Examples of successful biological control of serious pests by importing their natural enemies are to be found in some 40 countries distributed over much of the world. The advantages of such control over chemicals are obvious: it is relatively inexpensive, it is permanent, it leaves no poisonous residues. Yet biological control has suffered from lack of support. California is virtually alone among the states in having a formal program in biological control, and many states have not even one entomologist who devotes full time to it. Perhaps for want of support biological control through insect enemies has not always been carried out with the scientific thoroughness it requires—exacting studies of its impact on the populations of insect prey have seldom been made, and releases have not always been made with the precision that might spell the difference between success and failure.
The predator and the preyed upon exist not alone, but as part of a vast web of life, all of which needs to be taken into account. Perhaps the opportunities for the more conventional types of biological control are greatest in the forests. The farmlands of modern agriculture are highly artificial, unlike anything nature ever conceived. But the forests are a different world, much closer to natural environments. Here, with a minimum of help and a maximum of noninterference from man, Nature can have her way, setting up all that wonderful and intricate system of checks and balances that protects the forest from undue damage by insects.
In the United States our foresters seem to have thought of biological control chiefly in terms of introducing insect parasites and predators. The Canadians take a broader view, and some of the Europeans have gone farthest of all to develop the science of "forest hygiene" to an amazing extent. Birds, ants, forest spiders, and soil bacteria are as much a part of a forest as the trees, in the view of European foresters, who take care to inoculate a new forest with these protective factors. The encouragement of birds is one of the first steps. In the modern era of intensive forestry the old hollow trees are gone and with them homes for woodpeckers and other tree-nesting birds. This lack is met by nesting boxes, which draw the birds back into the forest. Other boxes are specially designed for owls and for bats, so that these creatures may take over in the dark hours the work of insect hunting performed in daylight by the small birds.
But this is only the beginning. Some of the most fascinating control work in European forests employs the forest red ant as an aggressive insect predator—a species which, unfortunately, does not occur in North America. About 25 years ago Professor Karl Gösswald of the University of Würzburg developed a method of cultivating this ant and establishing colonies. Under his direction more than 10,000 colonies of the red ant have been established in about 90 test areas in the German Federal Republic. Dr. Gösswald's method has been adopted in Italy and other countries, where ant farms have been established to supply colonies for distribution in the forests. In the Apennines, for example, several hundred nests have been set out to protect reforested areas.
"Where you can obtain in your forest a combination of birds' and ants' protection together with some bats and owls, the biological equilibrium has already been essentially improved," says Dr. Heinz Ruppertshofen, a forestry officer in Mölln, Germany, who believes that a single introduced predator or parasite is less effective than an array of the "natural companions" of the trees.
New ant colonies in the forests at Mölln are protected from woodpeckers by wire netting to reduce the toll. In this way the woodpeckers, which have increased by 400 per cent in 10 years in some of the test areas, do not seriously reduce the ant colonies, and pay handsomely for what they take by picking harmful caterpillars off the trees. Much of the work of caring for the ant colonies (and the birds' nesting boxes as well) is assumed by a youth corps from the local school, children 10 to 14 years old. The costs are exceedingly low; the benefits amount to permanent protection of the forests.
Another extremely interesting feature of Dr. Ruppertshofen^ work is his use of spiders, in which he appears to be a pioneer. Although there is a large literature on the classification and natural history of spiders, it is scattered and fragmentary and deals not at all with their value as an agent of biological control. Of the 22,000 known kinds of spiders, 760 are native to Germany (and about 2000 to the United States). Twenty-nine families of spiders inhabit German forests.
To a forester the most important fact about a spider is the kind of net it builds. The wheel-net spiders are most important, for the webs of some of them are so narrow-meshed that they can catch all flying insects. A large web (up to 16 inches in diameter) of the cross spider bears some 120,000 adhesive nodules on its strands. A single spider may destroy in her life of 18 months an average of 2000 insects. A biologically sound forest has 50 to 150 spiders to the square meter (a little more than a square yard). Where there are fewer, the deficiency may be remedied by collecting and distributing the baglike cocoons containing the eggs. "Three cocoons of the wasp spider [which occurs also in America] yield a thousand spiders, which can catch 200,000 flying insects," says Dr. Ruppertshofen. The tiny and delicate young of the wheel-net spiders that emerge in the spring are especially important, he says, "as they spin in a teamwork a net umbrella above the top shoots of the trees and thus protect the young shoots against the flying insects." As the spiders molt and grow, the net is enlarged.
