Effect On Animals
Pesticides inflict extremely widespread damage to biota, and many countries have acted to discourage pesticide usage through their Biodiversity Action Plans.
Animals may be poisoned by pesticide residues that remain on food after spraying, for example when wild animals enter sprayed fields or nearby areas shortly after spraying.
Widespread application of pesticides can eliminate food sources that certain types of animals need, causing the animals to relocate, change their diet, or starve. Poisoning from pesticides can travel up the food chain; for example, birds can be harmed when they eat insects and worms that have consumed pesticides. Earthworms digest organic matter and increase nutrient content in the top layer of soil. They aid in protecting human health by ingesting decomposing litter and serving as bioindicators in soil activity while creating a richer environment. A number of studies have shown that pesticides have had harmful effects on growth and reproduction on earthworms, which are in turn consumed by terrestrial vertebrates such as birds and small mammals. Some pesticides can bioaccumulate, or build up to toxic levels in the bodies of organisms that consume them over time, a phenomenon that impacts species high on the food chain especially hard.
Read more about this topic: Environmental Effects Of Pesticides
Famous quotes containing the words effect on, effect and/or animals:
“Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The attention of those who frequent the camp-meetings at Eastham is said to be divided between the preaching of the Methodists and the preaching of the billows on the back side of the Cape, for they all stream over here in the course of their stay. I trust that in this case the loudest voice carries it. With what effect may we suppose the ocean to say, “My hearers!” to the multitude on the bank. On that side some John N. Maffit; on this, the Reverend Poluphloisboios Thalassa.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What distinguished man from animals was the human capacity for symbolic thought, the capacity which was inseparable from the development of language in which words were not mere signals, but signifiers of something other than themselves. Yet the first symbols were animals. What distinguished men from animals was born of their relationship with them.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)