New research on sparrows indicates minute amounts of
neonicitinoids cause harm.
The birds lost weight and their sense of direction after
eating as few as four tiny canola seeds per day that had been treated with the pesticide.
"This is very good evidence that
even a little dose -- incidental, you might call it -- in their feeding could
be enough to have serious impacts," said University of Saskatchewan
biologist Christy Morrissey, whose paper was published Scientific Reports.
Morrissey also studied organochlorines.
The birds exposed to organochlorines
kept their weight, but they lost their
ability to find north. Both the high-dose and low-dose group lost all
orientation and didn't get it back after the tests ended.
The neonics also disoriented the sparrows,
but the effect faded when the exposure stopped.
Other research has found that bees
feeding on flowers grown from neonic-treated seeds also lose orientation.