Canadian biologists have pursued rather similar lines of investigation, although with differences dictated by the fact that North American forests are largely natural rather than planted, and that the species available as aids in maintaining a healthy forest are somewhat different. The emphasis in Canada is on small mammals, which are amazingly effective in the control of certain insects, especially those that live within the spongy soil of the forest floor. Among such insects are the sawflies, so-called because the female has a saw-shaped ovipositor with which she slits open the needles of evergreen trees in order to deposit her eggs. The larvae eventually drop to the ground and form cocoons in the peat of tamarack bogs or the duff under spruce or pines. But beneath the forest floor is a world honeycombed with the tunnels and runways of small mammals—whitefooted mice, voles, and shrews of various species. Of all these small burrowers, the voracious shrews find and consume the largest number of sawfly cocoons. They feed by placing a forefoot on the cocoon and biting off the end, showing an extraordinary ability to discriminate between sound and empty cocoons. And for their insatiable appetite the shrews have no rivals. Whereas a vole can consume about 200 cocoons a day, a shrew, depending on the species, may devour up to 800! This may result, according to laboratory tests, in destruction of 75 to 98 per cent of the cocoons present.
It is not surprising that the island of Newfoundland, which has no native shrews but is beset with saw flies, so eagerly desired some of these small, efficient mammals that in 1958 the introduction of the masked shrew—the most efficient sawfly predator—was attempted. Canadian officials report in 1962 that the attempt has been successful. The shrews are multiplying and are spreading out over the island, some marked individuals having been recovered as much as ten miles from the point of release.
There is, then, a whole battery of armaments available to the forester who is willing to look for permanent solutions that preserve and strengthen the natural relations in the forest. Chemical pest control in the forest is at best a stopgap measure bringing no real solution, at worst killing the fishes in the forest streams, bringing on plagues of insects, and destroying the natural controls and those we may be trying to introduce. By such violent measures, says Dr. Ruppertshofen, "the partnership for life of the forest is entirely being unbalanced, and the catastrophes caused by parasites repeat in shorter and shorter periods ... We, therefore, have to put an end to these unnatural manipulations brought into the most important and almost last natural living space which has been left for us."
Through all these new, imaginative, and creative approaches to the problem of sharing our earth with other creatures there runs a constant theme, the awareness that we are dealing with life—with li
ving populations and all their pressures and counterpressures, their surges and recessions. Only by taking account of such life forces and by cautiously seeking to guide them into channels favorable to ourselves can we hope to achieve a reasonable accommodation between the insect hordes and ourselves.
The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life—a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no "high-minded orientation," no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.
The "control of nature" is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.
LIST OF PRINCIPAL SOURCES
AFTERWORD
INDEX
List of Principal Sources
CHAPTER 2: THE OBLIGATION TO ENDURE
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"Report on Environmental Health Problems," Hearings, 86th Congress, Subcom. of Com. on Appropriations, March 1960, p. 170.
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The Pesticide Situation for 1957–58, U.S. Dept of Agric., Commodity Stabilization Service, April 1958, p. 10.
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Elton, Charles S., The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants. New York: Wiley, 1958.
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Shepard, Paul, "The Place of Nature in Man's World," Atlantic Naturalist, Vol. 13 (April–June 1958), pp. 85–89.
CHAPTER 3: ELIXIRS OF DEATH
Pages 14–37
Gleason, Marion, et al., Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1957.
Pages 14–37
Gleason, Marion, et al., Bulletin of Supplementary Material: Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products, Vol. IV, No. 9. Univ. of Rochester.
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The Pesticide Situation for 1958–59, U.S. Dept. of Agric., Commodity Stabilization Service, April 1959, pp. 1–24.
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The Pesticide Situation for 1960–61, U.S. Dept. of Agric., Commodity Stabilization Service, July 1961, pp. 1–23.
