Scientists urge people to stop ‘spraying gardens with poison’ and adopt wildlife-friendly practices
Gardeners who use pesticides are contributing to the decline of British songbirds, a study suggests.
The results of the University of Sussex study, which researchers call the first of its kind, published in the journal, found that gardeners who use pesticides can expect to see fewer birds.The experiment, which surveyed 615 gardens in Britain, found 25% fewer house sparrows when glyphosate was used regularly. This is an ingredient found in commonly used herbicide brands such as Roundup or Gallup.
Researchers drew on data gathered by the British Trust for Ornithology, which organises Garden BirdWatch – a citizen science garden bird recording scheme – and found that 32% of respondents used pesticides on their gardens, and that glyphosate-based herbicides made up 53% of those applications.
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