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Frog populations have been plummeting -- counts down by 80, 90%, some going extinct, all over the world.
Atrazine concentrations as low as 0.1 ppb cause between 16 and 20 percent of tadpoles develop abnormal reproductive systems -- compare this to 21 ppb in groundwater, 102 ppb in river basins in agricultural areas, and 224 ppb in streams in the Midwest.
Last year I wrote the following thread on another forum, in honor of frogs and in disgust over atrazine. Hope I can share it here:
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To kill weeds, Monsanto created Roundup.
To prevent Roundup from killing canola plants, Monsanto patented a genetically modified canola plant, "roundup ready".
Atrazine, made by the Swiss company Syngenta, is the most common weedkiller in the world, and is sometimes used in Roundup.
Frogs are becoming hermaphrodites, and developing other sex organ abnormalities, when exposed to very low concentrations of atrazine. Atrazine causes male frog cells to produce an enzyme that converts their testosterone to estrogen.
Guess frogs are not "roundup ready".
A Canadian farmer, Mr. Schmeiser, was sued for not paying Monsanto fees after the patented "roundup ready" plants presumably blew in from the highway and took over the fields. (He can't kill them with Roundup.)
The Canadian farmer wasn't "roundup ready".
The judge in the case also found that 'while farmers can generally own the seeds or plants grown on their land if they are blown or carried in from elsewhere, but not when it comes to genetically modified seed.' (The judge was 'round-up ready'.)
Isn't 'frog' a bad word in Canada?
I ponder, Will the Canadian farmer become a hermaphrodite? Will Monsanto or perhaps Syngenta patent the hermaphroditic frogs?, or the genetically engineered roundup ready frog? Or perhaps a genetically engineered farmer?
Would atrazine in the water supply be a nuclear deterrent for a testerosterone-drive world? Should we ban bottled water?
Is this linked to declining human male fertility (counts down 50% in 50 years)?
Like I posted once before, children don't grow like weeds anymore..
When I heard a report on NPR a few years ago that frog populations were plummeting all over the world and no one understood why, I was suddenly, deeply, sad. Frog counts down by 80, 90%, some going extinct, all over the world. I remembered those beloved shiny little black commas, swimming madly in the ditch. The ditch behind my house was filled in by the city when I was in high school. Now my boy grows up in this city of 5 million. I don't know where in this city I could find a ditch or a frog -- except tree frogs at the zoo.
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As a child when I wanted to see you I merely climbed down the sandy banks of the large ditch behind our house. I'd see you first as tiny tadpoles wriggling in clear shallow water, each black egg shape as small as caviar, with a flapping tail, shiny or flat depending on the sunlight, but always standing out in sharp contrast to clean sand underneath, a striking scene up close, whether en masse or all alone.
Rarely in the wild did I catch you in the midst of your metamorphosis. For that, I and the blond-haired neighbor boy would catch you by the hundreds, pour you into a large battered steel tub and watch you grow, before releasing you again into the ditch, usually as almost-two-inch-long two-footed creatures, still bearing tails. You, the awkward adolescent, I, still just a growing child: I no longer loved you for your cuteness and didn't yet love you for your rocky soulful voice, but I admired your strength, for you had substance to your little body, no longer just a tiny indescript comma, but now a whole word. You were a survivor.
Then after, during your adulthood, I knew you only in two ways: finding you slightly creepy and other-worldly bumpy lumps at the side of the water, I'd sometimes use a stick to gently prod you into jumping through the reeds and into the water. Or, I'd hear your voice around dusk, deep and abrupt, grouchy, matter-of-fact.
What ALL did you mean to me?
Dear frogs, in your memory, I start this thread.
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At concentrations as low as 0.1 ppb, when the tadpoles reached adulthood, between 16 and 20 percent had abnormal reproductive systems -- 21 ppb in groundwater, 102 ppb in river basins in agricultural areas, and 224 ppb in streams in the Midwest.
"Some had three ovaries and three testes, some had ovaries on one side and testes on the other, one animal even had six testes," says Hayes. "The male voice box also shrunk." (hmmm...)
Seems like with all of these extra sex organs they'd be multiplying better than ever.. Too much of a good thing, I guess.
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I search the internet. The EPA concluded three years ago that "short-term, perhaps even single day exposure to atrazine has the potential to cause a range of reproductive effects and developmental defects". "Atrazine affects the levels of a number of hormones needed for normal development and function of the reproductive system, including estrogen, prolactin, luteinizing hormone, and follicle stimulating hormone." Several European countries France, Germany, Italy have recently banned it. After a review prompted by an NRDC petition in June 2002, the EPA decided not to ban it, but instead to 'increase water sampling'.
Atrazine is transported with rain and fog.
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The Triazine Network, a nationwide group of growers that use atrazine, hailed the EPA's decision as "a common sense approach to managing atrazine levels in water."
No comment from the frogs.
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