In Brussels and Florence, people have started to express concern over the growing discovery of dead newborn birds.
When these people informed the Vogelbescherming Vlaanderen bird conservation association and the Velt ecological gardening association, they began a mass-funded investigation. More than 1,000 people sent nests and dead nests, which were analyzed and a report was published with shocking results.
When 1101 nests were analyzed, most contained DDT.
“We found a total of 36 different pesticides in 95 nests,” said pesticide expert Geert Gommers in a statement.
Bird nests revealed traces of 36 different fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and biocides. The alarm went off when they discovered traces of DDT, an insecticide banned since 1974, in 89 of the 95 nests examined.
“This DDT is still present in our environment after all this worrying time,” we read in the statement.
“The birds were at most two weeks old and had never left their nest … These results do not make us happy, especially since almost all the nests contain one or more pesticides,” wrote Gommers.
More research is needed to establish a link between increased chickadee mortality and pesticides. It should be noted that some of the pesticides found in the nests presented a “high” risk index for birds.
Does anyone remember the “canary in the coal mine? “
