Date:         Mon, 22 Mar 1999 05:12:06 -0800
Reply-To:     Steve Holzman <steve_holzman@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Georgia Birders Online <GABO-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Steve Holzman <steve_holzman@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Zellwood Farms (FL)
Comments: To: gabo-l@listserv.uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

If you're interested:
 
You can read a FWS press release about Zellwood Farms in Florida at
http://www.fws.gov/r4eao/visit/r99-022.html
 
To Summarize:
More than 300 white pelicans, 23 endangered wood storks, 50 other
fish-eating birds (great blue
herons, cormorants, ring-billed gulls, common egrets), and three bald
eagles have died near the lake,
northwest of Orlando, Florida.
 
Preliminary results suggest organochlorine chemicals are to blame.
This area was heavily farmed for many years leading to a build-up in
pesticide residues in the soil.  When the area was flooded, and water
kept on the area longer than during the farming operations, it is
suspected that these chemicals were absorbed by fish and through
bio-magnification ended up in fish-eating birds in toxic levels.
 
I've birded Zellwood before (1997) to see two species of
whistling-duck and was amazed at the number of birds using the area.
It would have made a great bird-area if not for the contamination.
 
 
 
 
==
Steve Holzman                Brunswick, Georgia USA
 
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