Subject: [Tweeters] Grebe populations
Date: Jan 17 20:23:57 2005
From: J & B Adamowski LaComa - jennandbryan at msn.com


I am by no means a scientist....however after reading recent stories and articles sent to me by many of the concerned birders here on Tweeters my curiosity got the better of me as to possible reasons why these birds have been effected and not others. After reading the studies on population declination over a 20 year history I am even more concerned. As I see it there are 3 main factors at work here:
(1) Habitat loss
(2) Introduced predators on juveniles
(3) Heavy use of Organochlorine Pesticides
Habitat loss is not news to anybody and predators such as Large Mouth Bass can have impacts on any species but throw in wide spread usage of Alachlor, Atrazine and continued usage of U.S. banned chemicals similar to or identical to D.D.T in other countires and there should be no doubt why we are losing some or all of our animals. I read a report on line about the effect of interrupting the endocrine process in frogs and alligators and was wondering if any studies at all had been done to Grebes and similar declining population birds and possible biomagnification? Again I am by no means a scientist here and am not trying to pin this on the Pesticide Industry but was just wondering if anybody had heard, read or done any studies in this field?

Bryan LaComa
jennandbryan at msn.com