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Epa's Indifference: Harms Wildlife And Habitat

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In theory, the Environmental Protection Agency http://www.care2.com/causes/epa-says-fracking-isnt-a-threat-to-drinking-water-but-is-that-true.html (EPA) is supposed to protect our environment and the wildlife in it. So why did the EPA ignore Endangered Species Act (ESA) protocol and approve a pesticide -- benzovindiflupyr -- that's poisonous to wildlife without even consulting wildlife biologists first? The EPA's "Indifference" Harms Wildlife and Habitat According to a Center for Biological Diversity press release, http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/pesticides-10-27-2015.html the EPA even recognizes that benzovindiflupyr can "harm wildlife and critical habitat protected by the Endangered Species Act, but approved …show more content…

Stephanie Parent, the Center for Biological Diversity's senior attorney, describes the extent of the problem with benzovindiflupyr: "This pesticide is highly poisonous to fish and other wildlife, but the EPA approved it anyway." Parent says that the agency's "indifference" can disrupt imperiled wildlife all across the country. Wildlife biologists should've been consulted and more studies should've been …show more content…

A draft analysis of benzovindiflupyr prepared by Jürg Zarn and Alan Boobis shows how bad the pesticide can be. They analyzed how the pesticide affected other animals (rats, mice, rabbits and dogs) over various long- and short-term studies. One study recorded that dogs exposed to doses of the pesticide experienced salivation and vomiting, and another study with exposed mice observed mice with "piloerection, rolling gait, staggering, circling, irregular respiration and soft faeces." Another study "concluded that benzovindiflupyr is carcinogenic in male rats at the highest dose tested." Is this what our wildlife has to look forward to? The EPA's benzovindiflupyr oversight doesn't end there. In a litany of bad decisions, the EPA also approved 3 more pesticides -- difenoconazole, propiconazole and azoxystrobin. Like benzovindiflupyr, the impacts of these pesticides on our wildlife were also not fully investigated. It's plain negligent and potentially dangerous. Not only did the agency refuse to study these pesticides individually, but it also "refused to consider the impacts of benzovindiflupyr when combined with these other chemicals, despite the likelihood that synergistic impacts may make these products more

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