Delorean UD BOON, BU LoL betel N 15 
Wildlife and DDT 
The following statement issued recently by John H. Baker, president of 
the National Audubon Society, is based upon results of more than a year’s 
investigation of the insecticide-wildlife problem, including research by vari- 
ous federal agencies: 
Far too little attention has been paid to repeated warnings by the United 
States fish and wildlife service and the department of agriculture on the 
danger of employing certain new insecticides in heavy concentrations in 
outdoor areas. With the expanding use of such poisons, increasingly 
serious damage can be expected unless great care is taken in dusting and 
spraying. These new insecticides include DDT, DDD, TEPP, and chlorin- 
ated camphene. 
These toxic agents in heavy applications not only kill birds and fish, but 
lead to heavy destruction of bees and other insects valued by farmers and 
fruit growers. Land fertility may also be affected. The problem is urgent. 
It concerns human welfare as well as wildlife. 
Surveys and experiments conducted by the fish and wildlife service have 
demonstrated how and in what concentrations DDT may safely be used. 
Other organics have not yet been fully tested. Some of them are more 
deadly than DDT to warm blooded animals. Wildlife mortality has been 
cited by scores of observers after checking the results of local insecticide 
spraying and dusting. Such evidence confirms the hazards of drenching 
outdoor areas with the new insecticides. 
Among specific examples of destruction of wildlife was a reduction of 
50 per cent or more in the bird population in six days in a test plot in 
Texas, dusted with 4.36 pounds of DDT to the acre. A reduction of 65 
per cent took place in six days among common bird species in a Maryland 
woodland tract, following aerial treatment with a similar amount. Quail 
fed on diets containing low percentages of various new insecticides did not 
begin to succumb until the eighth day. Deaths continued among them up 
_to the 34th day of the experiment. 
Heavy kills of fish and crabs occurred after aerial applications where 
as little as one-half pound of DDT to the acre of water was employed, the 
poison being fatal to aquatic life in much lower concentrations than to 
land animals. 
Where lighter woodland applications of DDT than two pounds per acre 
have been used, little or no animal mortality has apparently resulted. 
Even in such cases, however, the destruction of all types of insects by this 
toxic agent has occasionally been followed by aphid or mite outbreaks 
resulting from loss of natural control by other insects. 
The peril of the new insecticides to birds lies in the fact that these 
organic poisons act slowly. Some of them have residual, cumulative effects. 
Birds usually devour only living insects, but poisoned and poison-laden 
insects which have not yet succumbed can provide a fatal diet for adult 
birds and their young. A nest brought to the Audubon Society’s offices 
