OTNP October 2024
Good morning!🦋🕷️🦨🐝 What a beautiful animal above. I hope you are all extremely well. I believe that we really can change some of the damage we are doing to endangered species. Not by crying and moaning that “someone should pass a law.” Everyone can help, by asking environmental groups to start publishing pesticide use in our “natural” areas. Data and actual facts make a difference. Click the petition link immediately below. Change org will ask you for some money but you do not have to pay or give anything.
In reality I can’t understand why anybody here would not be at least willing to click and look at the petition asking our environmental organizations to provide basic information on what our parks are spraying.
Think about this: there is not a single square foot in our national parks and wilderness areas that cannot be sprayed with the latest greatest concoction from a pesticide company. I just do not think that should be the case. Please click and look.
It is hard to put fresh current news in these newsletters because I don’t want to overload people and so I limit my posts to once a month, but wow! a very good client and a good friend sent me this.
Oh my government has funded an attack on “me” 😀
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/government-funded-social-network-attacking-pesticide-critics?utm_term=66f6893ba5741232ad43f508d54f70ee&utm_campaign=USMorningBriefing&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=usbriefing_email#img-1
Wow. Just wow. And people think that the FBI’s persecution of past “conscientious objectors” (I use that term lightly which is why it’s in quotes) doesn’t happen anymore. Just Wow.
I was recently describing to a friend how I feel that even environmentalists were being led down the path by the chemical companies’ PR departments. And my friend sent me this incredible image that they had created. I think it is the perfect image for rethinking what we (environmentalists) promote doing and spraying in wildlife habitat areas.
I talked about this in much more detail here dirt
A post: (on X by @save_nature_now):
migrating butterflies, birds, bees, wasps, soil, bats, toads, frogs, snakes, chipmunks, owls, beavers, water,
they can’t read or leave their home
End quote
Exactly: save_nature_now gets it! And we are spraying these toxins _inside_ the animals’ homes.
Aquatic organisms literally breathe the chemicals in the water.
The chemicals that our toxic national parks are spraying are washing into the park’s rivers and creeks.
I believe we have a real opportunity to make a difference. Not only for ourselves but for the future. 3easythings
Here is an idea for you thinkers.
The sierra club, audubon, and wwf all either:
Have not investigated and therefore don’t have a clue what pesticides are actually being sprayed _in our national parks_.
So don’t publish them.
Or…
Clearly know what pesticides are being sprayed in our national parks but literally hide it from you by …
not publishing them.
Hiding of information by other environmental groups is the same behavior the sierra club is showing by hiding the environmentally significant, and beneficial information in their past FOIA requests. Information about climate change🤔, pesticides, big oil🤔, and much more that the sierra club got because the information is supposed to be _public_; the sierra club turns around and re-hides this public data. I do not believe that this is a sustainable behavior.
And there are others that are beginning to feel this way as well. https://x.com/charliesaito22/status/1838456553529315558?t=0c1S_mqJ1_4iLK3XdOaIxg&s=19
I’ve said this before, but I need to emphasize it. When a bee, or any of our endangered species, is exposed to pesticides (especially when certain sticky adjuvants have been added and they pick up an even heavier load on their exoskeletons or fur) the animal cannot take a shower to wash the toxins off.
They must groom the toxins off. Bees groom, ladybugs groom, praying mantis groom. I imagine that virtually all animals groom. They all must lick. the. toxins. off. Humans shower it off and still get sick.
Research by the chemical companies only investigating the effects of contact is not adequate for determining overall harm. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve seen industry advertisements stating categorically that xxx won’t harm bees because they don’t ingest it. Whiskey.
Tango.
Foxtrot.
Seriously? And this must be because these company PR departments are so full of actual biologists! 🤔
And these chemical companies’ research scientists ignore the vast data generated by _people studies_ . These toxins can cause Parkinson’s, neurological defects, cancers, gastrointestinal impacts, and other health issues in us but therefore also in our endangered animals.
I was just able to go to an absolutely fantastic Sierra Club Margarita Chapter sponsored mountain lion talk (Thank you Pam and all the others involved at the Sierra Club meeting) and the speaker was agreeing with me afterwards that the same is true with mountain lions: That when they groom they are going to ingest the toxins they’ve been exposed to.
The speaker said during his talk that something on the order of 90% of mountain lions that had been hit by vehicles had rat poison in their system.
It may not just be rat poison that is making them sick. It could be (is even likely) that other types of pesticides in conjunction with rat poisons have additional toxic effects.
There have even been recent studies with antibiotics. Adding small amounts of glyphosate based herbicide (GBH) dramatically increased the lethality of the antibiotic to microrganisms.
This has major ramifications on soil microbiology, animal gut microbiology (when they lick it off), and water microbiology. The Sierra Club is participating in the poisoning of these beautiful animals by not actively assisting in reducing pesticides in our wilderness areas.
When people have digestive, stomach issues, or discomfort they are often not as alert, not as capable at their jobs, and often call in sick. People can get medical assistance for these issues; our native animals including mountain lions cannot. Native animals cannot even take a sick day. If they are sick, feeling miserable, and need to cross a highway, they just cannot be as careful as usual at it. They just may not feel like traveling an extra couple miles to a newly built crossing.
I have recently been contacted by the Pesticide Evaluation Branch of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) and I want to express again how much the CDPR has been a help to me in trying to obtain and analyze pesticide use data from our national parks. I believe that we need to think outside the box and even possibly legislate safe zones where no toxins can be sprayed or used.
The best to you all!