>he believes the bird group is trying to piggyback on

> the bee controversy.


I'd already been doing some background research as to whether the planting
of neonic-treated seed was killing birds.  I wouldn't expect it, since the
neonics are highly repellent to birds--if one eats a treated seed, it
quickly develops a strong aversion to eating more.  So I searched for
on-the-ground truth in the matter.

I figured that the most likely place for it to happen would be in the Corn
Belt, and for grain-eating birds.  So I found a state document that has
tracked populations for pheasants, partridge, and quail in Indiana--all
birds that would likely forage in planted agricultural fields for strewn
grain (songbirds are insect eaters, and would not be expected to eat
grain)--
http://www.iowadnr.gov/portals/idnr/uploads/Hunting/upland_report.pdf

The report suggests that the main causes for the decline of such bird
species are due to the shift away from small grains to corn/soy, and due to
herbicide use, which eliminates nutritious weed seeds, as well as weather
events.  Pesticides are only mentioned briefly, and the plots of species
abundance does not indicate that the adoption of neonics was the cause for
bird decline.


I also figured that if treated seed was killing birds that someone would
notice the carcasses on the bare fields after planting (all these
grain-eating birds are large).  So I went to the American Bird
Conservatory's own website, which tracks reported bird kills by pesticide.

http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/toxins/aims/aims/login.cfm?CFID=163191002&CFTOKEN=17586560


Since the main neonic on treated seeds is clothianidin, I searched for
that.  Oddly, in the ABC's own database, there are zero reported incidents
of bird kills due to that chemical!  When I searched "chorpyrifos," there
were tons of incident reports of kills, as there were for other common
insecticides.

I find this situation to be similar to that of claims that seed treatments
are killing bees.  The beekeepers on the ground in the planted areas are
telling me that colonies are doing fine.  In the case of the claim of
neonic-treated seed killing birds, again, the on-the-ground reports suggest
that no one is noticing birds actually being killed by eating treated seeds.

I'm not bringing this information to your attention to defend the neonics,
but rather to ask the question, "If clothianidin seed treatment is indeed
killing grain-eating birds, where are the dead corpses?"

Again, I call upon anyone who notices any off-target organism being killed
by a pesticide to file an incident report with the EPA, so that they (and
we) are aware of any actual problems, as opposed to speculation.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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