A new study finds that glyphosate is likely to injure or kill 93% of the plants and animals currently listed under the Endangered Species Act. In a draft biological evaluation, the Environmental Protection Agency’s pesticides office found that the active ingredient in RoundUp impacts the nation’s most endangered species as hundreds of millions of pounds of glyphosate is used yearly in the United States.
Mostly used in agriculture, glyphosate is also used in lawn care, gardening, school yards, national forests and many other places. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “280 million pounds of glyphosate are used just in agriculture, and glyphosate is sprayed on 298 million acres of crop land each year,” the Center for Biological Diversity reported. Glyphosate is known to be used in much of the nation’s fruit and vegetable production.
“The hideous impacts of glyphosate on the nation’s most endangered species are impossible to ignore now,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said. “Glyphosate use is so widespread that even the EPA’s notoriously industry-friendly pesticide office had to conclude that there are hardly any endangered species that can manage to evade its toxic impacts.”
The draft opinion found that 1,676 endangered species are harmed from glyphosate and confirmed the pesticide “adversely modifies critical habitat for 759 endangered species, or 96% of all species for which critical habitat has been designated,” the Center for Biological Diversity reported. The list was compiled of those species that are “federally listed as endangered or threatened, as well as experimental populations and those species that are proposed and candidates for listing,” according to the study.
“If we want to stop the extinction of amazing creatures like monarch butterflies, we need the EPA to take action to stop the out-of-control spraying of deadly poisons,” Burd said.
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