The toxin pushing honeybees to extinction is having a devastating effect across the ecosystem.
Tell Bunnings Warehouse and other retailers to stop stocking bee-poisoning neonicotinoids.
Scientists hot on the trail of the cause behind the massive global bee die-off have unearthed a slew of evidence on the devastation across the food chain caused by the most widely-used pesticide on Earth, neonicotinoids. Once they enter the water supply, neonicotinoids wipe out dragonflies, snails and other waterborne life. The few hardy species that survive are left so toxic that they're killing birds -- and Bunnings Warehouse is putting this toxic product right in our back yards.
The European Food Safety Authority just imposed a two-year ban on neonicotinoids. It's a bold step taken to avert a new Silent Spring. With up to a third of all honeybees vanishing each winter, beekeepers are saying that we are "on the brink" of not being able to pollinate all our crops.
Bunnings Warehouse and others still stock their shelves with neonicotinoid pesticides, spreading the ecosystem-destroying toxin to homes and gardens across the United States. As consumers, we need to demand that these retailers pull the devastating pesticides from the shelves.
Tell Bunnings Warehouse and others to stop stocking neonicotinoids.
Bayer and other pesticide manufacturers are shoveling cash at lobbyists in order to continue selling their poisonous products. But we're not here to protect corporate profits, we're here to protect our ecosystem to ensure our future. The first thing we need to do is take this devastating toxin out of our own neighborhoods.
One of the reasons these pesticides are so toxic is that they don't simply coat the surface -- neonicotinoids are absorbed into the plant itself. Scientists believe honeybees that stop by later to pollinate the crops accrue a lethal dose in their systems as they wander from flower to flower. Research suggests that the neurotoxin scrambles their system of navigation and other critical parts of the bee's brains. Even when it doesn't kill the bees outright, neonicotinoids alter immune system function in bees, making them more vulnerable to parasitic infections that are spreading through bee populations like wildfire.
Major retailers don't care what type of pesticides they sell, only what type of pesticides their customers will buy. If we send Bunnings Warehouse and other retailers a loud, clear message, we can get these toxic products off their shelves and out of our back yards -- and get smaller retailers around the country to follow suit.
Tell Bunnings Warehouse and others to get rid of the bee-killing neonicotinoids.
Thank you for being one of us,
Taren and the team at SumOfUs.org
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More information:
The Independent: 'Victory for bees' as European Union bans neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for destroying bee population, 29 April 2013
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation: Are Neonicotinoids Killing Bees? (PDF), 2012
American Bird Conservancy: Birds, Bees, and Aquatic Life Threatened by Gross Underestimate of Toxicity of World's Most Widely Used Pesticide, 2013
Mother Jones: 3 New Studies Link Bee Decline to Bayer Pesticide, 29 March, 2013