Bad News for the Birds

By Claudia Wallis

Despite high levels of toxic endrin, hunters may shoot them

The passion for hunting runs deep in man. And when the quarry is ducks or geese, neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night shall stay the pursuer from exploding appointed rounds of shot in their direction. Unless the hunting season is called off. For two weeks hunters throughout the American West were as nervous as bird dogs while environmental, health and hunting authorities in the state of Montana wrangled over just that unthinkable contingency. A ban on hunting wild ducks and geese in Montana would probably mean similar prohibitions in many of the 16 other states along the migratory flyways from Canada to Mexico. Each year 20 million ducks and geese pass along those routes and, for the 15 weeks of the open season, 750,000 hunters let fly at them.

At the center of the controversy was the pesticide endrin and just how much of it had been ingested by the state's geese and ducks. More than 225 times as toxic as malathion, the Medfly poison, endrin is a chlorinated hydrocarbon, like DDT, but a good deal more lethal. One-quarter ounce ingested through the mouth, eyes, or cuts in the skin would probably kill a 170-lb. man in less than an hour. Small doses have caused tumors and high rates of birth defects in laboratory animals. Its use in agriculture has been linked to cattle losses and the death of several million fish. Banned in New York, California and parts of Canada, and restricted elsewhere, endrin is still used by farmers in Western states to battle wheat-eating cutworms. Last March, faced with what was seen as a potentially "devastating" cutworm assault, the Montana department of agriculture authorized the spraying of an estimated 120,000 acres --six times the usual number. In addition, more than 140,000 acres were dusted in Wyoming, Colorado and South Dakota. The bumper wheat crop was saved, but at a cost: bumper levels,of the poison began turning up in a variety of Montana game birds, just as the grouse and partridge season was getting under way.*

Montana health officials called for an end to the upland game-fowl season. But that seemed a bit extreme to the state fish, wildlife and parks department, which gets 46% of its conservation budget from hunting and fishing licenses. Instead of a ban, wildlife officials warned hunters and their families to trim the fat and skin carefully from any birds they might eat because the poison tends to concentrate there. They also published diagrams showing where to cut, and advised strongly against eating more than one bird every two days. Similar warnings and advice were broadcast in Canada.

Not everyone found this entirely reassuring. When it was discovered that some Montana ducks and geese contained twice as much endrin as the upland birds, an uproar arose. "Montana's wildlife people are telling residents to go ahead and eat a deadly poison," groused the Missoula Missoulian over the grouse decision; the paper demanded a ban on duck hunting. The Great Falls Tribune concurred. The state, huffed the Trib, is playing "pesticide roulette--which duck has the endrin?"

For ducks and geese, Environmental Protection Agency standards allow only a maximum daily intake level of 0.3 parts endrin per million. Tests in Montana showed concentrations up to four times greater than that. It looked like a solid case against hunting until the EPA chimed in to announce that its own standards provide a margin of safety "100 times higher" than the dosage that would affect a normal person. "A 60-lb. child could eat a whole teal and still be five times below the 'no effect' level," said an agency spokesman. To that, National Wildlife Federation Toxicologist George Manring retorted: "People may not drop dead from eating one bird. But endrin accumulates over several seasons and from different sources."It also remains in the soil for months and sometimes for years, a fact that led state Health Director John Dry-nan to wonder: "Will endrin end up in our ground water supplies?"

Wildlife groups began bitterly calling upon Montana Governor Ted Schwinden to create a state pesticide advisory council to keep the department of agriculture from any further impetuous or ill-advised spraying. Endangered species like the bald eagle, peregrine falcon and whooping crane, they noted, are especially vulnerable to pesticides. Grumbled Biologist Lowell McEwen of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: "They are poisoning everything under the sun down there."

The Governor responded by asking the EPA to re-evaluate its policy on endrin use and petitioning Agency Administrator Anne Gorsuch for more money to monitor the problem in Montana. The state fish and game commission, meanwhile, conducted studies of toxin levels in 100 game fowl and announced that it would decide whether or not hunting could go on. Most hunters, busy polishing their shotguns and checking their decoys, would not comment on the situation.

Some, however, could not conceal their impatience. Said James Kehr, a Helena dentist and avid bird hunter: "I think it's high time that the government quits protecting me from myself. I think the public is scared to death, but unjustifiably so."

Last Friday, after reviewing the test results, the commission announced its unanimous decision--and handed out a bit of additional culinary advice. On Oct. 3 the hunting season will open, except in eight eastern counties where the geese seem to be carrying particularly high levels of endrin. But pregnant women and nursing mothers all over the state were enjoined not to eat waterfowl, and everyone else was told to down no more than one duck or a pound of goose a week--or, at most, six ducks a year. As for preparation: pour off the meat drippings, discard the skin, and don't stuff the duck.

So guns will boom and retrievers quiver come opening day, and the air will be wild with chilled shot and chillier hunters. But whether the hunters will get their usual warm welcome when they stumble home with the day's bag (up to ten ducks and up to six geese per gunner) remains to be seen. After all the fuss, it may be a rare hostess who urges upon a guest a second helping of goose. --By Claudia Wallis.

Reported by Charles Johnson/Helena

"The grain itself is not toxic because endrin is sprayed only at the seedling stage, while only the tops of the mature plants are harvested. Birds, however, eat the seedlings.

With reporting by Charles Johnson/Helena

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