how does dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane effect wildlife?

Question: how does dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane effect wildlife?
- Keywords:
  dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane
Asked by bethanyhake to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 19 Jun 2011.
- Tim Millar answered on 17 Jun 2011:
  
  DDT was used as an effective anti mosquito chemical. Unfortunately animals eat mosquitos so ingest DDT and as each animal up the food chain eats, more chemical builds up. Eventually this can be very toxic to other organisms which were were not trying to target. One effect in particular was to make egg shells of birds more fragile so the number of birds declined.
  
  Its unfortunate because DDT was probably the last useful anti mosquito chemical we had. More modern approaches include the release of sterile male mosquitos so that they cannot breed with the females and that shoud reduce the numbers of mosquitos and reduce the amount of malaria
- Dalya Soond answered on 17 Jun 2011:
  
  Hahahaha, you are trying to test us, but we can put this word into google and find out it stands for DDT, which is a pesticide.
  
  First of all, it will kill insects which is what it is meant to do, but also some marine animals and fish and amphibians. This will affect the higher organisms that feed on them. It also can ruin the fertility of some birds so that they can’t have kids.
  Also, since DDT is extremely long-lived and can remain in the soil for 30 yrs, its effects on wildlife can continue for decades.
  Did you know that DDT can be found in 80% of humans?
- Tom Crick answered on 18 Jun 2011:
  
  Considering DDT’s long and controversial history, I found two interesting facts:
  
  i) DDT’s insecticidal properties were not discovered until 1939, and it was used with great success in the second half of World War II to control malaria and typhus among civilians and troops.
  
  ii) The Swiss chemist Paul Hermann Müller was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1948 “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against several arthropods.“
- Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 18 Jun 2011:
  
  Good answers by the others.
  
  The modern alternative is DEET (I couldn’t remember what it stands for, but quickly looking it up, it is N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide).
  
  Anyway, I was out on a long hike around the lakes and mountains and I really appreciated having DEET to keep the mosquitoes and midges away. At this time of the year, the Arctic is buzzing with insects, that emerge out of the tundra and swamps when it thaws out for a few months over the summer.
- Sarah Thomas answered on 19 Jun 2011:
  
  I agree with the others 🙂

Question: how does dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane effect wildlife?

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