Page 17
Hueper, W. C., Occupational Tumors and Allied Diseases. Springfield, 111.: Thomas, 1942.
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Todd, Frank E., and S. E. McGregor, "Insecticides and Bees," Yearbook of Agric., U.S. Dept. of Agric., 1952, pp. 131–35.
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Hueper, Occupational Tumors.
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Bowen, C. V., and S. A. Hall, "The Organic Insecticides," Yearbook of Agric., U.S. Dept. of Agric., 1952, pp. 209–18.
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Von Oettingen, W. F., The Halogenated Aliphatic, Olefinic, Cyclic, Aromatic, and Aliphatic-Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Including the Halogenated Insecticides, Their Toxicity and Potential Dangers. U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare. Public Health Service Publ. No. 414 (1955), pp. 341–42.
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Laug, Edwin P., et al., "Occurrence of DDT in Human Fat and Milk," A.M.A. Archives Indus. Hygiene and Occupat. Med., Vol. 3 (1951), pp. 245–46.
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Biskind, Morton S., "Public Health Aspects of the New Insecticides," Am. Jour. Diges. Diseases, Vol. 20 (1953), No. 11, pp. 331–41.
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Laug, Edwin P., et al., "Liver Cell Alteration and DDT Storage in the Fat of the Rat Induced by Dietary Levels of 1 to 50 p.p.m. DDT," Jour. Pharmacol, and Exper. Therapeut., Vol. 98 (1950), p. 268.
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Ortega, Paul, et al., "Pathologic Changes in the Liver of Rats after Feeding Low Levels of Various Insecticides," A.M.A. Archives Path., Vol. 64 (Dec. 1957), pp. 614–22.
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Fitzhugh, O. Garth, and A. A. Nelson, "The Chronic Oral Toxicity of DDT (2,2-BIS p-CHLOROPHENYL-1,1,1 -TRI-CHLOROETHANE)," Jour. Pharmacol, and. Exper. Therapeut., Vol. 89 (1947). No. 1, pp. 18–30.
Page 22
Laug et al., "Occurrence of DDT in Human Fat and Milk."
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Hayes, Wayland J., Jr., et al., "Storage of DDT and DDE in People with Different Degrees of Exposure to DDT," A.M.A. Archives Indus. Health, Vol. 18 (Nov. 1958), pp. 398–406.
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Durham, William F., et al., "Insecticide Content of Diet and Body Fat of Alaskan Natives," Science, Vol. 134 (1961), No. 3493, pp. 1880–81.
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Von Oettingen, Halogenated ... Hydrocarbons, p. 363.
Pages 22–23
Smith, Ray F., et al., "Secretion of DDT in Milk of Dairy Cows Fed Low Residue Alfalfa," Jour. Econ. Entomol., Vol. 41 (1948), pp. 759–63.
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Laug et al., "Occurrence of DDT in Human Fat and Milk."
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Finnegan, J. K., et al., "Tissue Distribution and Elimination of DDD and DDT Following Oral Administration to Dogs and Rats," Proc. Soc. Exper. Biol, and Med., Vol. 72 (1949), 356–57.
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Laug et al., "Liver Cell Alteration."
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"Chemicals in Food Products," Hearings, H.R. 74, House Select Com. to Investigate Use of Chemicals in Food Products, Pt. 1 (1951), p. 275.
Pages 23–24
Von Oettingen, Halogenated ... Hydrocarbons, p. 322.
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"Chemicals in Food Products," Hearings, 81st Congress, H.R. 323, Com. to Investigate Use of Chemicals in Food Products, Pt. 1 (1950), pp. 388–90.
Page 24
Clinical Memoranda on Economic Poisons. U.S. Public Health Service Publ. No. 476 (1956), p. 28.
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Gannon, Norman, and J. H. Bigger, "The Conversion of Aldrin and Heptachlor to Their Epoxides in Soil," Jour. Econ. Entomol., Vol. 51 (Feb. 1958), pp. 1–2.
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Davidow, B., and J. L. Radomski, "Isolation of an Epoxide Metabolite from Fat Tissues of Dogs Fed Heptachlor," Jour. Pharmacol, and Exper. Therapeut., Vol. 107 (March 1953), pp. 259–65.
