How about we test it on you. Apply these chemicals to you and your family's food, and we'll see if these chemicals will have negative affects on your health. If there's no proof of these chemicals causing issues in living things then surley you wouldn't mind eating them yourself.
Has the science left wildlife management?
- Thread starter Oneye
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How about we test it on you. Apply these chemicals to you and your family's food, and we'll see if these chemicals will have negative affects on your health. If there's no proof of these chemicals causing issues in living things then surley you wouldn't mind eating them yourself.
TheJason
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By your explanation, and by all accounts I already am exposed to them. Both directly and indirectly.
Straight Arrow
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Yes, JLS, and by inference of this solid "science" that is why your goldfish died last year.
TheJason
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Also, in the short amount of reading I did on this subject, I see that it has been documented that pesticides tend to acccumulate in higher concentrations at high altitude locations. This is entirely contradictory to your earlier statements that singled out mule deer, and bighorn sheep as being vulnerable versus mountain goats and elk. Which is it?
If the aerial mechanisms of dispersal are consistent, then even organic foods have the same level of pesticide residue as that of the browse and grasses that wild animals are eating. Is this a good thing? Probably not. It just goes to show how ridiculous your previous question is about testing it on me. It's either everywhere or it's not.
If the aerial mechanisms of dispersal are consistent, then even organic foods have the same level of pesticide residue as that of the browse and grasses that wild animals are eating. Is this a good thing? Probably not. It just goes to show how ridiculous your previous question is about testing it on me. It's either everywhere or it's not.
TheJason
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Actually, he died because my wirehair decided he wanted sushi for lunch and knocked the fishbowl off the counter.
So I have not read all of this thread, I was just pointed to it.
The work on pesticide exposure that you have been pointed to is my work, I am Josh Leavitt/Lonetree.
I get the skepticism, I was skeptical myself. In skimming this thread I saw a reference to Judy Hoy. I know her, I have worked with her. She is the reason I was a skeptic. But to date the only thing I can find wrong with her work, is the assertion that it is pesticides coming into the Bitterroot valley from Idaho as the cause of the malformations she has documented. I have since documented all of the same malformations that that she has seen in Montana, here in Utah. I have since tied these occurrences to the use of road side spraying, power line spraying, and pipeline spraying.
This is much bigger than most people realize. It is a localized issue, with that local issue happening everywhere, driven by economics. This is why you see declines of macro populations across multiple states. I have worked with several wildlife biologists and researchers in multiple Western states on this. Much of this is in its infancy, but we can explain and document this inside and out, right down to the genetics involved.
One of the things we have documented is the use of pesticides on Bighorn sheep winter ranges, and resulting pneumonia outbreaks and population declines. As an example, because this is where I stated in much of this years ago: The Whiskey mountain bighorn sheep herd in Wyoming has declined multiple times over the last 20 years. Every decline was preceded by the use of herbicides on their winter range. This herd just had two of its best years(2013 and 2014) after seeing those 2 decades of declines. This corresponds with one of the longest periods that they were not exposed to herbicides.
As for funding, and agendas. I have funded all of this out of my own pocket, and do this because I am a hunter. I set out with the question of what has caused the last 40 years of wildlife declines across the Western United States. This was about 5 years ago that I began this, and this is where it has led me. Not where I thought I would be.
The work on pesticide exposure that you have been pointed to is my work, I am Josh Leavitt/Lonetree.
I get the skepticism, I was skeptical myself. In skimming this thread I saw a reference to Judy Hoy. I know her, I have worked with her. She is the reason I was a skeptic. But to date the only thing I can find wrong with her work, is the assertion that it is pesticides coming into the Bitterroot valley from Idaho as the cause of the malformations she has documented. I have since documented all of the same malformations that that she has seen in Montana, here in Utah. I have since tied these occurrences to the use of road side spraying, power line spraying, and pipeline spraying.
This is much bigger than most people realize. It is a localized issue, with that local issue happening everywhere, driven by economics. This is why you see declines of macro populations across multiple states. I have worked with several wildlife biologists and researchers in multiple Western states on this. Much of this is in its infancy, but we can explain and document this inside and out, right down to the genetics involved.
