neonics

By Daniel Raichel Industry would have us believe that pesticides help sustain food production — a necessary chemical trade-off for keeping harmful bugs at bay and ensuring we have enough to eat. But the data often tell a different story—particularly in the case of neonicotinoid pesticides, also known as neonics. Despite being the most widely […]

By Daniel Raichel As massive numbers of bees and other pollinators keep dying across the globe, study after study continues to connect these deaths to neonicotinoid pesticides (A.K.A. “neonics”). With the science piling up, and other countries starting to take critical pollinator-saving action, here’s a quick primer on all things neonics: 1. What are neonics? […]

The Center for Biological Diversity Thursday urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deny Bayer CropScience’s request to allow the highly bee-toxic pesticide flupyradifurone to be sprayed on tobacco in states like Kentucky and North Carolina. Although flupyradifurone is known to harm pollinators like bees and freshwater invertebrates like mussels, the pesticide maker is asking […]

The Trump administration has lifted an Obama-era ban on the use of genetically modified crops and pesticides linked to bee decline in certain national wildlife refuges where farming is allowed, Reuters reported Saturday. In a memo signed Aug. 2, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Gregory J. Sheehan said the move was necessary […]

By Dan Nosowitz Neonicotinoid pesticides have commonly been linked to the plight of honeybees. But a new study from the University of Guelph finds that honeybees aren’t the only non-pest creatures that are coming into contact with the pesticides. Neonicotinoids, sometimes called neonics, are pesticides chemically similar to nicotine, hence their name. There are several […]

Below is a transcript of the video. Rebecca Riley, senior attorney, NRDC: Right now, we’re in a real crisis when it comes to bees. Every year, about a third of our honeybee colonies collapse. And the 4,000 native bee species in the United States suffer from those same threats that honeybees do. Those are species […]

A major global assessment of global bird populations paints a grim outlook for our feathered friends. A new report from BirdLife International finds that 40 percent of the world’s 11,000 bird species are in decline, with one in eight bird species now under some threat of extinction. The State of the World’s Birds 2018 report, […]

Monday, the Washington Department of Ecology sided with Center for Food Safety and numerous other community and conservation groups, and denied shellfish growers a permit to spray imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, on shellfish beds on Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor, in southwest Washington. The requested permit would have allowed shellfish growers from Willapa-Grays Harbor Oyster Growers […]