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Von Oettingen, Halogenated ... Hydrocarbons, p. 310.
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Drinker, Cecil K., et al., "The Problem of Possible Systemic Effects from Certain Chlorinated Hydrocarbons," Jour. Indus. Hygiene and Toxicol., Vol. 19 (Sept. 1937), p. 283.
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"Occupational Dieldrin Poisoning," Com. on Toxicology, Jour. Am. Med. Assn., Vol. 172 (April 1960), pp. 2077–80.
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Scott, Thomas G., et al., "Some Effects of a Field Application of Dieldrin on Wildlife," Jour. Wildlife Management, Vol. 23 (Oct. 1959), pp. 409–27.
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Paul, A. H., "Dieldrin Poisoning—a Case Report," New Zealand Med. Jour., Vol. 58 (1959), p. 393.
Pages 25–26
Hayes, Wayland J., Jr., "The Toxicity of Dieldrin to Man," Bull. World Health Organ., Vol. 20 (1959), pp. 891–912.
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Gannon, Norman, and G. C. Decker, "The Conversion of Aldrin to Dieldrin on Plants," Jour. Econ. Entomol., Vol. 51 (Feb. 1958), pp. 8–11.
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Kitselman, C. H., et al., "Toxicological Studies of Aldrin (Compound 118) on Large Animals," Am. Jour. Vet. Research, Vol. 11 (1950), p. 378.
Page 26
Dahlen, James H., and A. O. Haugen, "Effect of Insecticides on Quail and Doves," Alabama Conservation, Vol. 26 (1954), No. 1, pp. 21–23.
Page [>]
DeWitt, James B., "Chronic Toxicity to Quail and Pheasants of Some Chlorinated Insecticides," Jour. Agric. and Food Chem., Vol. 4 (1956), No. 10, pp.
863–66.
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Kitselman, C. H., "Long Term Studies on Dogs Fed Aldrin and Dieldrin in Sublethal Doses, with Reference to the Histopathological Findings and Reproduction," Jour. Am. Vet. Med. Assn., Vol. 123 (1953), p. 28.
Page [>]
Treon, J. F., and A. R. Borgmann, "The Effects of the Complete Withdrawal of Food from Rats Previously Fed Diets Containing Aldrin or Dieldrin." Kettering Lab., Univ. of Cincinnati; mimeo. Quoted from Robert L. Rudd and Richard E. Genelly, Pesticides: Their Use and Toxicity in Relation to Wildlife. Calif. Dept of Fish and Game, Game Bulletin No. 7 (1956), p. 52.
Page [>]
Myers, C. S., "Endrin and Related Pesticides: A Review." Penna. Dept. of Health Research Report No. 45 (1958). Mimeo.
Page [>]
Jacobziner, Harold, and H. W. Raybin, "Poisoning by Insecticide (Endrin)," New York State Jour. Med., Vol. 59 (May 15, 1959), pp. 2017–22.
Page [>]
"Care in Using Pesticide Urged," Clean Streams, No. 46 (June 1959). Penna. Dept. of Health.
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Metcalf, Robert L., "The Impact of the Development of Organo-phosphorus Insecticides upon Basic and Applied Science," Bull. Entomol. Soc. Am., Vol. 5 (March 1959), pp. 3–15.
Pages 28–29
Mitchell, Philip H., General Physiology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958. Pp. 14–15.
Page 29
Brown, A. W. A., Insect Control by Chemicals. New York: Wiley, 1951.
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Toivonen, T., et al., "Parathion Poisoning Increasing Frequency in Finland," Lancet, Vol. 2 (1959), No. 7095, pp. 175–76.
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Hayes, Wayland J., Jr., "Pesticides in Relation to Public Health," Annual Rev. Entomol., Vol. 5 (1960), pp. 379–404.
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Occupational Disease in California Attributed to Pesticides and Other Agricultural Chemicals. Calif. Dept. of Public Health, 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960.
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Quinby, Griffith E., and A. B. Lemmon, "Parathion Residues As a Cause of Poisoning in Crop Workers," Jour. Am. Med. Assn., Vol. 166 (Feb. 15, 1958), pp. 740–46.
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