Word: ddt
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Loaded Worms. Early elm-saving sprays used DDT, and as Marine Biologist Rachel Carson recounted with telling effect in her bestseller, Silent Spring, the insecticide got into the soil and was absorbed by earthworms. When robins ate the worms, they died in large numbers. Quickly the notion spread through suburban folklore that any kind of spraying is deadly to all birds, even to squirrels, raccoons and other appealing mammals. Organized resistance to spraying began to appear. In Downers Grove, near Chicago, bird enthusiasts ran a loud campaign. They talked about "birdkill" and hinted that insecticides cause cancer in humans. They...
Though both sides wallow in emotion, the facts seem to be that some kinds of spraying do reduce temporarily the local population of some kinds of birds. This is partly because spraying cuts the insect food supply, but when DDT is used in large quantities, it may also kill birds directly. When it gets into the soil, it may kill birds via contaminated earthworms for several years...
...silent spring crept over London, right into the House of Lords, where they were debating the dangers of pesticides and toxic chemicals. In the U.S., declared Lord Douglas of Barloch, practically every meal contained some DDT. Labor Peer Lord Edward Shackleton, 51, son of famed explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, couldn't have agreed more. Why, there was a cannibal in Polynesia, said he, "who no longer allows his tribe to eat Americans. Their fat is contaminated. We have about two parts per million of DDT in our bodies, Americans about eleven parts per million." His Lordship's conclusion...
...fare as well. Wild animals, birds, fish, and friendly insects are among the valued inhabitants of the U.S., and a good part of Miss Carson's book tells about the deadly effect of wholesale spraying on these pleasant and harmless creatures. In vivid language, she tells how DDT spraying to protect elm trees from Dutch elm disease nearly wiped out the bird populations of many Midwestern cities, how fruitless attempts to exterminate the imported fire ant of the South by airplane dusting with dieldrin had dire effects on many kinds of wildlife...
...suburban bird populations. The robins live on earthworms (that is why they are plentiful in the suburbs, where worm-bearing lawns abound), which concentrate insecticides without being damaged themselves. When the robins eat these insecticide-full worms, they die. The slaughter may continue for several years, until the DDT in the soil has disintegrated...