The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Fewer butterflies leads group to seek Conn. limit on insecticide
For the past 28 years, Redding lepidopterist Victor DeMasi has led a July 4 butterfly count in his town — a chance to see what butterflies, and how many, are around that day.
Butterfly populations are famously variable — there can be a few fritillaries one year, dozens the next.
But over those years, DeMasi has seen the counted numbers plunge — from about 500 in the mid-1990s to the 250 range today.
“It’s a 50 percent loss,” he said
The meadows where he and his fellow butterflylovers do the count are pretty much unchanged, he said, so there’s been no serious habitat degradation. Climate change might be moving some species away, DeMasi said, but bringing others into the state.
But in the mid-1990s neonicotinoids — a class of seriously pestilential insecticides — began to be widely used. After that, the butterflies began to disappear.
That is why DeMasi headed to the state Capitol last week to speak in favor of limiting the application of neonicotinoids to only agricultural uses in Connecticut.
“We can’t wait another 50 years, when there are no butterflies left, to sort this out,” he said.
DeMasi is part of a coalition of environmentalists working to limit the use of neonicotinoids in the state. That coalition includes beekeepers, organic farmers, clean water advocates and both the Connecticut Audubon Society and Audubon Connecticut.
Tara Cook-Littman, director of Connecticut Pesticide Reform, said about 20 groups are involved in the coalition.
Louise Washer, president of the Norwalk River Watershed Association and a leader in the Pollinator Pathways program, said neonicotinoids are damaging insect species across the board, including valuable pollinators such as honeybees, bumbles and wild bees.
“They are a keystone species,” she said. “Without them, none of us would be here,”
A world without insects means aquatic life dies, she said — no frogs, no fish.
Without bugs, a whole class of bird life suffers for lack of food — spring migrants, swallows, purple martins and nighthawks. Songbird numbers have dropped by 30 percent since 1970.
Some are concerned these insecticides may be harming crustacean life in Long Island Sound, Washer said. Groups have taken cores of sediment samples from Norwalk Harbor and from the Sound near Darien and sent them to Cornell University for analysis.
“We may be asking soon, ‘Where are all the bugs that used to hit out windshields in spring? Where are the lightning bugs in summer?’ ” Washer said. “We may lose all that.”
Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides that are chemically similar to nicotine — hence their name. They are the most widely used insecticides in the United States today.
But in 2018, the European Union banned their use entirely.
Like nicotine, neonicotinoids are a stimulant. Insects that eat them begin to shake uncontrollably, then fall into paralysis and die.
What makes them so effective is that they work systemically. If you spray a plant with neonicotinoids, the whole plant becomes deadly — its leaves, its flowers and its pollen.
The same holds true for seeds coated with neonicotinoids — those seeds grow to be insect-killing-machine plants.
Since a great amount of these insecticides — even the coating on treated seeds — works its way into the environment, their grim effects spread.
In 2016, Connecticut banned the sale of neonicotinoids to homeowners — you couldn’t go to the local hardware store, pick up a gallon to dose your lawn. Only registered lawn care companies could apply them
The new legislation before the General Assembly would take this further, confining neonicotinoid use to agricultural practices, and for veterinary care, pet care and indoor bugkilling Neither lawn care companies nor golf course maintenance crews could spray them on grassy vistas if this legislation were to pass. They could not be used on meadows. Disobeying the law could mean a $2,500 fine.
This is the second year in a row that the legislature has considered such a ban. In 2022, it banned the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on golf courses. But at the last minute, it dropped neonicotinoids from the bill.
Lori Brown, executive director the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, said she likes the bill’s chances this year.
“The second time around, you can work to clarify it,” she said.
Redding’s DeMasi said the further ban of neonicotinoids would be welcome. But he said society as a whole has to appreciation biodiversity — including the bugs flying in your face or buzzing your ears.
“A life spent hating insects has to be changed to a life spent loving them,” he said.