Armstrong, Dave. “California Butterflies and Neonicotinoids!” Earth Times. Earth Times, 17 Aug. 2016. Web. 28 Aug. 2016. <http://www.earthtimes.org/pollution/california-butterflies-neonicotinoids/2960/>.

 

Northern California was rich with the population of butterflies, which provided food for bats, birds as well as other insects in their caterpillar form. However since the introduction of neonicotinoids, an insecticide, in 1995 farms across California the once rich population of butterflies have drastically dropped. The author exclaimed that silent spring could come from this because of the birds that rely on the butterflies as food. The author continued to look at the runoff from these farms using neonicotinoids and found that most make it into the water killing fish and marine life destroying the once flourishing biodiversity hot spot of northern California.

 

This article highlights the importance of being aware of how new innovations can effect the environment. Because farmers are rewarded by the amount of yield they produce there is no caution to protect the biodiversity of a region if it will lessen that yield. The butterflies that have been affected by theses neonicotinoids have lead to a deacreese in the bird population and have made what the author phrases as a quiet spring. Farmers who uses neonicotinoids also need to be made aware of how those neonicotinoids are creating barren waters miles away from there farms.