Catastrophe' as France's bird population collapses due to pesticides

[Meatpie]

Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said.

Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other covering a large agricultural region in central France.

“The situation is catastrophic,” said Benoit Fontaine, a conservation biologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History and co-author of one of the studies.
“Our countryside is in the process of becoming a veritable desert,” he said in a communique released by the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), which also contributed to the findings.

The common white throat, the ortolan bunting, the Eurasian skylark and other once-ubiquitous species have all fallen off by at least a third, according a detailed, annual census initiated at the start of the century.

A migratory song bird, the meadow pipit, has declined by nearly 70%.
The museum described the pace and extent of the wipe-out as “a level approaching an ecological catastrophe”.
The primary culprit, researchers speculate, is the intensive use of pesticides on vast tracts of monoculture crops, especially wheat and corn.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...s-bird-population-collapses-due-to-pesticides

 

[deaddirty]

Yes, it is very likely that the cause, or one of the causes, is the intensive use of pesticides wiping out the insect population, on which may bird species depend.
There was a major report on this last autumn:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...osystem-collapsing-human-activity-catastrophe
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...eddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers
and the second article contains this -
Another way of sampling insects – car windscreens – has often been anecdotally used to suggest a major decline, with people remembering many more bugs squashed on their windscreens in the past.
“I think that is real,” said Goulson. “I drove right across France and back this summer – just when you’d expect your windscreen to be splattered all over – and I literally never had to stop to clean the windscreen.”

 

[alexonedeath]

Our friend, Milvus milvus, may be in danger too, from preying on wildlife that is already poisoned.

 

[deaddirty]

Milvus milvus seems to be thriving, at least in UK, probably because it mainly scavenges on dead mammals. Um, a bit like us come to think of it, though sadly most of us do not fly so well or have such beautiful forked tails.

 

[alexonedeath]

I wonder if the Milvus milvus would scavenge on one of those traditional UK Faggots if it rolled off someone's plate. It's not a mammal, but it IS dead. Cleaning up after slobs is a never-ending job, for which we should thank the red kite.