One of the things we have documented is the use of pesticides on Bighorn sheep winter ranges, and resulting pneumonia outbreaks and population declines. As an example, because this is where I stated in much of this years ago: The Whiskey mountain bighorn sheep herd in Wyoming has declined multiple times over the last 20 years. Every decline was preceded by the use of herbicides on their winter range. This herd just had two of its best years(2013 and 2014) after seeing those 2 decades of declines. This corresponds with one of the longest periods that they were not exposed to herbicides.
As for funding, and agendas. I have funded all of this out of my own pocket, and do this because I am a hunter. I set out with the question of what has caused the last 40 years of wildlife declines across the Western United States. This was about 5 years ago that I began this, and this is where it has led me. Not where I thought I would be.
Next time you make it out to Utah, I can take you for a drive and show you a few things. If you can explain mule deer declines from the early 1970s to now, I'm all ears.
1960s and 2,4-D: http://westernwildlifeecology.org/service/28-hopland-ca/
We had a huge increase in pesticide use in the late 1960s, and early 1970s. We did this again in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, this rivaled anything we saw in the '50s and '60s. And we are currently repeating another expansion right now.
Edit: No one uses just 2,4-D anymore. It is usually mixed with something like Dicamba. That is the case for roadsides in Utah, and bighorn sheep winter ranges in Wyoming. The synergistic affects are part of what make it so potent. And its not like they spray this stuff, and the deer just tip over. You see it play out over a couple of generations, and then they get hit with a hard winter, or a severe drought. Which they would under normal circumstances bounce back from. But under these conditions the rebounds are subpar, which is why we have seen stagnated populations after these declines.
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1-I, most of these guys have not read my years of working this out in public, like you have. So the foundation is lacking for much of this.
If you look at Western wildlife declines of the last 20 years specifically, you see two things. And these two things get left out of many explanations about wildlife declines. But you have to be able to explain these things, in order to explain the big picture.
First one is mineral deficiencies, specifically copper and selenium. Almost every declining, suppressed, and stagnate big game species, in every Western state, has suffered from these, beginning in the early 1990s. Pesticide exposure, on a case by case basis explains these.
Second one is malformations. Along with mineral deficiencies we see a lot of malformations in big game, concurrent with the mineral deficiencies. These include asymmetry of antlers, retained velvet(cactus bucks), malformed genitalia, hoof issues(laminitis) and under bites. The under bites are actually under developed upper facial bone, and malformed incisors. Again, pesticides can explain all of these things. None of these are new malformations, under bites showed up in elk in California in the late '60s, as well as in Michigan. I already posted an example of cactus bucks, along with a correlation to herbicide use in California. And while not new, we see a massive increase and clustering of these things in the early 1990s prior to and concurrent with some of our largest wildlife declines of the last 20 years.
So if you are going to explain and solve for the last 20 years of declines, in multiple Western species, across every Western state, you have to be able to explain these two elephants in the room.
If you look at Western wildlife declines of the last 20 years specifically, you see two things. And these two things get left out of many explanations about wildlife declines. But you have to be able to explain these things, in order to explain the big picture.
First one is mineral deficiencies, specifically copper and selenium. Almost every declining, suppressed, and stagnate big game species, in every Western state, has suffered from these, beginning in the early 1990s. Pesticide exposure, on a case by case basis explains these.
Second one is malformations. Along with mineral deficiencies we see a lot of malformations in big game, concurrent with the mineral deficiencies. These include asymmetry of antlers, retained velvet(cactus bucks), malformed genitalia, hoof issues(laminitis) and under bites. The under bites are actually under developed upper facial bone, and malformed incisors. Again, pesticides can explain all of these things. None of these are new malformations, under bites showed up in elk in California in the late '60s, as well as in Michigan. I already posted an example of cactus bucks, along with a correlation to herbicide use in California. And while not new, we see a massive increase and clustering of these things in the early 1990s prior to and concurrent with some of our largest wildlife declines of the last 20 years.
So if you are going to explain and solve for the last 20 years of declines, in multiple Western species, across every Western state, you have to be able to explain these two elephants in the room.
twodot
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I realize that to ever blame predation is considered very bad form and a thought that only cousin Bubba would have. But if you consider the area I mentioned and the fact that there is no agriculture, and no roadside spraying done in over three hundred square miles and mule deer have steadily gone down in numbers how do you answer that. Consider that this area also connects to a much larger parcel of land that also is spray free. What is causing the mule deer mortality? Let's keep it simple, there are coulees full of dead heads with the noses crushed, you will commonly come across buried deer carcass, in the winter is is not unusual to find up to four and five lion tracks together. There formerly were very few of these signs, and to see them was very rare indeed.
