Silent Spring - Rachel Carson - Part 3

Silent Spring - Rachel Carson

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 15

 January 15, 2017 

Book 3 - Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson (1962)

 Part 3 - Pages 103-152

Reading Time - 60 minutes

Every chapter of this book is like a body blow. It makes me wince and shake my head. For example - Dutch Elm Disease. We've likely all heard of it. Back in the early 1900s, city planners decided that elm trees were "the" tree to plant along city streets. Exclusively. Not variety. No diversity. Just elm trees. An epidemic just waiting to happen. Somewhere along the line, a fungus was introduced into North America from Europe. It is spread by the Elm Bark Beetle. Elm trees started dying by the hundreds. The solution... DDT sprayed across cities in the late 1950s. The result... wholesale destruction of the song bird population. You see... birds eat bugs... even dead bugs. So, killing bugs means you end up killing birds. Oh... and all that DDT ended up in the leaves, which fell to the ground in the fall, and were eaten by worms who were then eaten by songbirds in the spring and... more birds died. Let's not even mention the death toll of cats who are fastidious groomers.

The result on the Elm Bark Beetle? Well... the spread rate of the beetle increased because the beetles natural enemies (e.g. birds) were destroyed. Crazy, no? Especially when you consider there are other options. NY State for example removes diseased trees and has had a great success rate in keeping the beetles and disease under control. Other places have imported the European Elm which is resistant to the fungus. Other cities have planted a variety of a trees rather than one species.

I really get that the biocides seemed like a panacea back in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It seemed convenient and quick. But the results have been deadly. Not just for mammals, reptiles and birds but also for fish. Because the poison will find its way into the groundwater and eventually streams, lakes, ponds and rivers. Not good... cause fish are super-sensitive to chlorinated hydrocarbons. Plus... the biocides kill the mosquitos (for example) but then the fish have nothing to eat.

We are a crazy species... trying to save trees by killing insects, birds, mammals and fish. All because the trees look nice, or have an economic value. Very sad.