Biodiversity has fallen dramatically. A recent study released on the loss of wild birds in the US even caught the attention of the financial expert Hank Paulson and he wrote an article on the study for the Financial Times? Wait, hold on, the loss of birds? How will that affect the trade war or the price of Amazon. Well, actually the loss of biodiversity is much more important than most people realize. There is a financial cost for this loss and that is not just birds, but mammals and insects. It is estimated to be between $10-31 trillion USD. The article points out that since 1970, just the United States has lost around 30% of its 10 billion bird population. The bulk of the loss is in the grasslands and forests where we have seen a drop of 53%. Bids of prey and wetland bird have actually stabilized or even gained a bit, which I find somewhat perplexing. But the study was based on a count of 529 species and shows we have lost 2.9 billion. The Audubon Society in their own study has noted that since s007, the drop is 13.6%. The studies point to a loss of habitat, and a loss of food supply and a big part of that is insects.
Another study published in the journal Biological Conservation pointed out that 40 percent of all insect species are in decline and they could die out in the coming decades. In October of 2017 a European study found that insect abundance (as measured by biomass) has declined by more than 75 percent within 633 protected areas in Germany over the last 27 years. Much of the decline is in the butterfly and moth category as well as bee populations. All are pollinators. They studies don’t cite any one reason, but most likely one of the main causes is the explosion of chemical use on plants and shrubs and of course insects. Scientists have pinpointed the class called neonicotinoids.
Without insects to feed on, the birds die and it is also notable that more than half of all vertebrates in the world have also disappeared since 1970. In fact the rate of species extinction is 1,000 times higher than pre human times. By killing the insects, we are in effect killing ourselves.