Well, without doing any extensive searching, I'll post just one of many sites that lists species considered extinct within the last 100 years. http://midwest.fws.gov/endangered/lists/extinct.html Edufer, your persistence and volume can win debates in online forums despite any truth. Such a ploy is really quite repugnant. I'm afraid it is more the norm than the exception. This venue favors the adamant and irrational. So it goes. I don't feel entirely compelled to visit your listed URLs on the basis of the unworthiness of the quite obviously mistaken claims you make.
Wow, I checked out your foundation's site. Incredible. I see you guys have some favoirte sources to site for supporting information. Gee, you guys got all the answers to many controversial subjects. Outrageous! No matter what I asked you I can not trust your response to be honest but I will give you a chance to come clean but I doubt if you can. Where does the funding come from? Could that or those be front organizations for many corporations, biotech, depleted uranium, nuclear power, organic chlorinated chemicals and more, all defensive of what many people find to be the desired weapons of choice for the oligarchies of today? You have some rather shallow and little cited data there that ignores most of the other scientists on the planet. You have lost any credibility in my eyes.
To find it outrageous when you get answers to many controversial things indicates you are against knowledge and debate. Good for you. You qualify for the Green Hall of Shame. I feel I don’t have to give reasons of what I think, say or do, to someone hiding behind a nickname and the description of “just a guy in the planet”, with no other information. If you are afraid of letting other people know who you are, you are simply a coward. An as such, you might be a member of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth or Earth First!. As usual, instead of discussing the scientific bases of arguments, or the flaws you discover in them, you greens always go by the “straw man” fallacy, kill the messenger, forget the message. You dismiss my arguments accusing me, the dissenter, of being “paid liar”, as if you were working for free – and telling the truth. For what I care, you can think, say, and do whatever you want, but try not to drown in your own poison. But if you do, you’ll do all of us a favor, by contributing to control the population explosion.
What, no explanation for that site that lists extinctions in the last 100 years? Guess you had to use your time to rant, you know, kind of like "to drown in your own poison." DDT use has resulted in the eventual arise of DDT resistant mosquitos. Though there are more specific papers about this on the web and the specific epithets of the resistant strains, existing now almost everywhere there are mosquitos, it is useful to cite one that points out some other myths of DDT use proponents. http://info-pollution.com/ddtban.htm There are also many sites that explore and exhaustively list alternatives to DDT. Funding for research and development of some appears to be lacking. Besides implementing the known safe methods, which requires raising the living standards and education of people so they are capable of dealing with their own situation most intelligently, we should fund the research into other effective and safe means. I don't feel like taking the time to list all of the resources around this issue and the appropriate technology that exists and the ones that can be feasibly developed fast. There are many, just as there are many on the plants and animals that have become extinct within the last 100 years. Here's a power point presentation where it is claimed that 599 animal extinctions and 73 plant extinctions have taken place within the last 500 years with a vast majority within the last 100 years. Edufer, if you are to support your claim, you will have to visit each case and argue why the researchers reporting the extinction are mistaken. Looks like the following was or is for a class at UCSB: http://mentor.lscf.ucsb.edu/course/winter/eemb133/Lecture Notes/Lecture9Extinction.pdf You don't have to pick on them or them all. Find a more detailed list from one of the many sites and start explaining why so many knowledgeable people are trying to dupe the public. There is a plus to your web site. The causes you support all seem to be linked as to being things power elites would rather people accept rather than question. Seems you have provided a list of things that should be questioned from the stand point that they all are morose and viable alternatives are probably availble. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but seems you are giving selective ignorance and bias a run for its money and they all seem quite suspect to me. Kill the messenger? I see only one here who has suggested death to another as a favored choice. You start one paragraph "I feel I don’t have to give reasons of what I think, say or do" and then some derogatory remarks and wild speculation about myself that I don't care to repeat and then start the next paragraph with "As usual, instead of discussing the scientific bases of arguments, or the flaws you discover in them, you greens always go by the “straw man” fallacy, kill the messenger, forget the message." and then some easily discernible misinformation. Do you not see that you are doing exactly what you claim I am doing when the evidence is right here that I am not doing this? I did not call you a "paid liar" though I intoned that from what can be observed it is a reasonable suspicion. I did call you "adamant and irrational" and I remain more convinced of that finding by this last post of yours. I am aware that sometimes violent people are agressive with some they have met on the web in face to face encounters or via proxy. With your expression of ill will towards me, I think I'll just keep my alias, thank you, and not add to the little information about me I have posted. That is an accepted choice for participants here and if you don't like it, then I suggest you go elsewhere. I prefer to weigh information on its own merits rather than on the self indulgent claim to expertise that any one can manufacture. Seems you may ascribe to Christianity. Care to tell me if that is the case?
No, I do not ascribe to any religion, as I am, among other reasons, against the commercial exloitation of beliefs. I do believe in God but has nothing to do with any god depicted in any religion. But going to your post. You are becoming increasingly delirious. I have not threatened anyone with death, nor have I wished death to no one. But my sincere advice to you, that you should take good care in not drowning in your own poison, (because I think your words and message are full of it, so must be you) is just a proof that I want every body to stay alive and healthy, no matter how poisonous he might be. I made an additional comment that, in case you failed to take enough care and got drowned nonetheless, your disappearance from this planet would mean a contribution to the population explosion, something that you frown upon. By the way, your departure from this world would not make me any happier at all. If you cannot take a discussion with a pinch of humor, then you should stick to your UCS meetings, where humor is never present. But the reasons you gave to remain anonymous reveal some paranoia that should be treated. Get help and get better. Now down to business. Your link to Good Old Jim Norton is a classic! It is so full of outright avoidance of scientific facts that the sole reading dismisses its contents. It looks more as a Greenpeace pamphlet than a well informing report. In the same manner it avoids telling the reader that DDT was responsible for saving more than 500 millions lives (Thus declared by the WHO “the most saving lives chemical ever created”), Jim Norton carefully avoid the mention of flawed, almost fraudulent research by DeWitt and others that were the “pièce de resistance” of Rachel Carson fraudulent book – studies that eventually were proved wrong, and dismissed because of fundamental scientific methodological flaws. The following is solely intended to inform other people in this board that may be fooled by your misinformation. I know you are aware of the information I will post here now, and this shows that you are in a hypocritical attitude. You know about it, but you rather look in the opposite direction because it does not fit into your agenda. But Jim Norton and you, both imply that DDT was banned because mosquitoes developed resistance against it. That would have been a reason to ABANDON its use, but not for BANNING IT! But the issue of resistance goes beyond science, and enter the vast field of scientific fraud. The unscientific claim is disproved one we see that, after being banned in South Africa since the 1970s, which provoked the return of malaria to previous murderous levels, they started using it again in 2000, and have stopped malaria in its track. So other countries that were forced to stop using DDT (arm-twisting policies used by so called "aid" agencies) are now returnig to DDT for trying to stop the murderous malaria levels in their countries. Did you read the New York Times article, or it was too big to swallow? Something new is going on, as this is the first time in 40 years that the Times said anything favorable to DDT. New, interesting times seem to be ahead for mankind! The development of "resistance" to insecticides by insects has been thoroughly studied. Individual insects can not develop resistance. They are just as easily killed after they have been exposed to doses of DDT as they would have been before