EPA Confirms Two More Neonics Imperil Endangered Species

As a result of years of NRDC litigation, EPA has finalized its determination that use of two neurotoxic neonicotinoid pesticides is likely to harm over 1,000 of our most imperiled species. The decision is a key step toward protections for these species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

While a formal determination of the pesticides' impacts on threatened and endangered species will be now performed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), EPA's decisions-known as "biological evaluations"- have some eye-popping findings. Specifically, EPA found that:

• Pesticide products containing the neonic chemical acetamiprid are likely to adversely affect 59% of all listed species (1,005 species).
• Pesticide products containing the neonic chemical dinotefuran are likely to adversely affect 73% of all listed species (1,259 species).

EPA then went a step further to predict whether use of these neonics is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of harmed species. The agency found that acetamiprid and dinotefuran are likely to jeopardize roughly 11% and 6% of ESA-listed species, respectively.

In other words, use of products containing these neonics is collectively pushing more than 150 species toward extinction. These preliminary evaluations join those that EPA issued for the three other major neonic chemicals several years ago, which it found were driving over 200 species toward extinction.

Collectively, these decisions underscore the phenomenal destructiveness of neonics-and the urgent need to rein in the most widely used insecticides in the U.S. NRDC is committed to ensuring that EPA acts on these findings by putting in place meaningful restrictions on neonics-which continue to show themselves as one of the most ecologically disastrous pesticides since DDT.

Related Blogs