Study Shows that Pesticide Damages Robins' Brains

It has been nearly 50 years since DDT was first dumped across acres of North American farmland and three decades after it was banned in the United States and Canada. Even though the the toxic pesticide was banned 30 years ago, it is still having damaging effects on local species, according to a new study.

Robins exposed to DDT before birth had damage to regions of the brain that enable them to sing and protect territory. Both functions are integral to mating and were more impaired in male robins, potentially leaving them unable to attract females.

"This is the first study that documented a neural effect from DDT in a natural population in any species," said Andrew Iwaniuk, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Alberta and an author of the study published in Behavioural Brain Research. The majority of previous research focused on acute, rather than chronic conditions and usually in controlled lab environments, he says.

The researchers think that as mother robins forage for earthworms, they pick up pesticides in the soil, some more than others.

Because eggs are rich in fat, they are perfect receptacles for fat-soluble DDT. So as the mother feeds, the DDT is deposited in her eggs. Brain tissue is also highly fatty, "so the DDT likes to hang out there," Iwaniuk said.

Iwaniuk estimates that at least 15 to 20 generations of robins have been affected since the pesticide was first applied. Because they live in orchards where soil is not regularly aerated, he sees little hope for change, at least in the near future.

As long as it remains there, DDT has the potential to impact a wide range of animals.

The researchers don't know how far up the food chain the toxin might travel, but hawks and weasels that eat robins could potentially be at risk as well. Iwaniuk says he is particularly concerned about aboriginal populations that live in the area and subsist on natural food sources.

Even for people who won't come in direct contact with DDT, Iwaniuk thinks there's a larger lesson here.

"Yes, it happened historically, but there are still problems with pesticides," he says. "They have an extremely long half-life and just because we use one today, that doesn't mean it will always be safe."

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Note from Sherry: We have a robin that keeps flying into our back windows and pecking on the glass while standing on the deck. We have never had this happen and I wonder if it is related to the DDT poisoning.

U.S. Abandons Animals in Lebanon Chaos

Images of kittens sniffing amid rubble. Dogs seen running frantically down the streets. Distraught Americans told that they must leave their animal companions behind to starve and die in the destruction.

These scenes—reminiscent of cruel and illegal decisions made in the wake of Hurricane Katrina—are reality once more. While the French government has made provisions for animal evacuations, the U.S. is doing the opposite. U.S. officials evacuating citizens from Lebanon have failed to heed the lesson of the Gulf Coast and are refusing Americans' attempts to evacuate with their animal companions.

PETA Calls On U.S. Commander, South African Embassy Official to Facilitate Evacuation of Animals

PETA has sent an urgent letter to Brig. Gen. Carl Jensen—the military commander in charge of U.S. evacuation operations in Lebanon—begging him to instruct his officers to help evacuees take their animals with them to safety and bringing international attention to the government’s failure to serve all Americans trapped in Lebanon.

PETA also dashed off a letter to Siyabonga Ponco, chargé d’affaires of the South African Embassy in Cairo, urging him to permit South African nationals who are being evacuated to take their companion animals with them rather than forcing them to abandon their animals in the rubble to starve. The plea stemmed from an e-mail message that Ponco sent to PETA in which he suggested that evacuees with animals should “not demand more than they could be given”—implying that a request to help South African citizens take their beloved cats, dogs, and birds with them would be asking too much.

How You Can Help Today

Please immediately urge President George W. Bush not to break the law by encouraging abandonment of companion animals and to ensure the safety of all Americans in Lebanon by ordering that citizens be allowed to evacuate with their animal companions:

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-2461 (fax)
comments@whitehouse.gov