Returning to the original article noted.
The American Bird Conservancy pushed the study in a news release. Who is the American Bird Conservancy? Are they an upland bird hunting friendly organization?
I note their own website while citing pesticides note habitat lost is the number one threat to birds overall.
https://abcbirds.org/threat/habitat/I also note the American Bird Conservancy actively opposes lead for any hunting. It further is out there spinning against lead.
https://abcbirds.org/article/hunting-sea...-bulletsshot-2/Then I go look at the article the OP cited. The study was basically a data-mining expedition looking at other studies between 1980 and 2003, and pesticide data from the 80s and 90s. It might have found something or it might be pushing an agenda. Data-mining can yield good results however it can also yield unreliable results as controlling for variables is tough in clouded hindsight.
The posit of the headline that pesticides-not-habitat-loss-leading-cause-of-grassland-birds-decline- is a big jump from previous thought and suspect when based on one statistical analysis study.
While I have no doubt pesticides do figure in bird populations, I do not believe they are the level of impact posited in the OP cited article.
