Secondary poisoning by carbofuran?
Category: Hippopotamus, Organophosphates, Pesticides, carbofuran, lions | Date: Sep 08 2008 | By: Martin
Hi,
Secondary poisoning refers to when a consumer gets intoxicated by eating another organism that has the poison in its system.
Secondary poisoning is known in a number of other chemical pesticides for instance organophosphates. In carbofuran, a carbamate, it is argued whether or not secondary poisoning actually does occur.
It is a known fact that carbofuran is a sleek killer especially in birds. It is also true that organisms with bigger body mass die after a longer time compared to animals with smaller body mass which die faster. I have witnessed small seed-eating birds succumb to carbofuran within 5 minutes while bigger Storks may take up to half an hour or more. In simple explanation,the chemical must get incorporated in the consumer’s tissues and if this consumer dies and is predated upon by another which in the process also gets intoxicated, then secondary poisoning is said to have occured.
There have been reported cases of possible secondary poisoning in Kenya: lions getting intoxicated after feeding on poisoned hippopotamus, vultures after feeding on poisoned carnivore. Today I talked to a senior scientist in a prominent organization who pointed out that after working it out with the chief vet of their wildlife conservation organization, the Lethal Dose (LD) required to kill a hippo is actually much lower compared to the hippo’s body mass. So, some some granules of carbofuran sprinkled on the grass will intoxicate the hippo (and any other herbivore) and even though the lethal dose required to kill the hippo is not attained, the dose may well be enough to kill a wild dog. Nonetheless, my reasoning in the lions getting intoxicated by the alleged carbofuran poisoning of the hippos is that the hippo may have taken much more of the carbofuran and while this may have paralysed the hippos nervous system, not all of it was ‘used’. Therefore, the ‘excess’ carbofuran that circulated in the hippo while still alive and was not ‘used’ in paralysing the nervous system of the hippo got to its tissues and the amount being equal or more than the lion’s lethal dose (the lion’s whose mass may just be about a quarter of the hippos) got the lions got intoxicated.
If that is so and if it is man who had eaten the hippo(as he has been known to in some places), then may be he would have probably succumbed to the poisoning much faster than the lions. Still on man, as earlier said, I have seen Storks take over 30 minutes before dying after eating Carbofuran-laced snails. Man eats these guys regularly. Since the similar organophosphates’ poisoning results to chronic/persistent effects in wildlife and people, there might be chronic effects due to carbamates as well and cumulatively, these could be catastrophic. I cannot avoid worrying that in the long run, most of our wildlife and man are actually already intoxicated and continue to be by carbofuran.
Just a thought for the day!
Tags: , carbofuran, lions, Organophosphates, Pesticides, secondary poisoning, vultures
King George Bald Eagle
Category: Organophosphates | Date: Sep 03 2008 | By: Martin
The Kenyan-based raptor conservationist Simon Thomsett once put it in a statement that seemed humorously ridiculous, “I literally saw vultures drop from the skies”. The vultures in refernce here had eaten furadan-laced carcass. Reading the King George Bald Eagle’s incidence, I get the feeling that he may have literally dropped from the skies and sadly succumbed to injuries sustained due to disorientation by the organophosphate poisoning.
Tags: Bald Eagle, furadan, organophosphate poisoning, Simon Thomsett, vultures
Pesticide Situation
Category: Organophosphates, Pesticides | Date: Jul 18 2008 | By: Martin
Hi. I recently got the opportunity to get an introductory overview of the situation of pesticides in Kenya using the case example of Nairobi City. Communicating to a specialist and key figure at Consumer Watch Kenya, a leading organization in Kenya that fights for better quality and safety of products and services for Kenyan consumers, I got to confirm our fear as conservationists that all is amiss as far as pesticide use, distribution and legislation is concerned. The specialist gave a sorry impression, based on the findings of their organization and agreed with me that indeed it was time, to use her words, ‘we joined dots(medicine, wildlife, agriculture, and others)’ to confront and deal with the situation.
Basically, the scenario witnessed is unauthorized pesticides, including those banned or severely restricted in developed countries being found in Kenya. In addition, these together with others are found to occur at high levels that deem them toxic to man. This information is in a report by Kenya Organic Agricultural Network and can be found on Consumer Watch Kenya’s website at www.consumerwatchkenya.org .Disturbing issues from the report include:
- There are only 16 banned/restricted pesticides in Kenya currently, despite the fact that Kenya is a signatory to major conventions and protocols that deal with Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) e.g. Rotterdam Convention, Montreal Protocol, Stockholm Convention among others.
- Of the 85,000 synthetic chemicals available worldwide, many are carcinogenic and damage the brain, the nervous and reproductive system. Many of these may leave residues in or on crops and on environment with potential exposure to human beings (and if I may add to wildlife and therefore the entire biodiversity is at risk).
- Following random selection of purchase sites for vegetables in Nairobi city, the test results on the purchased vegetables were shocking in 10 out of the 15 pesticides detected, exhibiting higher levels than those reflected by EU as healthy for the consumption. These include 2 banned organophosphates (Parathion and methyl parathion).
It follows without doubt that man and animal as well as environment at large face heavy toxicity confrontation from pesticides. It is only cooperative responsibility that can sort us out of this mess.
Tags: conservationists, Consumer Watch Kenya, persistent organic pollutants, pesticide
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