such exposure. Some mosquitoes, however (perhaps 1 in 1,000), do not die after being sprayed, because they produce enzymes that break down DDT. Other mosquitoes have enzymes that break down other insecticides or inherit behavioral traits that help them avoid enemies or conditions that could threaten their survival. The ability to produce enzymes is inherited, and the genes responsible for destroying DDT probably regulate functions of other sorts (that is, they were already useful, and were not just awaiting the development of DDT or other insecticides). If a mosquito with a gene for the enzyme that detoxifies DDT mates with another mosquito possessing the same gene, their offspring are likely to inherit that gene. If the population is sprayed frequently with DDT, an increasing proportion of insects with that gene will survive. Those without the enzyme will perish before they can reproduce. In time, the surviving population will be genetically different from the original population, and will be “resistant” to the insecticide. The DDT on the inside walls of houses caused the death of most mosquitoes that rested on those walls. If a single mosquito happened to be “resistant” to DDT, it might not die, but it was highly unlikely that it would encounter another resistant one, and especially not one of the opposite sex (males are not blood-suckers and thus are not attracted to humans). If resistance to DDT were to develop, however, another, unrelated, insecticide could be applied to the walls to kill the mosquitoes that were resistant to DDT – if any other effective insecticide were still available. Unfortunately, DDT was so inexpensive that it was also used in the fields near the houses harboring malaria victims. As a result, resistance to DDT did develop among some populations of<I> Anopheles</I> mosquitoes and other insecticides had to be used for any further mosquito control. This was not a huge problem: ln 1970, the director general of the World Health Organization wrote, <dir>“The areas in which technical problems (resistance) have arisen represent only 1 percent of the total territory in which eradication measures are being applied but (because of adverse propaganda) those areas have had an influence on the global programme out of all proportion to their size. ”</dir>Of the 107 malarious countries, 62 reported resistance in populations of one or more<I> Anopheles</i> species to one or more common insecticides. And now, I would like to ask you two very simple questions: 1) Has been DDT proved – beyond doubt – to be carcinogenic to man at doses found in the environment? If so, by whom? 2) Was DDT proved to be responsible of thinning eggshells? If so, by whom?
Usually, no. Unless it is an endemic species, and only exists in a very small, locallized area.There are birds that only live in certain islands, fish that are only found in certain lakes. You, a person who has spent much time in the Amazon, must know about local populations of specific species, and how easy it would be for them to disappear. The effects that oil pipline installations are having on howler monkey populations in Ecudor, and the effects those same pipelines are having on the last cloud forests in the world. Despite the philosophical argument of "a negative result is not a result" when searching for existing members of a species, there is a point where you need to assume that extinction is not only possible, but that it occurs. If you accept the extinction of the marsupial tiger, then why not insects, plants, birds, etc; species that don't get as much public recognition than top-level preditors? As for species that have become extinct over the past 100 years, what about the Carolina Parakeet - the last sighting was in the 1930's - it's long been considered extinct. Or the more famous example, the Passenger Pigeon. Not as many famous species are going extinct these days, thankfully; people have put alot of effort into protecting species from extinction over the last 150 years. However, there are many, many species of less-well-liked and less-well-known species of plants and animals around the world which disappear with no more than a note in a scientific text stating that no one has seen an example of the species in over 30 years. Don't ignore a real threat to this planet, we are in the midst of one of the greatest species die-off in thousands of years - and we have more than just statistical evidence to support that idea! as for Amazonian farming techinques; no they are not as effective in the sort-term production of food volume. However, assuming proper fallow time, they can produce food continuously. Western methods, while effective in producing food in volume, also have the problem of quickly depleating the land. While current farming methods have greatly reduced the impact o the land, they have also increased the amount of effect on the surrounding environment. The Rio Grand and the Colorado rivers don't even run all the way to the ocean anymore! too much water is being diverted to modern SW US farms. Fish species whi rely on that freshwater input are suffering. The aquifers under the S/mid-west are running out faster than extpected... What do you want, high volume turn around in your food production now, or long-term stability in that food production. Currently, you can't have both. back on topic, Go with pulling the weeds if possible, herbicide is more of a problem than it is worth in small gardens. Not to mention the increasein herbicide resistance in weeds over the past 50 years - we need to come up with alternate weed comtrol mechanisms - herbicide is only a temporary solution. So is pulling the weeds, but at least the long term effects of pulling are much less, *and* much more well known. edit: thanks for the prompt to look into DDT again - it's something I haven't read up on in a long time. There appears to be *alot* of information supporting the idea that DDT was not having much of an effect on bird's eggs; in fact birds eggs in the UK were thinning for 40 odd years before the introduction of DDT! Fascinating. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT lists the only things still and issue with DDT is the high rates of genital deformation, appearently due to DDT.
I sauntered over to pub med and did a search first for DDT and then for "DDT Cancer." There is evidence that a higher concentration of DDT is associated with breast cancer. There is also evidence that it is not. There is also studies of rats showing increased susceptibilty to a specific cancer with synergistic effect of DDT and a common bacteria metabolite which is often in developing countries food stuff. There is also evidence that DDT concentration in men is associated with prostrate cancer. Concerning the effects of DDT on preterm births and shorter lactation, one researcher states "we estimated the increase in infant deaths that might result from DDT spraying. The estimated increases are of the same order of magnitude as the decreases from effective malaria control. Unintended consequences of DDT use need to be part of the discussion of modern vector control policy." I also saw a study that stated the greatest success with mosquito abatement took place before the use of DDT using various methods to kill mosquito larvae rather than targeting the mature insects but were abandoned for the less effective DDT. I also see a report of a Mexico community who voluntarily rejected the option of using DDT and were successful in their mosquito abatement program. I ran accross a method of ridding a house of the insects that is cheap and apparently quite effective that uses the volatizing of pyrethrin based substances, magnitudes less than the amount of DDT that is sprayed for the same effect. I also noted that pesticide resistance appears to occur faster for DDT than for the pyrethrins. From what I see, the citation of just 1% DDT resistant malaria vectors seems to be quite far fetched. Doing some google searching, I notice that many are on the bandwagon you are riding, Edufer. Generally, they do not list the other exemplified dangers of the toxin and categorically deny any danger whatsoever on the basis of some studies while disregarding others. As far as egg shell and reproductive dangers to birds, there were a number of in depth studies reported on pub med both recent and past that seem to be quite conclusive. If you want to see any of this data for yourself, head on over to pub med and do a little searching, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi It is really quite a valuable resource for those who want to know science rather than widely proflagated myths. I'm still waiting for you to explain why so many find that hundreds of extinctions have happened within the last 100 years. I begin to surmise that if you can't back your claims, you ignore discussing them in keeping with the crass characteristics you would attribute to me. What are these UCS meetings you speak of that you say I participate in? It doesn't help any one to have trust in your posts when you include obvious misinformation. Is that your idea of humor? I think you are quite sick. Altogethor, I continually downgrade my opinion of your integrity, Edufer. I generally don't attribute innate evilness to any human but the insanity that leads people to do violence as I see as your agenda, tells me we better find a way to cull out the most benevolent and informative understandings for formulating policy right quick or us humans are gonna blow our responsibilities as thinking life. I am extremely disgusted by you, Edufer. I have hardly witnessed such an attitude against science and intelligence than that which you demonstrate here.
