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Pesticides Kill Birds, Bats, and Infants
It’s a vicious cycle:
Birds and bats eat insects contaminated with pesticides. Pesticide poisoning kills birds and bats.
With fewer birds and bats consuming less insects, more insecticides are used to address the growing pest problem. The more insecticides are used, the more human babies are exposed, and infant mortality rises.
Congress could fix this, but instead it’s using the Farm Bill to deregulate pesticides and pay farmers to increase their use.
Infant Mortality Rises With Insecticide Use
A study that looked at bats, insecticide use, and infant mortality from 2006-2017 found that, after bat die-offs, on average, farmers increased insecticide use by 31.1 percent, and infant mortality rates increased by 7.9 percent—that’s an additional 1,334 infants.
Insecticides Kill Birds
A third of North America’s bird population—about 3 billion birds—has disappeared since 1970. From 1987 to 2021, half of all bird species diminished significantly, while one quarter are declining at an accelerated pace.
Birds are disappearing the fastest in agricultural regions, indicating that insecticides are to blame, and, in fact, insecticide residues in birds’ nests correlate with dead offspring and unhatched eggs.
Insecticides Kill Bats
More than half of bat species in North America are at risk of severe declines over the next 15 years.
When bats eat pesticide-contaminated insects, the poisoning can reach toxic levels in their brains — making them more susceptible to the deadly fungal disease white-nose syndrome.
Less Birds and Bats Means More Insecticides
Birds reduce crop damage from insect pests, significantly increasing crop yield. Globally, birds consume 28 million tons of insects from agricultural landscapes each year.
Bats are even more important biological control agents. In addition to managing pest populations, bats are pollinators. In fact, they are the only nocturnal insect predator and one of just two nocturnal pollinators (alongside moths). Bat population declines are costing American farmers as much as $495 million each year.
TAKE ACTION: Congress Is Using the Farm Bill to Increase Pesticide Use. Tell Them to Do the Opposite!
Find your county: This map documents the widespread extent of agricultural pesticide usage for 14 of the most harmful organophosphate pesticidesis.