90 
Psyche 
[June-September 
Although the USDA claims that the evidence is inconclusive in 
some cases, there does exist contrary information 7, 10 indicating that 
stock losses from fire ant poisons may sometimes be significant. Various 
newspaper accounts, while sensational in tone and possibly exag- 
gerated, add further to the impression that damage to cattle, horses, 
poultry and household pets may on several occasions have been locally 
serious. Even a few livestock deaths, if added to the time and effort 
spent by farmers in carrying out awkward measures to protect their 
animals from spray measures, must more than balance out any cumu- 
lative loss that fire ants may have inflicted directly on farm stock since 
the infestation began. 
In 1959, the formulation was changed to a dosage of 1.25 lb of 
dieldrin or heptachlor per acre, and more recently an alternative 
dosage of a quarter pound per acre has been most widely used. This 
latter dosage, used twice at three- to six-month intervals, was devel- 
oped because of the growing concern about wildlife and the residue 
problem. At this rate of application, wildlife apparently suffers much 
less seriously, but the fire ant is also much safer than under the old 
rate of two pounds per acre, and can probably come back in many 
places a year or two after the “light treatment” has been applied, 
according to the data of Blake, Eden and Hays 1 for similar dosages. 
Wildlife officials claim to have heard from Plant Pest Control officers 
that there still exist stockpiles of the formulation yielding two pounds 
of actual heptachlor or dieldrin per acre, and that this product was 
still being used for treating junkyards as of March, 1961, but Dr. E. 
D. Burgess of Plant Pest Control denies that this is so. 
A serious blow was dealt the program in late 1958, when treat- 
ments were only one year old ; Senator Sparkman and Congressman 
Boykin of Alabama asked that the fire ant campaign be suspended 
until its benefits and dangers could be evaluated properly. Then, in 
the beginning of i960, the Food and Drug Administration of the 
Department of Health, Education and Welfare lowered the tolerance 
for heptachlor residues on harvested crops to zero, following the 
discovery that heptachlor was transformed by weathering into a per- 
sistent and highly toxic derivative, heptachlor epoxide, residues of 
which turn up in meat and milk when fed to stock. Some state 
entomologists now definitely advise farmers against the use of hep- 
tachlor on pasture or forage. 
At just about the time that the residue question arose, the Alabama 
State Legislature refused to appropriate state funds for participation 
in the program after hearing evidence from state entomologists and 
some farmers that the fire ant is a nuisance rather than a direct source 