Yes, river-wind, In general I tend to agree with you on many things you are saying, and dissenting on others, but an explanation on why and where i think differently will be delayed somewhat - I must go to sleep (2:40 am down here). Yes, the alligator “smoking gun” of Lake Apopka, Florida in the earlies 80s, was blamed on DDT, in spite of DDT being banned for all uses in the USA in July 1, 1972. This is a brief summary of the case, excerpted from many websites, arranged in way as to provide a clear picture: - - - - - - - Ten years ago a pesticide spill of kelthane in Lake Apopka, Florida (close to Orlando) contaminated the lake. DDE is a break-down product of kelthane, and is an estrogenic compound. The water today tests clean as far as toxins are concerned. But the estrogenic compounds are stored in fat, not water, and they are being stored in the animals who live in Lake Apopka. Because of a concern about the decline in alligators in Lake Apopka, scientists began tests. - - - - - Reproductive Toxins and Alligator Abnormalities at Lake Apopka, Florida, famous study by Jan C. Semenza, 1,2 Paige E. Tolbert, 2,3 Carol H. Rubin, 2 Louis J. Guillette Jr., 4 and Richard J. Jackson 2) – (easily found in the web) In the following commentary, we draw attention to two nematocides that are established reproductive toxins in humans, dibromochloropropane (DBCP) and ethylene dibromide (EDB), which could also have played a role in the reproductive failure observed in alligators from Lake Apopka in the early 1980s. - - - - - - PALATKA -- The St. Johns River Water Management District accepted blame Tuesday for the deaths of hundreds of birds, including 43 federally protected woodstorks that were p o i s o n e d in the late 1990s after the district inadvertently flooded Lake Apopka with harmful pesticides. The St. Johns River Water Management District has adopted amendments to its ERP rules in Chapters 40C-4, 40C-41, 40C-42, and 40C-44, F.A.C., and the associated Applicant’s Handbooks: Management and Storage of Surface Waters, Regulation of Stormwater Management Systems, and Agricultural Surface Water Management System. Section 373.461, F.S., requires the District to adopt by rule discharge limitations for all permits issued by the District for discharges into Lake Apopka. The purpose of the amendments is to limit phosphorous loads to Lake Apopka. - - - - - - Chemicals known to disrupt the endocrine system and act as estrogen-like hormones include: DDT and its degradation products, DEHP (di(2- ethylhexyl)phthalate), dicofol, HCB (hexachloro-benzene) kelthane, depone, lindane and other hexachlorocyclohexane congeners, methoxychlor, octachlorostyrene, synthetic pyrethroids, triazine herbicides, EBDC fungicides, certain PCB congeners, 2,3,7,8,-TCDD and other dioxins, 2,3,7,8-TCDF and other furans, cadmium, lead, mercury, tributyltin and other organo-tin compounds, alkyl phenols (non-biodegradable detergents and anti-oxidants present in modified polystyrene and PVCs), styrene dimers and trimers, soy products, and laboratory animal and pet food products. (Reference: Advances in Modern Environmental Toxicology, Vol. 21, Chemically-Induced Alterations in Sexual and Functional Development: The Wildlife/Human Connection, 1992, Princeton Scientific Publishing Co.) - - - - - - - It is well known that thousands of chemicals of every variety were used over the last 50 years - pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and the list goes on. There may very well have been test plots - with chemicals still unknown. - - - - - - - A serious contamination occurred just a few short years ago. This was Benlate, one of the most costly man-made agricultural disasters in Florida. The public documents made available state that this fungicide was badly contaminated with over 80 contaminants, including Flusilazole - a product not ever registered for use in the United States. Yet, neither Benlate nor Flusilazole are on the list to be tested. * * * * * * * * * * * As you see, in Lake Apopka they have dumped a cocktail of chemicals that miraculously has not killed all kinds of living creatures there. You already read the large list of disrupters above, most of them dumped into the lake, which must have played a role in the alligator’s penises. However, many people are putting the blame solely on DDT, because DDT is the “meanest kid on the block”, and will attract more attention if they said kelthane, lipone dieldrin, or whatever. More on this matter of scientific studies in my next post.
Sorry to interject, but... there's something disgustingly decadent ... disgustingly trivial? ... almost insane? ... insanely unreal? ... blinkered, anal? ... about people getting bothered, so very very bothered sometimes, about ... weeds. Don't take it personally, SamLuc. Bug bear of mine.
