Dead robins in St. Louis poisoned by DDT
By LINDA GITTLEMAN
Posted: 06/21/12 03:00 pm
Updated: 06/21/12 03:05 pm
After years of begging the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to test the dead birds she finds every spring in her yard, Teri Kniffen of St. Louis, finally took it upon herself to send them to the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources Wildlife Disease Laboratory in Lansing for analysis.
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The robins were found to be poisoned by whole DDT, which also includes DDD and DDE.
According to Alma College Professor Melissa Strait, who is also a Pine River Task Force member, DDT can break down to DDE, which is even more toxic than DDT.
Of the two birds tested, one had 237 parts per million in its brain; the other 254 parts per million. According to Jim Chapman, an Environmental Protection Agency ecological risk assessor, 30 parts per million is lethal for an American robin.
Kniffen told the task force members Wednesday that she usually finds six to 10 dead birds in her yard every spring. They are found all over her yard.
She is one of the ten property owners with orange fences in her yard that were installed to keep people out of spots known to have low levels of contamination that came from Velsicol Chemical, which manufactured the pesticide for decades.
There was also another report that six more dead birds were found in a nearby lot, recently....
Linda Gittleman is the Gratiot Managing Editor at the Morning Sun
