DDT breakdown products and lead poisoning still threaten this high profile endangered species-
New Hurdle for California Condors May Be DDT From Years Ago. By John Moir. New York Times.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
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This article verifies what we were warned of back in the 1980s – that some of these “miracle” pesticides will be with us and our wildlife forever. Again, I always wonder why we wait until it is too late to do anything about these issues – ignoring warnings over and over.
Virginia, this goes back even further than the 1980’s with some of th first warnings in Rachel Carson’s, book Silent Spring (1962). I thought we were over this DDT/DDE egshell thinning nightmare from the 1970’s. Long ago one of my professors studied eggshell thinning in peregrine falcons that nearly lead to their extinction. They bounced back and are healthy today. So much recovered when the chemical was outlawed and no longer applied. Not so, for the residual that has bioavailablity in the aquatic system, and still works its way up the foodchain to sealions and now California condors.
Here is an interesting link to more current systems dynamics modeling in this area, showing the complexity of this persistent chemical as it moves through the food chain:
http://www.wsu.edu/~forda/Previous%20DDT%20Chapter.pdf
I hope there is the possibility to seek a natural resource damages claim under Superfund to get some money from Montsanto (responsible for this sink of DDT), or its liability insurers.
WM – you are right. Rachel Carson was one of the first, but unfortunately people didn’t seem to be listening much to the warnings until it became more “politically correct” to be an environmentalist in the 1970s and 1980s.