From what I gather from the few locals who were around in the 60s and 70s they will tell you that they believe the mule deer started going down in numbers shortly after the 1080 baits for coyotes went out of use . Lions were also next to unheard of before that time. Mule deer however were very thick in up into the late 80s.
I wish you the very best in your search for what is happening to the mule deer populations.
I also think if the answer is ever found it will be of different causes in different areas.
Please let us never get so politically blinded that we lose the ability to see sometimes predators can be a factor in reduced numbers of game.
From what I gather from the few locals who were around in the 60s and 70s they will tell you that they believe the mule deer started going down in numbers shortly after the 1080 baits for coyotes went out of use . Lions were also next to unheard of before that time. Mule deer however were very thick in up into the late 80s.
I wish you the very best in your search for what is happening to the mule deer populations.
I also think if the answer is ever found it will be of different causes in different areas.
Please let us never get so politically blinded that we lose the ability to see sometimes predators can be a factor in reduced numbers of game.
I know environmental scientists that have worked on the Hanford site as recently as 2013. There have been over 50 herbicides used, many of them specifically targeted at areas where they do not want deer. They see deer browsing in areas that have high radioactivity, and they spray said area with herbicides to discourage browsing. The problem is that many of these herbicides, encourage browsing. The issues with mule deer at Hanford came on suddenly in the early '90s and was not seen before then. This coincides with massive sage brush declines, and a huge increase in herbicide use. The researchers ruled out disease, radioactivity, and most other chemicals. Herbicides which are heavily used there were never ruled out, and all but pointed to.
It is one thing to dismiss this, but can you explain all of these deer suffering from testicular atrophy for 20 years by other means?
The Hanford deer were shown to have low T4 levels, which is indicative of the disrupted thyroid function seen in other animals exposed to herbicides. The malformations mentioned in this thread that Judy Hoy in Montana has been studying, and I have been documenting here in Utah, are definitive symptoms of hypothyroidism. Another symptom of hypothyroidism is a selenium deficiency. This is not your average wildlife biology, this is not taught at your local AG extension. That has been the brick wall of understanding what has occurred the last 20 years. This is biochemistry, this endocrinology and epigenetics.
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Get me a location, If there are herbicides being used I can probably find it. I own very remote property, in a sparsely populated county, and I have affected deer, and I can show you where they have used massive amounts of herbicides not too many miles from there. You need to be able to account for the where abouts of these deer year round, in order to absolutely rule out exposure. Mule deer have the longest documented migrations of any big game animal in North America.
Yes predators kill deer, and pesticide use can influence this predator prey relationship as well.
I grew up on a mule deer range that use to support massive numbers of mule deer and lions. We had deer and lions in the front yard when I was a kid. My family watched and hunted this area since the 1930s. There were always lots of lions, and there were always lots of deer. Until everything crashed in the 1994 winter. In the lead up to this decline, those deer were exposed to road side spraying, and biocides in irrigation water. This is still being done, and since then there are a fraction of the deer there once was.
This has nothing to do with political blindness. The problem with the predators are the problem theory, is that in every predator study of the last 20 years, where predators were removed, you see short term upticks in recruitment, but the trend line is never raised. This means that this predation is compensatory, and there is something else driving the declines and suppression. The only thing shown to increase the trend line has been mineral supplementation, and feed supplementation, which gets to the heart of metabolism disorders seen in herbicide affected deer. Especially given that both study areas were subject to herbicide use. This one is probably the most profound case: http://westernwildlifeecology.org/service/9-shasta-county-ca/ This was one of the earliest documented selenium deficiencies. Since then declining deer, big horn sheep, moose, antelope, and elk have been documented in every Western state to be suffering from selenium deficiencies, as well as copper and other minerals. Predation does not cause this, but it can take advantage of this.
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Just to be clear, I have no credentials, and less formal education than most. That being said I hold my own with PHDs at Purdue and MIT on this subject matter. Along with wildlife professionals in several states.
Honey bees: http://westernwildlifeecology.org/service/10-lander-wy/ When this went down, honey bees and bumble bees littered the ground everywhere you went. It was the following year that the mule deer started to decline. Joe Hutto started with a herd of ~100 mule deer in 2006. When I visited last spring he was down to less than 40. More on Joe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DTH5_i9uxk this does not touch on the insecticide spraying, as this connection was not made until after the documentary. It was just known that they were in trouble.
