop pesticides have been shown for the first time to seriously harm bees by damaging their renowned ability to navigate home.

The new research strongly links the pesticides to the serious decline in honey bee numbers in the US and UK – a drop of around 50% in the last 25 years. The losses pose a threat to food supplies as bees pollinate a third of the food we eat such as tomatoes, beans, apples and strawberries.

Scientists found that bees consuming one pesticide suffered an 85% loss in the number of queens their nests produced, while another study showed a doubling in “disappeared” bees – those that failed to return from food foraging trips. The significance of the new work, published Science, is that it is the first carried out in realistic, open-air conditions.

“People had found pretty trivial effects in lab and greenhouse experiments, but we have shown they can translate into really big effects in the field. This has transformed our understanding,” said Prof David Goulson, at the University of Stirling and leader of one of the research teams. “If it’s only one metre from where they forage in a lab to their nest, even an unwell bee can manage that.”

Prof Mickaël Henry, at INRA in Avignon, France, who led a separate research team, said: “Under the effects we saw from the pesticides, the population size would decline disastrously, and make them even more sensitive to parasites or a lack of food.”

The reason for the huge decline in bee numbers has remained uncertain, but pesticides, the varroa mite and other parasites, and destruction of the flower-rich habitats in which bees feed are believed to be the key reasons. Pesticide manufacturers and the UK government deny a class of the chemicals called neonicotinoids cause significant problems for bees, but Germany, Italy and France have suspended key insecticides over such fears.

A spokesperson from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the new research did not change the government’s position. “The UK has a robust system for assessing risks from pesticides and all the evidence shows neonicotinoids do not pose an unacceptable risk to honeybees when products are used correctly. However, we will not hesitate to act if presented with any new evidence.” Henry said the new research showed current approval processes for the pesticides are inadequate: “We now have enough data to say authorisation processes must take into account not only the lethal effects, but also the effects of non-lethal doses.”

The pesticides investigated in the new studies – insect neurotoxins called neonicotinoids – are applied to seeds and flow through the plants’ whole system. The environmental advantage of this is it reduces pesticide spraying but chemicals end up in the nectar and pollen on which bees feed. Goulson’s group studied an extremely widely used type called imidacloprid, primarily manufactured by Bayer CropScience, and registered for use on over 140 crops in 120 countries.

Bumblebees were fed the toxin at the same level found in treated rape plants and found that these colonies were about 10% smaller than those not exposed to the insecticide. Most strikingly, the exposed colonies lost almost all of their ability to produce queens, which are the only bee to survive the winter and establish new colonies. “There was a staggering magnitude of effect,” said Goulson. “This is likely to have a substantial population-level impact.”

The French team analysed the effect on honey bees of a new generation neonicotinoid, called thiamethoxam and manufactured by Syngenta. They fitted tiny electronic tags to over 650 bees and monitored their activity around the hive. Those exposed to “commonly encountered” levels of thiamethoxam suffered high mortality, with up to a third of the bees failing to return. “They disappeared in much higher numbers than expected,” said Henry. Previous scientific work has shown insect neurotoxins may cause memory, learning, and navigation problems in bees.

A spokesman for Syngenta said: “Although we take good research very seriously, over the last four years, independent authorities in France have closely monitored the use of Cruiser – the product containing thiamethoxam – on more than 1.9m hectares. When properly used no cases of bee mortality have been recorded.”

Julian Little, spokesman for Bayer Cropscience, criticised Goulson’s study because the bees were exposed to imidacloprid in the labaratory, before being placed outside in a natural field environment to feed. “All studies looking at the interaction of bees and pesticides must be done in a full field situation,” he said. “This study does not demonstrate that current agricultural practices damage bee colonies.”

Goulson dismissed as “nonsense” Little’s suggestion that the doses given to the bees were higher than in reality. Both Bayer and Defra suggested other field studies had shown no harmful effects to bees. Goulson said: “If they have done these studies, where are they? They are not in the public domain and therefore cannot be scrutinised. That raises the question of just how good they are.”

