Pollution Without A Solution

Animals are begining to act strange and it is partially caused by environmental pollution. Fish are more active, frogs are becoming dumber, seagulls are falling over and mice are no longer afraid. Endocrine disrupters, including heavy metals and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls, have been linked to the bizarre behaviors being noticed more often in different animal species. These chemicals are knownn to have some effects on wildlife and their behaviors but now it has been seen that these pollutants can affect an animals' physiological chemistry and even change animal sex organs.

Research on many different bird species including egrets, quials, gulls, and falcons, fish species such as minnows and mosquito fish and a variety of other species including macaques, frogs, rats, and snails has proven to reveal starting changes in their behaviors. Some of the particular behaviors altered have been noted including, mating, parenting, nest building, learning, avoidance tactics, foraging and even balance. One particular example includes male starlings and a %50 decrease in singing, displaying, flying and foraging activities when introduced to a dicrotophos insecticide. Another bird example is seen in male western gulls who try to mate with each other after hatching. This is seen in comparison with the level of DDT exposed to them while in the egg. It has also been noted that lead affects the ability of a gull to balance itself both in the air and on land.

Regretably, these behaviors often go unnoticed by many toxicologists and are only recently being linked to the strange new activities of different species. Ethan Clotfelter of Amherst College states,

You might see behavioral effects long before you see a population crash

and Dustin Penn of the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Comparative Ethology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna also says,

The most important point is the incredible amount of evidence that this is a widepsread problem.

Not only are these endocrine disrupters affecting animal behavior but it has been revealed that different concentrations of chemicals can have different effects. AN an example would include male mice who increase their scent-marking behavior while exposed to low doses of pesticides but decrease it when expose to much larger concentrations of the the same pesticide. More tests need to be run and more research to be done but there is now more evidence that pollution is causing problems and we need to clean up after ourselves.