<font face=verdana size=2>Blaming DDT for every conceivable disease is “fashionable” – it has been for years, and pays good dividends to researchers looking for more grants and funding. And what’s worse, besides the “pork barrel” funding that wastes taxpayer’s money in useless studies, is that each new study blaming DDT for anything, makes the headlines, and help the persistence of the DDT myth. The DDT myth persists in the news as well as in the scientific literature. On April 21, 1993, Mary G. Wolff and colleagues published a study on DDT residues in blood and breast cancer in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. [1] They reported that 58 patients with breast cancer had blood serum levels of 11.0 + 9.1 nanograms (ppb) of DDE per milliliter of blood serum, compared with 7.7 + 6.8 nanograms (ppb) of DDE in the control group of cancer-free patients. No further tests were made for other possible variables such as medication with estrogens. PCB concentrations were also higher in the breast cancer group than in the controls, with lower margins of error than in the DDE groups (8.0 + 4.1 ppb vs 6.7 + 2.9), suggesting that compounds stored in blood fat were mobilized in the cancer patients. The findings were seized on by the media, including Associated Press and Time magazine, with headlines <b>"DDT Linked to Risk of Breast Cancer"</b> and <b>"Relentless DDT."</b> The New Yorker, which had launched <i>Silent Spring</i> in 1962, exulted on June 6, 1993, that <b><font color=#ff0000>"Rachel Carson Lives." </font></b> One year later, a new study to correct the fiist was published by N. Krieger and coworkers in the Journal of the <i>National Cancer Institute</i>, [2]covering a much larger group of subjects <b>(150 vs. the 58 breast-cancer patients in Wolff's report)</b> and drawing on thousands of blood samples collected and frozen during the late 1960s, when <b><font color=#ff0000>average DDE levels were four to five times higher. </font></b>The 1994 report showed no association between serum levels of DDE and the risk of breast cancer. This disproof of the earlier claims <b>did not make the headlines.</b> There were no stories about <b>"DDT Not Linked to Breast Cancer,"</b> or <b>"DDT Relents."</b> The New Yorker has not said that <b>"Rachel Carson no longer lives, after all."</b> Many activists may be expected to ignore the disproof of the 1993 claims and to link DDT falsely to cancer. The first, desired report is now <b>"locked in"</b> and has become a part of the evaluation of DDT by critics. The British historian H.R. Trevor-Roper wrote in 1962:<b>[3]<dir><font color=#0080c0>"Whatever else history may say of Dr. Goebbels, it must credit him with one positive contribution to the science of politics – a terrible but a positive contribution: he created a system of propaganda, ironically styled public enlightenment, which persuaded a people to believe that black was white."</font></b></dir>Rachel Carson has made the same contribution. Joseph Goebbels is disbelieved and discredited today, but Carson's<I> <B></FONT><FONT face="Verdana" size="2" color="#800000">Silent Spring</I></B></FONT><FONT face="Verdana" size="2" color="#000000"> is still believed and widely revered, even though its message on DDT is an example of <B></FONT><FONT face="Verdana" size="2" color="#ff0000">"the Big Lie."</font></b> So I think I will continue my posts regarding Rachle Carson's lies, as there is ample material to talk about. But when peer-reviewd studies by renown scientists present different results, they never reach the media, even as a brief press release. This is the case, among some hundreds, of the following: The California Department of Health was concerned about the effects of DDT on reproduction, and Dr. Alice Ottoboni, the department's toxicologist, consequently carried out extensive studies with rats and dogs during the 1960s and 1970s. <B>[4]</B> Rats were fed levels of DDT of 0, 20, and 200 ppm in the diet. There was no apparent effect on fecundity of dams or viability of the young. The females receiving 20 ppm DDT had a significantly longer average reproductive life span (14.55 months) than did their littermate controls (8.91 months). Ottoboni's studies with beagle dogs were through four generations, and 650 pups were born to parents that received 1, 5, and 10 milligrams (mg) of DDT per kg of body weight per day. There was no effect of DDT on survival, growth, and sex distribution of pups, nor was there any influence on morbidity or mortality or gross or histologic findings in any of the dogs. DDT-treated females had their first estrus cycles two to three months earlier than the control dogs. The highest level of DDT, in contrast to the control or 1 mg groups, was associated with freedom from roundworm infection in the pups. More recently, Unnur P. Thorgeirsson and coworkers reported in the<I> Journal of Regulatory Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology</I>[5] on a 32-year study of chemical carcinogenesis using Old World monkeys, who live about 30 years, to test a variety of chemicals, including DDT. In this DDT study, 25 monkeys were fed 20 mg/kg of DDT by mouth five times per week for 11 years. So far, 10 monkeys have died of various causes, and the other 15, ages 19 to 25, are in good health. The single cancer that occurred in a 20-year-old monkey cannot be attributed to DDT because of the monkey's age and the fact that these monkeys have a spontaneous cancer rate of 3.2 percent. On the other hand, the common fungal food contaminant, aflatoxin B, and a compound produced in cooked meat, IQ, induced cancers in more than 60 percent of the animals. <OL> <LI> Mary S. Wolff et al., 1993. "Blood Levels of Organochlorine Residues and Risk of Breast Cancer,"<I> Joumal of the National Cancer Institute</I> (April 21), Vol. 85, No. 8, pp. 648-652. <LI> Nancy Krieger et al., 1994. "Breast Cancer and Serum Organochlorines: A Prospective Study Among White, Black, and Asian Women,"<I> Joumal of the National Cancer Institute</I> (April 20), Vol. 86, No. 8, pp. 589-599. <LI> H.R. Trevor-Roper, 1962.<I> The Last Days of Hitler,</I> 3rd edition (New York: Collier Books). <LI> Alice Ottoboni, 1969. "The Effect of DDT on Reproduction in the Rat,"<I> Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol.,</I> Vol. 14, pp.79-81; also Ottoboni, et al. 1977. "Effects of DDT in Multiple Generations of Beagle Dogs,"<I> Arch. Environm. Contam. Toxicol.,</I> Vol. 6, pp. 83-101. <LI> Unnur P. Thorgeirsson, et al., 1994. "Tumor Incidence in a Chemical Carcinogenesis Study of Nonhuman Primates,"<I> Reg. Toxicol, and Pharmacol.,</I> (April), Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 130-151. </OL> As you can see, while chemicals in the environment can play havoc in some well studied cases as the Lake Apopka and its alligators, and Bhopal accident in India, exaggeration also plays havoc on much more well know and studied cases as Love Canal, Times Beach, and Sevezo (Italy), for giving just a few examples. Unfortunately, DDT will carry his undeserved bad fame into the future, until something happens that makes people to realize the mistake committed when DDT was banned in 1972.
The multiple studies I looked at on Pub Med were only for the last two years. I did not go back as far as 1994. I did not see any reports citing Goebbels. The abstracts are apparently copyrighted so I do not reprint them here but, people, go and do a search at pub med, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and read the abstracts and the reports for yourself if you are interested. What about the most recent research? A couple give a bit of creedence to some of your biased presentation but a vast majority do not. Oh, I could cite names and times and places of publication but, go get it yourselves if you want it. It all comes up quite readily. Since 2002, I counted 14 studies that appeared to apply to countering your claims. A vast majority of the most recent research appears to support the idea that DDT is carcinogenic, neonatal compromising and Central Nervous System disruptive. Giving birds DDT directly compared to control groups in a few studies just within the last two years shows direct correlation to egg shell thinning, reproductive tissue damage and increased bird mortality, matching in the field studies that correlate DDT and DDE concentrations in bird populations and observed reproductive failure. There is really no reason to shout. I do see that you seem incapable of a two sided conversation and maybe you need to shout to keep yourself from thinking or seeing anything contrary to your desired findings but, it really does not give you any more credibility than you already do not exhibit. Yup, your credibility has sunk entirely into a cravass of apparent ill will.
