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Pesticides and wildlife: a short guide to
detecting and reducing impact
P. Mineau and J.A. Keith
National Wildlife Research Centre, Canadian Wildlife Service,
Environment Canada, Hull, Quebec, Canada
In this review, the hazards posed to wildlife, especially birds, by the use of
pesticides and the complexities of predicting those hazards are described.
Examples of problem pesticides and situations and suggestions for detecting
and reducing the damage done to wildlife are presented. Although the
material is offered from a Canadian perspective, the specific problems of
developing countries are also addressed.
The definition of wildlife differs among cultures, countries, and jurisdictions.
In this paper, we focus on birds. Birds are an important and visible part of our
environment. Traditionally, they have been used as sentinels of general environmental
quality (Diamond and Filion 1987) and a large body of literature
exists on avian toxicology (Tucker and Leitzke 1979; Hill and Hoffman 1984).
In North America, most bird species are federally protected from unlicensed
capture or kill. However, given their mobility, it is difficult to protect or exclude
them from areas that are being treated with pesticides. Birds are particularly
sensitive to some of the more toxic classes of pesticides such as organophosphate
and carbamate insecticides (Walker 1983; Peakall and Tucker 1985) and
their reproduction has been found to be affected by organochiorines (Burgat-
Sacaze et al. 1990).
Although the effects of pesticides on birds are well known, it is clear that most
pesticides were not developed with birds in mind. More disturbing yet is that
the focus on bird studies has resulted in virtual ignorance of the effects of
pesticides on most other groups of nontarget organisms, with the possible
exception of fish. Biologists around the world are sounding an alarm about
the state of reptile and amphibian diversity and population numbers (Rabb
1990). These wildlife groups have been largely ignored by most developed
countries.
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