How glyphosate kills plants "Once absorbed by the plant, glyphosate binds to and blocks the activity of the enzyme enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS). The EPSPS enzyme comes at the start of the shikimic acid pathway that converts simple carbohydrate precursors derived from glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway to aromatic amino acids and many other important plant metabolites. The enzyme is normally located within the chloroplasts where it catalyses the reaction of shikimate-3-phosphate (S3P) and phosphoenol pyruvate to form 5-enolpyruvyl-shikimate-3-phosphate (ESP). ESP is a precursor for aromatic amino acids and, ultimately, hormones, vitamins and other essential plant metabolites. Structural similarities to phosphoenol pyruvate enable glyphosate to bind to the substrate binding site of the EPSPS, inhibiting its activity and blocking its import into the chloroplast.
Since the active site of the EPSPS enzyme is highly consistent in higher plants, glyphosate affects a broad spectrum of weeds indiscriminately. Inhibiting the function of the shikimic acid pathway causes a deficiency in aromatic amino acids, eventually leading to the plant’s death by starvation."
Or, the way I paraphrased it to make it understandable for those that do not have a scientific back ground. Is this an over simplification? yes. But, aromatic amino acids include things like thyroxine which is a thyroid hormone, that is selenium dependent.
Glyphosate was first and foremost patented as a mineral chelator, it is a big part of how it works.
As for over simplifying and this being a panacea or blanket answer. You have to take into account that we are talking about hundreds of long lived compounds, their synergistic affects on all aspects of ecology, from the bottom up, and top down. You have to factor in the individual exposure, the affect of that on the greater system, and how long that affect remains. You must also overlay time, weather, and economics upon the big picture as well. As much of this is economically driven.
Take sage grouse for example. The BLM put into place a plan for a huge expansion of herbicide use in 2006: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635172346/BLM-wants-to-treat-Western-lands-with-chemicals.html
BLM land accounts for as much as half of sage grouse habitat. And much of the herbicide expansion plan was targeted at wildlife habitat, with a separate 2006 sage grouse plan.
So the BLM implements their herbicide expansion, and "habitat improvement" program, and what happens? Sage grouse decline by 55% from 2007 to 2013: http://www.eenews.net/assets/2015/04/24/document_daily_03.pdf You can't simply dismiss that.
Is this a solution to all wildlife ills? No, but it is one of the biggest issues to affect wildlife and hunting for decades.
Take sage grouse for example. The BLM put into place a plan for a huge expansion of herbicide use in 2006: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/635172346/BLM-wants-to-treat-Western-lands-with-chemicals.html
BLM land accounts for as much as half of sage grouse habitat. And much of the herbicide expansion plan was targeted at wildlife habitat, with a separate 2006 sage grouse plan.
So the BLM implements their herbicide expansion, and "habitat improvement" program, and what happens? Sage grouse decline by 55% from 2007 to 2013: http://www.eenews.net/assets/2015/04/24/document_daily_03.pdf You can't simply dismiss that.
Is this a solution to all wildlife ills? No, but it is one of the biggest issues to affect wildlife and hunting for decades.
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Here is what that 2006 BLM plan looks like from space.
Its not the chaining off of the sage brush that is the problem. It is the fact that after the sage brush is removed, you get an increase in grass and forb growth, which is the intended out come. This increased grass and forb growth also means increased growth of "noxious" and "invasive weeds". This is where we run into trouble, and it is here that the 2006 BLM plan comes into play. This has played out on thousands of acres across the West.
The areas in the last two images have been documented to have been treated with herbicides multiple times since the initial sage brush removal.
Its not the chaining off of the sage brush that is the problem. It is the fact that after the sage brush is removed, you get an increase in grass and forb growth, which is the intended out come. This increased grass and forb growth also means increased growth of "noxious" and "invasive weeds". This is where we run into trouble, and it is here that the 2006 BLM plan comes into play. This has played out on thousands of acres across the West.
The areas in the last two images have been documented to have been treated with herbicides multiple times since the initial sage brush removal.
What was the weather, particularly winter and spring line from 07-13? I've posted some numbers here previously about sage grouse numbers in Utah during that time frame. Seems to me, and the biologist I talked with that weather may have had more than a little hand in that dip. And more than a little hand in the more recent increase.