Oops, sorry goofyfish. I don't recall what the offending statement was and if you could PM me with it I will take efforts to avoid such in the future. This 1997 study was conducted on 14,000 women over a ten year period http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s205.htm This 2003 study is based on observation sample size of 250 women: http://www.healthscout.com/news/68/512873/main.html This one is from a study of mice done in 2003 http://www.cbcrp.org/research/PageGrant.asp?grant_id=1811 Amazing how far up the subterfuge goes, for example, the following Cornell University associated report makes specific allegations of the history of DDT and DDE research that is false, lies, misinformation, about crucial data that gives more credibility to the converse hypothesis than their findings of no association and their review of the studies that denounce any other finding. http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/FactSheet/Pesticide/fs2.ddt.pdf Here is another official looking site that does the same misinformation promulgation, http://www.realage.com/Health_Guide...opics.asp?topic=22&navtopic=rf&memberId=&cbr= I believe what we see here is where potentially high profile major institutions of research (or at least reports that are made to look that way) are corrupted into presenting highly biased and misrepresenting disinformation for the furtherance of big money interests. I don't know how but there must be a reason behind the scenes for this manufactured propaganda with high credentialed individuals showing that credentials do not dictate authenticity. The first study I link to above included many more case studies than any to date (at least ones that report the sample sizes unlike the Cornell propaganda) and did find a direct correlation between incidence of breast cancer and at least DDE concentrations, a direct breakdown product of DDT. The study done on mice in 2003 also suggests a greater carcinogenicity of DDE. Here is a site that summarizes research up to 1993 with the finding that there is indeed risk of cancer from DDT and its progeny, DDE. http://seer.cancer.gov/publications/raterisk/risks99.html Shesh, here is a reporting of the study also reported in the second URL above with the opposite conclusions: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/10.30/StudyFindsNoInc.html The same research results in opposing views? Which is correct? This latest one says its study of 250 women is the largest to date, this is three months after that first study reported above with a sample size of 14,000. I would suggest that the misinformation in this last article can act as a guide to see that it is most likely spin, in fact, right around to 180 degrees opposed to how the data is reported in the second URL of this post. Interesting, appears that there is a real effort to corrupt the findings and their reports towards the blanket denail of cancer being possibly caused by DDT and DDE. No wonder crusaders such as Edufer can not only be adamantly confused but pointedly so. There has got to be something though that spurs Edufer on to see things only in a black and white context, completely exonerating the big money. Maybe it isn't religious fervor though that is still not clear. Maybe it isn't from direct monetary reward for the lying though that too can not be ruled out. Can't really trust anything Edufer posts now. I don't think he can offer the base reason for his bias voluntarily. Appears to be married to his psychological make-up which must be fairly twisted and convoluted to be such a spokesperson of misguidance. More than enough for now.
1) Has been DDT proved – beyond doubt – to be carcinogenic to man at doses found in the environment? If so, by whom? No. DDT is listed as a Group 2B chemical in the IARC Carcinogen Classification system. Group 2B is characterized as "Agent is possibly carcinogenic". Human carcinogenic studies have been reviewed and determined to be inadequate to surport the classification of DDT as a "known human carcinogen", however sufficient data from animal and genotoxicity studies has been shown to give DDT a Group 2B classification. Classification as a "known human carcinogen" requires a large degree of unequivocal evidence. As such the list of "known human carcinogens" is quite small compared to what common sense would lead one to expect. You either have to have thorough epidemiological studies with large numbers or well-defined doses (ex. smoking) or the chemical has to cause an extremely rare cancer (ex. vinyl chloride). That DDT has not been shown beyond any doubt to cause cancer in humans does not mean, nor even imply that it is not carcinogenic to humans simply because the bar for getting into the "known human carcinogen" club is set so high. The second part of that question, depends on the first part. If DDT is carcinogenic to humans it is carcinogenic at levels found in the environment as modern risk assessment assumes no threshold for carcinogenic action.
Mr. Chips, if you are disgusted by my way of saying things, it is your decision. It is you who have convinced yourself to be disgusted with dissenting opinions, and have chosen to take it as a personal attack or offense. I could not care the less about the decisions you make to rise your own stress levels. If I were to take offense from everything people say – including you - about my opinions, I would have had my blood pressure skyrocketed many years ago. I just take notice, and learn from the mistakes I do. One of my mistakes is believing I have met reasonable people, when they are not, as the case of another member of sciforums, the famous “David Mayes”, whom you all remember. Regarding the US Fish & Wildlife Service page on extinctions, there is a lot to be discussed, as if what they list as “extinct” really are species, the way they have been looking for extinct species, and if they are really extinct. The statement, “not seen since 1932”, is not scientific. It is merely anecdotal. Let me quote what Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, famous entomologist from San José University in California, with more than 60 years dealing with species said in an article, some years ago (“Malaria: The Killer that Could Have been Defeated”). According to Dr. Edwards:<dir>“There are dozens of kinds of birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, insects, spiders, and plants in marshes that could be officially designated as "endangered species" on the same questionable basis, and any one of those could then force the halting of all human activities in or near the marshes. It is doubtful that there is any currently undeveloped parcel of land in the United States without at least one animal or plant that might be listed as "threatened" or "endangered." ”The reason that "endangered species" are so vulnerable to political definition is the serious discrepancy between the scientific, or biological "species" and the political "species" promulgated by environmental activists – a difference that has been ignored by politicians and pseudo-environmentalists. The biological definition strictly adhered to by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature requires that to be a species, an animal must be "reproductively isolated" – that is, capable of breeding with others of the same species, but not capable of naturally breeding successfully with members of other species.” ”Political "endangered species" seldom meet this requirement and thus cannot legitimately be defined as "species." Populations of animals either are a distinct species or are not. More than 60 percent of the populations that have already been officially designated as "endangered species" do not even qualify as biological "species"! “ ”The Endangered Species Act appears to have been devised simply to provide a ruse that can be used by the environmentalists to prevent development or any other activity on any area of land or water in the United States or abroad. lf a legitimate species is in danger of extinction, biologists should be concerned, even though countless millions of the Earth's species became extinct through natural causes long before humans appeared. The mere presence of insignificant local populations (or even legitimate "subspecies") of birds, mammals, salamanders, fish, clams, slugs, or insects, should not be used simply to halt human progress. Neither should it prevent the control of nuisances, destructive predators, or disease-carrying insects.” ”The worst may be yet to come. Environmentalists are now proposing that "entire environments" be protected as "endangered," so that all of the populations of animals and plants living in them will be protected, before any have begun to decline in numbers. That procedure could prevent the use of all "natural enemies" against mosquito larvae. The "natural enemies" of pests could not be introduced into such environments, because they might also attack other insects or in some way have an impact on other animals or plants in the habitat. In fact, some environmentalists have already objected to the use of the Gambusia minnows that so frequently control mosquito larvae.”