10 THE AUDUBON, BULL eae. 
mendations for the use of DDT: In greenhouses for armyworms and cab 
loopers on tomatoes and lettuce, for various pine moths, for borer 
ornamental trees, and for iris borers and sowbugs. 
Responsibilities of the Natural History Survey include research, ec 
tion, and extension-type service. The Survey cannot regulate the us 
any pesticide. Regulatory powers are vested in either the State Depart, 
of Agriculture or the State Department of Health. However, Dr. Wii 
H. Luckmann, Head of the Section of Economic Entomology, estin 
that statewide, 65 per cent of the general public follows Survey re 
mendations for the use of various pesticides. In the area of comme 
production, including vegetables, fruit crops, corn and soybeans, and 
Gairy industry, Dr. Luckmann estimates that more than 9) per cent o! 
Survey’s recommendations are followed. 
The usage of many modern pesticides has become so widespread 
the public sometimes forgets that these compounds may be several t 
as toxic as arsenic or strychnine, and carelessly leave the more poiso 
pesticides on open shelves in their homes. Conservationists and ot 
are even more concerned about the long-term effects of the persi; 
insecticide compounds than they are with direct mortality to wildlife ; 
pesticide applications. 
In addition to its own research, the Survey takes into account rese 
done elsewhere—and DDT, which is so easily translocated to other a 
poses a world problem which we are obliged to consider. For exan 
scientific evidence is accumulating for the transoceanic movement of I 
a metabolite of DDT, from one continent to another, and for the progres 
concentration of this compound in the successive stages of food ch: 
It has been shown that chlorinated hydrocarbons have the ability to in 
the production of liver enzymes that break down sex hormones in mami 
and birds. The unprecedented population crashes of peregrine falcon 
the United States and western Europe, of bald eagles along the shore 
the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Coast, ospreys in the Northeast, spar 
hawks in England, golden eagles in Scotland, and peregrines in wes 
Europe resulted from consistent reproductive failure due to a decreas 
the thickness of their eggshells. Repeated and significant association 
changes in thickness of eggshells with levels of DDE in various specie 
birds have been demonstrated. There are high levels of DDE in the fe 
raptorial and fish-eating birds as well as in oceanic species that have 
contact with areas of insecticide usage. The first marked population 
clines were noted in 1947, the year following the first widespread use of L 
A recent “Position Statement” by The Wildlife Society, an internati 
crganization whose members are mostly wildlife scientists, summarizes 
concern of many biologists regarding persistent pesticides. This staten 
reads, in part, as follows: 
“The Society ... is aware that DDT has been used to re- 
duce the incidence of 27 diseases, ... has saved perhaps 10 
million lives and eliminated perhaps 200 million illnesses in 
the human population. It is also aware that DDT has been 
steadily building up resistant-insect populations in many regions 
while unwarrantably disrupting crop ecosystems in others. It is 
further aware that entomologists have repeatedly been able to 
use substitute compounds effectively when resistant strains of 
insects have developed. 
