Bugs, Birds, Bees, Bats, Condors, Geese, Ducks and Mud hens, are they impacted by toxins or DDT's?

  In the morning when I begin the day I will some days, 3 or 4 a week, sit on the porch overlooking the river with coffee. I sit there and just watch the activities in the early morning light, on most days I witness things I have never seen before. There is one thing that does not change and I find it interesting as all get out, my little dog, Trista (I call her "skunkpuppy"), checks everything out.

Skunkpuppy on guard.

She is a mixture of most breeds of dogs in the world, and most likely if it's possible some not of this world. Some of what she does is "instinct", some appear to be a habit, and some things she does appear to be thought out. She's part border collie, it shows in her size and coloring, active, smart, and spoiled. Every morning she checks out the entire area, I watch her check the open space of about 1 acre surrounding our home, she will go up one of my neighbor's steps to his upper level. Several dogs do that, I don't know what the attraction is for them, they are attracted up there for some reason. Skunkpuppy goes up and down all the waterside docks, down the walkway onto the decks, she walks around sniffing and looking. I don't know why she does that, her journey takes her up and down 4 docks that I know of. I thought she did it because that's where the birds are and she does not like any trespassers into her "area", most days she and I are the only ones out on our stretch of the Delta. There aren't as many birds, I've written a blog touching on that subject several weeks ago, some were wiped out by the "West Nile Virus". Link to CDC's paper on West Nile Virus.
The ducks, geese, mud hens and pelicans have not been seen this fall yet, although I hear the duck hunters shooting early in the morning, I can't figure out what they are shooting at, although it may be pheasant hunters as well. In 1970 I bought an old motorcycle and used it to travel all over California, one day on a trip from Lemoore to Monterey I was traveling through the Diablo Range towards the Pinnacles National Monument when I went around a curve and had to stop. The road was blocked by 12 California Condors, that was before they nearly went extinct, huge birds blocking my passage, I did not impress them at all. A few years later they went to the point of having to breed in captivity, they are now rebounding.

California Condors basking in the sun. I have never seen a
vulture dead on the side of a road, or a turkey for that matter
I wonder why.

There are a couple of factors that contributed to their extinction:
  *One that I don't buy wholeheartedly is they were poisoned by lead from bullets, it would take a lot of lead. The idea is that people hunting the numerous wild pigs, deer, and varmits would lose some after being shot, the animal would die in a remote area after not being found. Shortly the Vultures would show up and dine on them all the while consuming the lead, it may have affected a few but I dought if it was the driving factor in the birds near wipeout.
  *Second is DDT, two of the richest farming areas in the world are on either side of the Diablo Range where the big birds lived. They scavenged road kill and natural deaths from the valley floors, the Salinas Valley to the West and the San Joaquin to the East. DDT is a pesticide that was used throughout both regions in the years prior to the 1970's until it was banned in by the EPA in 1972. One of the effects of DDT on wildlife is after consumption by females it would compromise their eggs by weakening the egg's shell to the point it could not withstand the pressure of the embryo. The eggs failed soon after they were laid, leading to the eventual thinning out of the flock to the point of near extinction. DDT is also used for insulation on the inside of electrical transformers, it is also banned for that use. The EPA has something to say about DDT Link.
  When transformers that contain DDT's went out of commission the pesticide would be drained out and placed in 55-gallon drums, registered with the EPA and taken to a toxic waste site. The person in charge of draining would then complete a "manifest" for the Department of Transportation, labels filled out, forms filed and a carrier hired. The responsible person would then sign everything, in so doing the shipment was then his or her's baby, forever, or until death do us part. My name is one many drums of toxic waste stored in two places, Kettleman City and a site near Mecca California. If anything happens to corrupt the containers and the stuff leaks out everywhere, the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the poor sap that signed off on the manifest. I've been to both places, the toxins are placed in a basin lined in plastic, on top of the plastic is cement which is at some facilities wood "fly ash" from electrical generating plants. The drums are arraigned on the sealed bottom and cataloged. I have serious droughts if anything were to happen if the identification of the drums would be able to be determined, after all, it is the government. On top of the drums is another layer of cement (or flyash), it's wetted down and after drying and curing a weather tight cap is over the entire area. I have no way of knowing how many drums of DDT's are stored in each facility, many other toxins are stored there as well, in fact, flyash of itself is a "hazardous waste". It's due to the flyash "Particulate Matter" 10 microns or less, referred to as PM10, the particles have barbs on them when inhaled without a respirator the jagged little pieces lodge in the lungs never to come out. When the flyash is wetted it does a couple of things, one is it expands greatly, enough so it is capable of splitting storage tanks. Secondly, it dries as hard as cement, in fact, one of the uses is to mix it with concrete, especially useful in toxic waste dumps and highway roadbeds. The ash (barbs) are then captured in the hardened material becoming totally harmless, so toxic waste protecting us from more toxic waste. Highway 10 from LA to Yuma Arizona has road base made of flyash from a plant I was employed at.