</dir>(End of quote) According to ornithologist, Carlos Wotzkow, member of our foundation and author of our section “La Ecología en Cuba”, (The Ecology in Cuba, in Spanish, although some articles are in English), taxonomists, or “systematics”, as are usually called those who describe new species, or are busy studying them, are divided in two big groups. One of them, the less serious one, call themselves “splitters”, are the ones who “discover” and name species and subspecies by the thousands, while the other group, more serious and willing to investigate everything thoroughly, are called “lumpers”. “Lumpers” walk the trail opened by “splitters” cleaning up the garbage, deliriums and raving they have made. This is, demonstrating genetically or by other more concrete means, that their species or subspecies are the same one with differences in feather, fur, hair, coating, coloring, etc. One example is the “cernícalo cubano”, (Falco spareverius) that has about 6 subspecies very closely related, that all “splitters” stubbornly keep separating at the race level. I do no deny that there are differences in color and, to a lesser extent in size, in all these races – but even so, the term “subspecies” y too subjective that I would leave it only for those wanting to make things easier in the face of zoological studies. With this I want to say that if the “Falco spareverious sparveroides” (from Cuba) is a “valid” subspecies (scientifically speaking) of the “Falco spareverious dominiscencis” (from Dominican Republic, or Island La Española), then black people from Nigeria are a different species from Caucasians or Mongoloids. There is much politics and human hypocrisy involved at the time of classifications, and under that same hypocrisy now they are declaring local species “endangered species” locally. It is trick conspiring against the extinction process - that is, a natural mechanism occurring much before man existed, (called the “biochron”, the span of time for a species to exist, survive and disappear naturally), that many people guided by deep emotional feeling (in some cases), and strong political interests (in some other cases), want to prevent. As an example, Switzerland killed this year 35,000 foxes. This created many problems because pseudo-ecologists protest because they say that elimination is not natural. The truth is, if some epidemic of hydrophobia unleashed in Malaga, Spain, within less than a month it would reach the Urals fro the huge amount of these canidae in the European continent. Thus, man has to interfere, not just for saving a locally threatened species that would detract the natural appeal of the region (which is justifiable), but for eliminating other that could bring serious epizootical problems, product of a protection linked to sentimentalism in some people. The perfect example is koalas. Who would like to shoot these lovely animals? Well, if the environmental authorities didn’t do it, botanists would have to deal with them with machetes, because with so much protection and abundance of the koalas in Australia, they are wiping out forest of eucalyptus – their own feed grounds! Conclusion: “splitters” will try to sell as species everything they like us to believe to be a species. Extinctions, any – except the human species. This is all about, to afford somehow the high price of having a brain that thinks and reasons. Examples abound of overprotected species that have become detrimental to the environment, other species and the man.
Rather than use the claims of others with no supporting citations of the science they may have used or abused to formulate their opinions, could you please cite direct links to scientific studies that have led you to believe your own opinions? The more recent and larger sample size studies will hold more weight than others. If you can give a direct link to the original researchers' findings, that is best. Thank you.
<font face=verdana size=2> All “studies” purporting to show DDT as a carcinogenic in humans, are wiped out and put to shame by the <b><font color=#ff0000>biggest ever epidemiological study</font></b> conducted by Dr. Edward R. Laws, from the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Public Health Service. Dr. Laws et al., studied the workers of the Montrose Chemical Co., in California, producers of DDT for more than 30 years. Workers <b><font color=#ff0000>wore no special clothes, masks, or gloves,</font></b> and were breathing DDT dust the whole day long, and taking DDT dust to their homes. The study found that workers had collected in their fat tissues DDT and its isomers varying from <b><font color=#ff0000>38 to 647 ppm.</font></b> At that time, DDT levels in fat tissues in the average US citizen <b><font color=#ff0000>was barely 6 ppm</font></b>. In a publication in the American Medical Association, Dr. Laws stated. <b>“It is really noteworthy that, after 10 to 20 years of exposure to DDT, there was <font color=#ff0000>not a single case of cancer</font> among this group of individuals, in an exposure statistic of <b><font color=#ff0000>1300 years/man</font></b>, which is an event statistically impossible.”</b> (E.R. Laws, Jr. et al., Archives of Environmental Health, Vol. 15, pp. 766-775 /1969), and Vol. 23, pp. 181-184, (1971) ) As it is widely known, cancer attacks 25% of the world's population (aprox.) independent of color, race, social group, economic levels or occupational sectors. From any group chosen in the world, with very little variance, 25% will develop cancer, and 50% of them will get cured. So, finding an occupational group as the Montrose Chemical Co containing <b>not even a single case of cancer</b>, is a statistically impossible event, as stated by Dr. Laws. Later, Dr. Laws made experiments feeding rodents levels proportionally <b>10,000 times higher</b> than those ingested by human beings, and then transplanted malignant cancerous tumors directly into the rodent's brains. Controls without DDT in their food, had a mortality rate of 100%. But <b><font color=#ff0000>cancer disappeared in 22 of 66 rats</font></b> on trial that had been ingesting DDT during 6 months. <b>A 30% remission in brain cancer is something that ought to be studied further.</b> Other scientists reported that DDT ingestion reduced the mammary cancer and leukemia rates, chemically induced in rats. Dr. Charles Silinskas and Allan E. Okey said: <b>“If estimates prove to be correct – that 80 – 90% of human cancers are caused by chemical substances (as many experts suggest), the proposed mechanisms of protective effects of DDT in rats could be as well applied to man.”</b> (C. Silinskas and A.E. Okey, 1975, “Inhibition of Leukemia by DDT”, Journal of the Cancer Institute, Vol. 55 (Sept.) pp. 653-657.) Writing in the British Medical Bulletin in 1969, Dr. A.E. McLean, a prominent pathologist, and his coauthors cited the increase in the induction of enzymes by the livers of animals that had ingested DDT. They described in their paper that the acute toxicity of aflatoxin (a powerful carcinogenic produced by molds in grains and seeds) was increased in rats with protein deficiency but, <b>“the effect was reverted if the rats had previously ingested moderate amounts of DDT…”</b> The authors conclusions: <b>“it seems that aflatoxin B1 and perhaps other flatoxins, that are among the most carcinogenic substances known, are converted into non-toxic metabolites in the liver by means of the hydroxylation process.”</b> (A.E.M. McLean, and E.K. McLean, 1969, “Diet and Toxicity,” British Medical Bulletin, Vol. 25, pp. 278-281. The US National Cancer Institute reviewed all available studies on the issue – pro and con – and in 1978 declared that <b>DDT is not a human carcinogenic.</b> It is quite suggestive that during the years of heavy use of DDT in the US (1944-1972) <b><font color=#ff0000>liver cancer rates in the US decreased by 30%</font></b> There are carloads of similar information available, to Mr. Chips dismay, but this is enough for the moment. Sorry, there are not web links to these studies, so you must take a subscription to the journals database. In the quest for thruth, the price is cheap.
