Protect native bee habitat from a harmful herbicide.TAKE ACTION
[[link removed]]


[[link removed]]John,

Would you use a heavy duty chemical in or around your home without knowing what
toxic side effects it might have? Although common sense firmly says “no”, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows the use of a potent herbicide near
vital native bee habitat without having fully assessed its damaging effects.

Tell the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend the use of dicamba until
they research the impacts on crucial habitat for pollinating bees and other
wildlife and prove it can be used without causing serious environmental harm.
[[link removed]]

SAVE NATIVE BEES
[[link removed]]

Redbud trees, known for their striking purplish-pink flowers in early spring,
provide shelter and crucial sustenance for native bees. But dicamba, a damaging
herbicide, drifts from agricultural lands and limits blooming, slowly killing
native trees like redbuds that wildlife depend on. Although only in use with
soybean seeds genetically modified to tolerate it for a few years, dicamba has
drifted and damaged nearby forests of oak and maple trees and other natural and
backyard habitat miles away—spelling disaster for native bees.

Repeated exposure to damaging herbicides results in trees and other flowering
plants slowly dying, which then eliminates important sources of nectar, shelter
and nesting places for insects and migrating birds when they need them the most.

Please help protect native bees and birds, and the trees and other plants they
depend on by speaking out about the harmful herbicide dicamba today.
[[link removed]]

In addition to habitat destruction, initial research on dicamba has found that
damage caused by its drift away from where it is sprayed can limit food sources
for some types of caterpillars by reducing the nutritional value of the host
plants they feed upon. And that drift can change the timing of flowering, as
well as the number of flowers produced by native nectar sources. Research has
shown that dicamba contamination cuts in half the amount of pollinators visiting
an exposed plant.

Even worse, the continued use of dicamba could upset delicate ecosystems and
lead to overuse of additional harmful pesticides. Unabated use of dicamba could lead to unwanted or unexpected shifts in insect
and weed populations, potentially resulting in an uptick in pests and resistant
weeds, pushing farmers into a destructive cycle of using more and more chemicals
on their crops—further destroying native bee habitat in nearby forests and
backyards.

But this future can be avoided if the Environmental Protection Agency hears from
wildlife advocates like you. Tell the Environmental Protection Agency to halt the use of dicamba until
proper research on its effects can be conducted.
[[link removed]]

Thank you for all you do to protect vulnerable wildlife and their crucial native
habitats.

Thank you,

Julie Sibbing
Advisor, Land Stewardship
National Wildlife Federation Action Fund

DONATE
[[link removed]]

Join the Conversation [[link removed]] [[link removed]] Sign Up
[[link removed]] Contact Us [[link removed]] Privacy Policy
[[link removed]] NWFActionFund.org [[link removed]] © 2019 The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund
The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) non-profit
organization
PO Box 1583, Merrifield, VA 22116-1583 View in Browser [[link removed]] | Unsubscribe [[link removed]]