Lesson 10 – Birds at Risk: How Pesticides Shape Safety on Agricultural Lands
Presentation Recording
Will be posted here after the webinar
Presenters
Hardy Kern is Director of Government Relations for American Bird Conservancy’s Pesticides and Birds Campaign. He holds a B.S. in Zoology and a Master of Public Administration. Hardy works at the state and federal level to advance policy and legislation which reduce threats to birds from toxic pesticides. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Amanda where he is an avid birder, gardener, kayaker, and hiker.
Dr. Madhu Khanna is the ACES Distinguished Professor of Environmental Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics and Alvin H. Baum Family Chair and Director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research is at the intersection of agricultural, energy and environmental economics and has led to more than 180 peer-reviewed publications that are widely cited. She is a University of Illinois Scholar, a Stanford Woods Institute of Environment Leopold Leadership Fellow, and fellow of Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Learning Objectives
Upon successfully completing this lesson, participants will understand:
- How the pesticide approval process is under protective of birds
- How different types of pesticides negatively impact birds and how using fewer synthetic chemicals can benefit bird populations
- How pesticides negatively impact different types of birds and butterflies
- The mechanisms by which exposure to these pesticides affect bird health.
Resources
- Protecting Birds in Agricultural Landscapes, WFA Publication
- Pesticide Acute Toxicity is a Better Correlate of U.S. Grassland Bird Declines than Agricultural Intensification, Mineau and Whiteside, 2013.
- Neonicotinoids and decline in bird biodiversity in the United States, Madhu 2020.
- Insecticides, more than herbicides, land use, and climate, are associated with declines in butterfly species richness and abundance in the American Midwest, 2024.