The article linked by you said: “May issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, do not prove conclusively that DDT or HCB actually cause breast cancer. It's also not clear if they add to the case implicating pesticides in human cancer. “ Then, why they claim it does? Why do you claim it does? This is a kind of Goebbelian technique: “Lie, lie, lie… something always remains…!” Mr. Chips said: <dir>“Interesting, appears that there is a real effort to corrupt the findings and their reports towards the blanket denail of cancer being possibly caused by DDT and DDE. No wonder crusaders such as Edufer can not only be adamantly confused but pointedly so. There has got to be something though that spurs Edufer on to see things only in a black and white context, completely exonerating the big money.”</dir>Now we are reaching to bottom of the can of worms. Every institution or individual that opposes Mr. Chip’s view that DDT is a terrible poison is a source of misinformation, and they must be paid by the Indian and Chinese factories manufacturing DDT. Thus, institutions as the US Cancer Institute, US Cancer Society, the US Department of Agriculture, the US Public Health Service, the FDA; Cornell, Harvard, and California at Berkely Universities, and many scientific journals, are then being funded heavily by the Hindus and the Chinese for selling DDT to South Africa (and who else?) – under the very nose of the FBI and the CIA. I have seen levels of paranoia and delirium before, but this is too much.
Edufer: "Every institution or individual that opposes Mr. Chip’s view that DDT is a terrible poison is a source of misinformation, and they must be paid by the Indian and Chinese factories manufacturing DDT. " If you put obvious misinformation into your posts it does not help your crusade (shouting, the use of a large font, doesn't either). I only cited two studies that showed direct misinformation about what had been done to date. I posted the links so people could check it out themselves. I made no mention of what or who might have prompted these researchers to miss the other research done close to and well before those studies. This is what I find to be repugnant. The ad hominem extremist attempt at ridicule. The shouting doesn't help either. I am using Mozilla more now and find it doesn't show the font size changes people incorporate into their posts and I copied your two posts to a text file so I could look at them with more semantic content rather than having to do all that scrolling. Just to begin to understand what you are trying to say takes a bit of effort. Not a very civil way to go about communicating. Talk down to me or others and you are liable to get some acquiescence by those who are discomfited by such but me, I just lost more trust in your statements as designed not to communicate or inform but rather to cajole and force compliance. I don't think that is an extreme assesment of what you have done here. I see speculation of why different results have been found, including the thought that exposure may need to occur at young age which would explain Dr. Laws different findings, based on exposure of individuals during employment at a DDT factory. I tried to find more data, but alass, looks like you are correct, it would require a subscription perhaps. I don't subscribe to anything right now that requires payment. The magazines I do get are from gifts and most of my periodical reading is done in libraries. Maybe if you got it you could post more details as long as it doesn't infringe on copyrights. I am a bit suspect of information brokers. If you want to promote understanding you should look into claims by researchers that show opposing conclusions. If you want to promote misunderstanding, then just continue as you are doing, sharing only the studies that support your emotionally charged beliefs. I don't believe that is an extreme assesment based on what you have done here. Interesting stuff about the liver cancer and brain cancer possibly being lessened by DDT exposure. The studies I've seen to date mainly seem to center on the possibility that DDT and DDE levels correlate with greater chances of getting breast and prostate cancer as well as the impairment in child development. Edufer: "The article linked by you said: 'May issue of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, do not prove conclusively that DDT or HCB actually cause breast cancer. It's also not clear if they add to the case implicating pesticides in human cancer.' Then, why they claim it does? Why do you claim it does? This is a kind of Goebbelian technique: “Lie, lie, lie… something always remains…!” See SkyLark's informative post above. The rest of that second post is hardly worthy of any reply. Again, if you must post extreme false allegations, I would suggest that it does not help your position. I do still wonder why you present only very biased information as well as resort to the false ad hominem slurs. I see from Dr. Edwards writings he believes that DDT does not undergo biological magnification. Hmmm, that seems to fly in the face of some pretty well trusted observations. Unlike cancer, one can express a fair degree of conclusiveness about the falllacy of that claim. The only two studies with pub med I find immediately claim conclusively that observations of incidence show bio-accumulation into higher concentrations in accordance with trophic layer. I could go find such on the web in general also, I'm sure. Why would Dr. Edwards want to go and put that highly dubious claim into his writings if he wanted any one to take him seriously? I see that some do despite the apparent erroneous claim. I know of another entomologist that does not share the same opinions as Dr. Edwards, my dad. He managed mosquito abatement programs in various places around the world for a couple of decades. He basically got black listed from the industry when he spoke out about some injustices that were being done by his parent organization, basically the laundering of money for the project into private hands. Another of his team who also spoke up was incarcerated and tortured. Unlike my dad, he wasn't American and subsequently had less rights. My father wrote a book about the failure of United States' foreign aid at that time, when DDT use was acceptable. I wont give the title of it here but only share this to suggest that this subject is not new to me. That 1978 NCI study apparently was the lumping togethor of statistics from a number of smaller studies to result in comparative analysis of some 269,000 individuals, an impressive number indeed. I see no details on the time span involved. Still, the claims that cancer ocurrence correlated with DDT and DDE concentrations in the much more recent studies of 14,000 and number of smaller sample sizes should not be discounted. There are many variables which appear to be coming into understanding with the observational results over time. The more recent studies have the advantage of being more aware of these and adjusting analysis to compensate and present a more fair assesment. I watched a couple of Quetzals flying back and forth to their nest in Monte Verde in Costa Rica. Have you got them there in Argentina? A flock of large green parakeets flew into the trees outside of our home last summer and I thought I saw them later in another part of Silicon Valley here. I was surprised to see tropical birds in our area near San Francisco. Hope you don't mind the inconsequential small talk. I'm kind of hoping you can cool down a bit and maybe talk rather than extol.
