Concerned Italians have been finding thousands of baby birds dead in their nests. Testing reveals nest materials contain alarming number of pesticides, including DDT, banned since 1974.
An alarming number of newborn birds (tits) have been found dead in nests all throughout Brussels and Florence.
After a number of concerned citizens reached out to local conservation and ecological groups, the associations decided to see exactly how many dead birds were in their area by starting a crowd-funded campaign.
As a result, over 1000 people sent in dead birds, along with their nests, for testing. These samples were analyzed with shocking results.
“We found a total of 36 different pesticides in 95 mesh nests,” Geert Gommers, a pesticide expert said in a statement.
Fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and biocides were also found in the report. The real kicker though was that DDT – an insecticide banned since 1974 – was found in 89 of the 95 nests examined.
“That DDT is still present in our environment after all this time is worrying,” Gommers continued.
“The tits were two weeks old at the most and had never been outside their nest…These results do not make us happy, especially because almost all nests contain one or more pesticides.”