From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/29/crop-pesticides-honeybee-decline

450 Wolves Killed Since Removal From Endangered Species List

450 Wolves Killed Since Removal From Endangered Species List

by | Feb 28, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, NEWS

By Jeremy Hance, Mongabay

Less than a year after being pulled off the Endangered Species Act (ESA), gray wolves (Canis lupus) in the western U.S. are facing an onslaught of hunting. The hunting season for wolves has just closed in Montana with 160 individuals killed, around 75 percent of 220-wolf kill quota for the state. In neighboring Idaho, where 318 wolves have been killed so far by hunters and trappers, the season extends until June. In other states—Oregon, Washington, California, and Utah—wolf hunting is not currently allowed, and the species is still under federal protection in Wyoming.

In Idaho fourteen wolves were also killed by the government using helicopters in a bid to prop up elk herds. Legislators in the state are also mulling a recent proposal to allow aerial hunting and the use of live bait to kill wolves that have harassed livestock or pets. Republican and sheep rancher Jeff Siddoway, who introduced the legislation, said he would have no problem using his dog as live bait.

Wolves are hugely controversial in the region: ranchers point to them as a cause for livestock mortalities, while hunters blame them for a decline in elk. Biologists, however, say the elk decline may be due to a combination of drought, hunting by people, and the return of wolves. By nature wolves prey on young, old, and weak animals, and likely have little overall impact on a healthy herd.

In fact, a recent study study in Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains found that wolves were not a primary driver behind elk mortalities. Examining 36 elk calf kills, the study determined that mountain lions were responsible for thirteen (36 percent), black bears killed four (11 percent), wolves also killed four (11 percent), five died of natural causes (13 percent), and ten mortalities were due to unknown causes (27 percent).

However, as top predators, wolves have a big impact on elk and other prey’s behavior, which results in massive implications for the health of an ecosystem. Long-term studies in Yellowstone National Park have recorded notable changes since the return of wolves after a 70-year absence. The findings have shown that wolves are key to a healthy, diverse ecosystem.

Research has found that by keeping elk on the run and in hiding, wolves protect plants and trees that had long been over-browsed, saving some species from local extinction. The presence of wolves allowed trees to grow up along rivers for the first time in decades in Yellostone, protecting against erosion and cooling rivers through shade. In turn, the riverside trees allowed for the return of beavers, which had nearly vanished from Yellowstone. Through dam-building beavers created new habitat for fish. With more trees and shrub cover, songbird populations rose. Scavengers from bear to ravens were aided by wolf-kills. In all, biodiversity and wildlife abundance blossomed.

Less than 2,000 wolves are currently found in seven states of the western U.S., the bulk of them in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. California has only one. By contrast 3,000 wolves are found in northern Minnesota alone.

Image by 4931604 from Pixabay

Judge won’t stop Sea Shepherd from pursuing whalers

by | Feb 17, 2012 | Obstruction & Occupation

By The Associated Press

A US federal judge in Seattle has declined to immediately restrain the activities of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group.

Judge Richard Jones said he would issue a written ruling later, but that he’s inclined to deny a request for a preliminary injunction made by Japanese whalers against the Washington state-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The whalers – the Institute for Cetacean Research – said the Sea Shepherd group has attacked and rammed their ships off Antarctica during the whaling season, and asked the judge to order them to stop. Some of the clashes have been shown on the Whale Wars reality TV show.

Sea Shepherd activists use stink bombs and other nonlethal means to interfere with the whalers. The group argues that its activities are supported by international law, that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction in the Southern Ocean, and that it’s the whalers who have rammed its vessels.

“It is a victory for the Sea Shepherd, for environmentalists. It’s a victory for the whales,” said Charles Moure, an attorney with the Seattle firm of Harris & Moure representing the Sea Shepherd.