2) Was DDT proved to be responsible of thinning eggshells? If so, by whom? DDE is produced in the liver from the dehydrodechlorination of DDT. DDE is further metabolised to DDMU, however, this step a very slow process. As such the majority of DDE will be sequestered into adipose tissue and easily bioaccumulates up the food chain. Many species birds exposed through their diets to DDT and DDE in captivity exhibited egg shell thinning. These included the barn owl, American kestrel, mallard duck, black duck, Japanese quail, bobwhite quail, and Ringed turtle doves. Reviews of this body of literature (with the inclusion of field studies) invariably note that there is a tremendous variability across species with respect to egg shell thinning. Raptors, waterfowl, passerines, and nonpasserine ground birds are more susceptible than domestic fowl and other galliformes. Just because this occurs in the lab does not mean it is occurring the field though. LINCER, J.L. (1975) DDE-induced eggshell-thinning in the American kestrel: a comparison of the field situation and laboratory results. J. appl. Ecol ., 12: 781-793. A Cornell University grad student fed captive Kestrels varying amounts of DDE in the diet; 0.3, 3, 6, or 10 mg DDE/kg each day. This diet then correlated with the residue of DDE found in the eggs these kestrels produces; 1.9 mg/kg wet weight for the lowest dose to 245 mg/kg wet weight for the highest dose. While there was no statistical difference in the thinning of the eggshell in the lowest dose, the other doses yielded thinning of 15%, 23%, and 29% respectively. A linear relationship was then seen by plotting the log of the DDE concentration within an egg shell and the degree of eggshell thinning. Lincer then went out and collected eggs from wild Kestrels. He measured the amount of DDE in the egg shells and the degree of eggshell thinning. Plotting this data yielded the same linear relationship. So what you have is lab data showing DDE causing egg shell thining. Field data showing the same level of exposure to DDE and the same level of egg shell thining in the same relationship as seen in the laboratory experiments. Similar studies by other researchers with other species of birds yielded the same results. If you know a level of chemical exposure causes an endpoint, and you know that wild animals are being exposed to that level of chemical, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that that endpoint is occuring within those wild animals. If people are seriously interested in the toxicology of DDT, I would not suggest randomly looking up sites on the web or primary research papers on a library database. Very few web sites are objective. During the initial boom of the internet I naively thought that would usher in a greater understanding of the world as people could access a wealth of information. To my dismay there seems be far more disinformation on the web than I ever dreamed possible and I fear we may be moving backwards instead of forwards. Primary research papers will offer scattered still frames, but one really needs to see the whole movie to get a clear understanding. I suggest looking for review articles and reports instead. The Department of Health & Human Services puts out Toxicological Profiles for the more commonly studied xenobiotics every three years or so. The one for DDT/DDD/DDE is one of larger tomes and one of the more exhaustive of reports that I have read.
<font face=verdana size=2> OK, Mr. Chips. Let us bury our war axes. Of course I rather talk about things I like instead of discussing about things I dislike. No, we have not Quetzals down here, as they exist only in Costa Rica, and some neighboring areas. A beautiful bird, indeed, resembling too much birds from New Guinea. It makes me wonder how it got onto Central America and when. I live in open country (an “Estancia”, or ranch), and have thousands of birds around us, especially parakeets. But lately I have discovered a new species is singing in our garden: I have not been able to spot it yet, but I recognize the singing as belonging to a bird found in the southern part of the Amazon jungle, in the north of Bolivia – the region where I lived for three years. It seems our “Environmental Patrol” seized a cargo of “exotic birds” years ago and freed them in our area. They stayed in here because they have lots of food (our ranch is a big soybean producer) and soybean seeds are all over the place. As a matter of fact, I love birds a lot (an inheritance from my father), and when I had my adventure travel small business in the Bolivian Amazon, we collaborated with a program of conservation of macaws, “guacamayos” or “parabas”, as they are called there. In Brazil they are called “araras”, perhaps that's the rason for their taxonomic name “Ara”. Macaws make their nests in dead palm trees, inside hollow trunks. There is a region in Bolivia where there grows the “Cusi” palm, a species know only in that part of the world. It does not grow anywhere else, not even inside Bolivia. This region is a rectangle of about 200 km long (south-north) and about 40 km wide, where about 80% of palm trees are “Cusis”. And macaws make their nest on Cusi's trunks, and not in other palm trees. Why? I don't know, and I think nobody but macaws know why. Back in the 60s and 70s, there had been a terrible macaw trafficking in Bolivia, and the Bolivian government called in (to make a thoroughly study) two Argentinean ornithologists, Dr. Manuel Nores and Dr. Yzurieta, (from Cordoba national University) who happened to be good friends of Prof. Miranda, emeritus profesor there, and one of the members at our Foundation. Their two-year work was finally handed to the government, that implemented measures that resulted in an almost complete stop of the trafficking and the recovery of the macaw population (and other species too). Our foundation published their work (we had some money then) in a beautiful booklet, with the paintings made by Dr. Yzurieta, who was a terrific artist, of all Bolivian macaws found in the study. This booklet became a collector's item because of the paintings. Here is a link to what I consider the best site on birds ever, and I know you and other members of this forum will enjoy. http://www.birdlife.org.uk/datazone/search/species_search.html It is the link to the “search for species page”, but from there you can browse the entire website. But I would like to point out something that could give you some insight of how information is not too well managed in some scientific fields. This link takes you to the Blue throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis), http://www.birdlife.org.uk/datazone/search/species_search.html?action=SpcHTMDetails.asp&sid=1548&m=0 and the bird's description says this: Range & Population Ara glaucogularis is known from the Llanos de Mojos in north Bolivia, being concentrated east of the upper Mamoré Beni, where the wild population was rediscovered in 1992. Population and range estimates vary from 50-100 individuals within an area of c.18,000*km 3 to c.200 birds in 8,000*km2, with 54 individuals the only recent count. An estimated 1,200 or more wild-caught birds were exported from Bolivia during the 1980s, suggesting that the population was formerly much higher.” Here is the macaw: <img src=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/images-8/paraba1.gif> And this is the location map: <img src=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/images-8/mapa.gif> The map in the page show in red the area of these macaws' habitat – it is precisely the area where my adventure travel lodge is. In the referenced studies on these macaws, there is not a single mention of Nores and Yzurieta study, by far, the most extensive study ever made in this region of Bolivia. They also say the species was “rediscovered in 1992” – but had they read Nores and Yzurieta work, they would have known the species was abundant by the year 1989, when our friends made their survey. I could take you in a two day journey downriver by the Río Blanco, to a location in the jungle known locally by guarayo indians as the “dormidero”, or the “sleeping place”, an area of the jungle where they say ALL birds in the region gather to spend the night. In fact, every afternoon, when the sun is going down, you can see flocks of every species flying in that direction (northwest from our lodge). When we visited the place by the first time in 1987, we were amazed because the noise of millions of birds singing, chirping, or yelling, made it impossible to hear if somebody spoke at your side. You must yell directly into your friend's ear, for he to be able to hear you. No way you could camp and sleep near the area. The noise makes it impossible, and too a long stay there could drive you crazy. The region is almost uninhabited, and you could navigate for several hours in a motor boat and find just two or three shacks in a full day's trip. But the amount of these “blue throated macaws” is not 50-100 as the website report states, but they are in the order of several thousands – only in our region, where we can see hundreds of them (they are hard to mistake with other macaws, because their greenish-blue throat) flying every afternoon over our heads towards their sleeping site. I guess some ornithologists could be downplaying the number of birds they see, or most probably are getting their estimates by the means of “projections” on the number of birds sighted in some specific day. Anyhow, the website is still terrific.
