The Birds and The PCBs talks about....Birds and PCBs

When I started this blog, I didn't think I was going to literally be blogging about birds and PCBs. But apparently I wrong.

I now present you with a heartbreaking story of songbirds, toxic chemicals, and tainted love. Sigh.

Researchers have found that chickadees that are exposed to very small, allowable levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can’t keep a tune as well as other birds. Like many bird species, in chickadees, the females go for males with the best songs. So, PCB-exposed birds might lose out on mates, says Sara DeLeon, an ecologist at Cornell University.

The Cornell scientists examined chickadees living along New York’s Hudson River, not far from a General Electric power plant that used PCB insulators from 1907 until the 1970s, dumping some 500,000 kilograms of the toxic chemical into the river. The US government ordered GE to clean the PCB-contaminated waters, one of the country’s largest waste cleanups. Even though current levels are below EPA's regulatory limits and thus deemed "safe," traces remain in many sites on the river, and are impacting wildlife in subtle ways

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are a class of yucky chemicals that were banned in the 1970s for being persistent organic pollutants (POPs). They are found to bioaccumulate in people and animals. They also have subtle effects in human, such as influencing sex ratios.

While the lackluster love songs of the PCB-contaminated birds could be a warning to the female chickadees that their mates aren't healthy, this could pose some serious problems for bird populations. "[E]ven female choice against chemically tainted birds, as is the case with the Hudson River chickadees, can threaten local birds if males don’t seem a good mating prospect and females move elsewhere in search of untainted love, DeLeon says. 'Populations could end up declining and birds might not end up living there.'"

And there you have it. Heartbreak, heartache, and chickadees.

Source: New Scientist

Not the fireflies also!

As someone who grew up on the east coast spending hours as a kid chasing around fireflies, its always been weird when I find someone who has never seen them before. It seems like that might become more and more common, however, as experts are reporting that firefly populations are dropping significantly. In fact, populations are down as much as 70%.

Possible causes include urban sprawl, industrial pollution, and artificial lights. It doesn't say it in the article, but I'm going to guess that global climate change isn't helping these little guys.

Fireflies seem to be just the most recent in a long list of species that are in declines, from honeybees to bats to amphibian populations, it seems like more and more species are in serious trouble.