Read more from Stuff.co.nz: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/6438110/Judge-won-t-halt-anti-whaling-groups-activities

Canadian government decides poisoning wolves will save caribou from tar sands

by | Feb 11, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Jeremy Symons / National Wildlife Federation

The toll of tar sands development has been largely hidden hundreds of miles to the North. Canadian forests once provided the last undisturbed refuge in North America for migrating songbirds, ducks and geese, and the vast stretches of wilderness in northern Alberta have been ideal for wild wolves and caribou that have thrived in balance with nations of native Canadians for countless generations. But that was all before oil companies moved in and took control of the Albertan government.

Alberta’s carefully constructed web of secrecy was pierced this week by news that Canada is planning to poison thousands of wolves in a desperate effort to save caribou decimated by oil development. Recent scientific studies have proved that Canada’s Woodland caribou herds are heading toward extinction due to habitat destruction from tar sands and other oil development. Today’s Los Angeles Times article sums up the story:

Woodland caribou herds in Canada are declining, and tar sands development is a big part of the reason why. But Canada’s national and provincial governments know what do about that: Kill the wolves.

The news was uncovered by the National Wildlife Federation, whose biologists concluded:

Canada’s proposed solution to habitat destruction from tar sands development is to destroy the wolves that prey on caribou, instead of protecting their habitat.Two particularly repugnant methods of destroying wolves — shooting wolves from helicopters and poisoning wolves with baits laced with strychnine — would be carried out in response to the caribou declines. Strychnine is a deadly poison known for an excruciating death that progresses painfully from muscle spasms to convulsions to suffocation, over a period of hours. Wildlife officials will place strychnine baits on the ground or spread them from aircraft in areas they know wolves inhabit. In addition to wolves, non-target animals like raptors, wolverines and cougars will be at risk from eating the poisoned baits or scavenging on the deadly carcasses of poisoned wildlife.

Read more at Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-symons/wolves-secretly-poisoned-_b_1268761.html

Chinook Salmon Population Study Shows Many Salmon In Wild Aren’t Really Wild Salmon

by | Feb 9, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction

By Joe Satran

Four years ago, the once-mighty Chinook salmon runs in California and Oregon were so small that the states agreed to an unprecedented moratorium on fishing. The conservation measures, along with some strategic modification of the dams that had hurt salmon in the past, seemed to work. Salmon watchers seemed optimistic that stocks were well on their way to recovery. Salmon census data indicated that the number of adult salmon returning to spawn in California’s Mokelumne River had grown from just over 400 in late 2008 to nearly 18,000 this past year.

A new study of the Chinook, though, shows that most of those salmon were born not in the wild, but in Chinook hatcheries. Only 10 percent of the salmon in the river were born in the wild and returned later to spawn; the rest were originally born in the hatcheries, which are designed to support recovery.

“When you use the raw fish counts, it looks like the population is doing well,” said UC-Santa Cruz’s Rachel Johnson in the press release for the study. “But if you look at the number of fish that are produced in the wild and return to spawn in the wild, and you follow them through the cycle, you see that the wild fish don’t survive at a high enough rate to replace their parents.”

These trends mean that hatchery-born salmon are becoming a larger and larger part of the overall population in the rivers, when you’d hope that the wild salmon would quickly take over the process. Salmon born in hatcheries are better than no salmon, but they aren’t ideal. One big problem with relying on them is that, because they aren’t forced to adapt to harsh conditions when they’re very young, they aren’t necessarily as hardy as those salmon born and bred completely in the wild.

It wasn’t clear until this study that so many of the fish in the rivers were born in hatcheries because those fish aren’t visibly marked before being released into the wild. Johnson and her team identified them by testing for traces of feed used in hatcheries lingering in their ear bones.

The New York Times writes that the study indicates that marking hatchery-born salmon — perhaps by clipping a fin — could provide an easier avenue for monitoring their prevalence in the future.

From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/09/chinook-salmon_n_1265477.html