PLCAO Online Forums

http://www.fws.gov/news/NewsReleases/sh ... 1C2CF97CC0

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sam Hamilton today announced that the brown pelican, a species once decimated by the pesticide DDT, has recovered and is being removed from the list of threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

Here is some good reading regarding The Brown Pelican :Jg Edwards.

In 1918 T. G. Pearson and Robert Allen estimated that there
were 65,000 brown pelicans along the 1,500-mile Gulf of Mexico
coastline. In 1934, after he became president of the National Audubon Society but many years before DDT was used, Allen
repeated that Gulf survey and found an 82 percent decrease in
pelicans. He saw only 200 pelicans in Texas, and practically none
in Louisiana.

In 1971, Robert Finley of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service presented testimony to the CaliforniaWater Quality Control Board
in Los Angeles, asserting that “a population of over 50,000 brown
pelicans has all but disappeared from the Gulf Coast of Texas and
Louisiana since 1961.” This figure had been published
elsewhere; however, since the pelicans were known to have been
very scarce there in 1959, an increase to 50,000 by 1961 would have been impossible! I called Finley and questioned his figures. He responded by letter on Mar. 29, 1971, stating: “Although the reports are sketchy, Jim Keith and I both feel that the estimate of 50,000 is not unreasonably high.” On August 2, 1971, Finley wrote to Congressman W. R. Poage (before whom I had testified earlier about Finley’s erroneous figures), admitting that “the year 1961 was merely a hasty approximation of an unknown time. After reviewing the evidence, I think now that I should have said that 50,000 pelicans disappeared 1961” [instead of his previous claim that they had disappeared 1961]. Both of those
statements were incorrect, but the anti-DDT environmental
propagandists never corrected them!
In California, brown pelicans had experienced no difficulties
during 20 years of heavy use of DDT, but suddenly suffered nesting failures just two months after the great Santa Barbara oil spill surrounded their nesting island (Anacapa) about Jan. 28, 1969.
Environmentalists, however, blamed only DDT for the nesting
failure, and never mentioned that great oil spill! They also
concealed the fact that California Fish and Game found that
anchovies there contained 17 ppm of lead, which is known to cause severe shell thinning. They collected hundreds of pelican eggs from that colony during the next two summers, and the shells were measured with screw micrometers. (Collecting 74 percent of all the pelican’s eggs for analysis, of course, was obviously harmful to the success of the colony. ) After April 2, 1972, I obtained all of those measurements, and found that they clearly revealed correlations between DDT residues and shell thicknesses. Some of the thinnest shells were those of eggs with low DDT, and the higher DDT concentrations were often in the thicker-shelled eggs. This was presented to the EPAand to Congress.
Robert Finley, however, wrote to Poage on August 2, 1971, to
criticize my testimony.He told the Congressmen that “there is not a shred of evidence that spilled oil is capable of causing thin-shelled eggs or otherwise affecting bird reproduction.” In response, I cited many references to the contrary. Nothing further was heard from Robert Finley.

References:

Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 9 Number 3 Fall 2004


Pearson TG, Allen RP. . New York, N.Y.:
Appleton-Century; 1937.
Allen RP. Pearson’s pelican survey in 1918. 1934;52:199.

Finley RB. Testimony before California Water Quality Control Board,
Feb. 20, 1971.

Keith JO. Transactions of the 35 North AmericanWildlife Conference,
1970, p 56.

Edwards JG. Brown pelicans revisited: review of data 1918 to 1982.
March 15, 1982.

Jehl JR. Is 30 million years long enough? , Jan/Feb
1970, pp 16-24.

HazeltineWE. Testimony before Portland EPA hearings, Jan. 14, 1978.

Switzer B. Transcript of EPA Consolidated Hearings; 1972;8212-8236.

Edwards JG. Birds not seriously affected by DDT. Hearings before
Committee on Agriculture, conducted by CongressmanW. R. Poage,
March 1971, S.N. 90-A, pp 575-594.

At least two malaria vaccine researchers have been indicted. Dr.

Miodrag Ristic received $3.28 million in grants, but developed

nothing. In 1990 he was indicted on four counts and heavily fined,

but not imprisoned. Dr.Wasim Siddiqui of the University of Hawaii,

who had claimed that his vaccine was almost ready for clinical trials,

was accused by the U.S. Inspector General of .an apparent diversion

and theft of funds, submission of false claims, and criminal

conspiracy.. Siddiqui was arrested by Honolulu police, but that very

day theVaccine Research Office ofAID awarded him another $1.65

million .to continue his research.. Hawaiian Senator Inouye then

announced on live television that if Siddiqui was handed any more

federal funds he personally would see to it that the University of

Hawaii would never get another grant of federal research money.

Siddiqui served six months of house detention, but the local

newspapers reported that he was still receiving his salary of $92,340

a year, even though not teaching classes.