Thanks for the invite to show me some areas, specifically those impacted by 2,4-D. Where might you be taking me? I used to work in range management for most of a decade in northern UT so I've been to and seen a few places that have been treated and am curious if I'd been there.
PS- Are you one of the Leavitts from TiGoat/Rutalocura?
That's me, I'm pretty sure we know each other.
There is no doubt that weather plays a role in all wildlife. I currently own one of the highest elevation(9200') sage grouse leks in Utah. The place is brutal, and the weather comes in from all directions. These grouse have done well. You get down off the mountain to the other leks, near the habitat improvements(sprayed) and the numbers are a fraction of what they use to be. This is Box Elder county.
Cache county: in 2009 and 2010 sage grouse and sharp tail grouse numbers were up in the in Ant Valley. I had not seen it like that since the late 1980s. In 2011 a pipe line came through the valley(five year spray plan attached). Now you can't find any sage grouse or sharp tail grouse. The adjacent SITLA property has been producing cactus bucks and deer with under bites and malformed testicles since 2012.
The Hardware ranch area has been sprayed with multiple herbicides over the last few years, and I have documented elk that winter on Hardware utilizing the same treated pipeline in Rich county. Here is what some of those elk look like. I now of two more that look just like this one.
One of my current study areas is highway 39 from the mouth of Ogden canyon, to Woodruff. This road has been getting sprayed with increasing amounts of herbicides fro at least 2 years, and has a treated power line and pipe line that roughly parallel it. I am documenting a lot of under bites(hypothyroidism) malformed genitalia, abnormal antler growth, and very high buck to doe ratios. Yes pesticide exposure influences buck to doe ratios.
Does this look normal? it is a 2 1/2 year old deer.
What spray areas and formulations do you know about?
1_Pointer, This is what has been happening on Deseret since about 2010-2011. Spraying for weeds usually comes the following year after taking the sage brush off.
Resulting affects on wildlife from pesticide use have a lot of variables, like I said they don't just suddenly tip over right after exposure. Besides weather triggers there are other bio-chemical triggers that play in as well. Back to bighorn sheep in the Wind River range. One of the triggers that plays into declines and the on set of pneumonia is a wet May, so that covers weather. But it is not every wet May, and its not quite that simple. It is wet Mays with high nitrate deposition(acid rain), that have the biggest impact on big horn sheep. This is a few parts per million of heavy nitrogen(synthetic agricultural nitrogen fertilizer) that induces a trophic affect on the ecosystem, and there for the sheep. So as always, multiple variables, but it is far more than just the weather. This nitrate deposition reduces mychorrizhea, and increases other fungus in the soil, that volatilize selenium out of the soil, while also changing the redox potential, converting usable selenite and selenate into unusable elemental selenium. This then reduces plant uptake of selenium, rendering it unavailable to the sheep, at a time when nursing ewes need it the most. This is when you see white muscle disease kick in, and the sheep start to travel long distances to mineral licks, exposing themselves to increased predation. This nitrate deposition, and resulting mineral unavailability in the plants is not enough to cause big horn declines by itself, but as a trigger in herbicide affect sheep suffering from post partum thyroiditis, it is the straw that can break the camels back.
Resulting affects on wildlife from pesticide use have a lot of variables, like I said they don't just suddenly tip over right after exposure. Besides weather triggers there are other bio-chemical triggers that play in as well. Back to bighorn sheep in the Wind River range. One of the triggers that plays into declines and the on set of pneumonia is a wet May, so that covers weather. But it is not every wet May, and its not quite that simple. It is wet Mays with high nitrate deposition(acid rain), that have the biggest impact on big horn sheep. This is a few parts per million of heavy nitrogen(synthetic agricultural nitrogen fertilizer) that induces a trophic affect on the ecosystem, and there for the sheep. So as always, multiple variables, but it is far more than just the weather. This nitrate deposition reduces mychorrizhea, and increases other fungus in the soil, that volatilize selenium out of the soil, while also changing the redox potential, converting usable selenite and selenate into unusable elemental selenium. This then reduces plant uptake of selenium, rendering it unavailable to the sheep, at a time when nursing ewes need it the most. This is when you see white muscle disease kick in, and the sheep start to travel long distances to mineral licks, exposing themselves to increased predation. This nitrate deposition, and resulting mineral unavailability in the plants is not enough to cause big horn declines by itself, but as a trigger in herbicide affect sheep suffering from post partum thyroiditis, it is the straw that can break the camels back.