This is a photo of drums of toxic waste staged for
disposal, my name is in there somewhere.

  After saying all of that I will now go to the subject of this blog, What has happened to all of the bugs? I mentioned the near extinction of the Condors and the absence of birds before mentioning the bugs because they appear to be related. The bugs are scarce, the birds are scarce as well, coincidence? I'm not sure if they are even related unless DDT is involved, in that case, it's a no-brainer. it's been 45 years since DDT has been banned, the condors are on the rebound, but the bugs are on the decline. It must be something else now eradicating the knat's, bees, and other creepy crawlies. I had a very good cat, he was my buddy, I would tell people that "I like my dog, and I love my cat" Amour was his name and he was magnificent "country" cat, on patrol day and night. He was poisoned, by what can only be guessed, it is related to the demise of the bugs in my area I believe and maybe universal everywhere. My neighbor and friend, he has since passed away, had boxes of "decon" rat and mouse poison set out in a lot of places on his property. Amour I believe caught a rat or mouse that had ingested some of the poison during his constant hunting, it was a terrible death for him, terrible. The place sold, the new owners told me about the rat poison, I put two and two together, the other possibility is he was poisoned intentionally but I don't want to entertain that for any length of time, although there is a compelling reason for that to be suspect. We were inundated with cats a few years back, the same time Amour died, some people may have set out "anti-freeze" I fear. EPA on rat poison Link.
  Well now we don't have any cats around here either, so unintentional poisoning is most likely, but what of the bugs. My wife claims we live in the center of spider breeding grounds, all of the spiders in the world originate here, during their fall "ballooning" they send their offspring to every corner of the planet, or so her story goes. The other people in the area apparently feel the same way, they all spray for spiders, Every week my neighbors have a "bug guy" spray their houses, outside, inside, downside and right side, I know they spray for spiders and most likely the same formula kills other bugs. I bought 4 Praying Mantis egg pods a few years back, my intention was to add about 20,000 of them to the very small existing population, I have never seen one Praying Mantis since I set them out.

Praying Mantis egg sac exploding with hundreds of
hatchlings, if they are enclosed they will eat one another.

I don't know if the spray travels in the wind and covers areas outside the intended treatment areas or if the bugs are well traveled and eventually make their way to where the spray was applied. Every spring for the past many years swarms of honey bees would land on the ground of my neighbors' house, one year a hive was found between the outer and inner walls of their home. Last spring there were no bee swarms, I fear the spraying has ended them. The honey bees have however taken over an Owl nesting box I made that is currently in a pecan tree, those bees are healthy or so they appear to be.
  I'm not sure if the pesticides and poisons have anything to do with the thinning of our wildlife and insects but it sure looks suspicious, and it's not just the farmers responsible for it. We have parks, golf courses, landscaped public area's and hard to manage areas with no way to maintain them to some peoples standards without the use of pesticides, poisons and weed killer. I can't figure out why some people complain about the major insecticide companies for supplying the farms with the chemical compounds while applying the same toxins around their homes. Maybe the relationship is just not realized, on the other hand, some people do realize the relationship. I don't see any snakes any longer either, every year I would see one or two gopher snakes next to the road or moving through the garden, for the past few years I have not seen any. Can snakes die from ingesting rat poison? The findings are inconclusive, science does not know. Is this a warning to our society, you know maybe it doesn't and won't affect us, but will it? Information from Louisiana on controlling snakes Link.
  After writing this I am no closer to knowing, there are articles in the newspapers (I still read them) and on news programs addressing the disappearance of insects and birds. We read them and possibly wonder, I do, if my activities impact this at all, I have to say yes they do. I don't use pesticides at all, I do use weed killer, there are some weeds that cannot be pulled, burned or stopped in any other way. One of those, in particular, are wild blackberry bushes, they must be pulled out by the roots, then whenever a small plant pops up it must be sprayed or the cycle starts all over. There are several other stubborn plants like that, I've looked into natural weed killers, the most common suggestions are salt compounds, however once applied nothing will ever grow there again. Do you have a natural weed killer that you use? How about natural pesticides, or repellents? It's hard when the goal is to attempt to live in harmony with the many obnoxious plants, animals, and insects in our environments. There are still plenty of bugs in the world, how much comfort can we find in that though, could it be this is an anomaly? Could it be that all of these organisms are adjusting to our changing atmospheric conditions? Maybe the warm autumn in the north is delaying the migratory birds, the weather may be affecting the life cycle of insects. I'm not sure, a few years does not establish trends, it sure does look suspicious, however.

Here's the Geese.

  What do you think? It's a subject that is not always headline-grabbing but it is intertwined with our abilities to be self-reliant and independent. Thanks for reading and sharing, what do think of bugs, bats, bees, birds and the impact our lives have on them?
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