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You probably know that bats favor moths, and because they prefer feeding in-flight, would probably have some difficulty with the larvae. I checked through the literature for any clues and found that Sapsuckers were the only birds that ate the Gypsy Moth caterpillars. I found nothing connecting them with Btk problems, but you might do some further checking as I may have missed something.If the bacteria in Btk is actived only by enzymes in the stomachs of insects in the larva stage and essentially starves the larva, what happens to a bird or bat that eats the larva after the bacteria has been activated?
....children exposed in the womb to high levels of a class of pesticides known as organophosphates had lower average intelligence than other children by the time they reached age 7.
In just a few years, over one million bats in the northeastern United States have died from diseases caused by pesticide exposure. More than 1,800 species of sea creatures face extinction from exposure and many researchers suspect that colony collapse disorder (CCD) among bees is being caused by pesticides as well.
Behind Mass Die-Offs,
Pesticides Lurk as Culprit
Bats are especially vulnerable to chemical pollution. They’re small — the little brown bat weighs just 8 grams — and can live for up to three decades. “That’s lots of time to accumulate pesticides and contaminants,” points out Boston University bat researcher and Ph.D. candidate Marianne Moore, who is studying whether environmental contaminants suppress bats’ immune function. “We know they are exposed to and accumulate organochlorines, mercury, arsenic, lead, dioxins,” she says, “but we don’t understand the effects.”
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0070182#authcontribCrop Pollination Exposes Honey Bees to Pesticides Which Alters Their Susceptibility to the Gut Pathogen Nosema ceranae
Jeffery S. Pettis, Elinor M. Lichtenberg, Michael Andree, Jennie Stitzinger, Robyn Rose, Dennis vanEngelsdorp
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