none.’) A n official of the Federal Aviation Agency was later quoted in the local press to the
effect that ‘this is a s afe operation’ and a repres entative of the Detroit Depa rtment of Parks and
Recreation added his ass urance that ‘the dus t is harmles s to humans and will not hurt plants or
pets .’ One mus t as s ume that none of thes e officials had cons ulted the publis hed and readily
available reports of the United States Public Health Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and
othe r evidence of the extremely pois onous nature of aldrin.
Acting under the Michigan pest control law which allows the state to spray indiscriminately
without notifying or gaining permission of individual landowners, the low-lying planes began to
fly over the Detroit area. The city authorities and the Federal Aviation Agency were
immediately besieged by calls from worried citizens. After receiving nearly 800 calls in a single
hour, the police begged radio and televis ion s tations and news papers to ‘tell the watchers what
they were seeing and advise them it was safe,’ according to the Detroit News. The Federal
Aviation Agency’s safety officer ass ured the public that ‘the planes are carefully s upervis ed’ and
‘are authorized to fly low.’ In a somewhat mistaken atte mpt to allay fears , he added tha t the
planes had emergency valves that would allow them to dump their entire load ins tantane ous ly.
This , fortunately, was not done, but as the planes went about thei r work the pellets of
insecticide fell on beetles and humans alike, s howers of ‘harmles s ’ pois on descending on
people s hopping or going to work and on children out from s chool for the lunch hour.
Hous ewives s wept the granules from porches and sidewalks , where they are s aid to ha ve
‘looked like s now’. As pointed out later by the Michigan Audubon Society, ‘In the s paces
betwee n s hingles on roofs , in eaves-troughs , in the cracks in bark and twigs , the little white
pellets of aldrin-and-clay, no bigger than a pin head, were lodged by the millions ...When the
s now and rain came, every puddle became a pos s ible death potion.’ Within a few days after the
dus ting operation, the Detroit A udubon Society began receiving calls about the birds. According
to the Society’s s ecretary, Mrs. Ann B oyes , ‘The firs t indication that the pe ople we re conce rned
about the spray was a call I received on Sunday morning from a woman who re porte d that
coming home from church s he s aw an alarming numbe r of dead and dyi ng birds. The s praying
there ha d been done on Thurs day. She s aid there were no birds at all flying in the area, that she
had found at leas t a dozen [dead] in her backyard and that the neighbors had found dead
squirrels.’ All other calls received by Mrs. Boyes that day reported ‘a great many dead birds and
no live ones ... People who ha d maintained bi rd feeders s aid there were no birds at all at their
feeders .’ Birds picked up in a dying condition s howed the typical s ymptoms of ins ecticide
pois oning—tremoring, loss of ability to fly, paralysis, convulsions.
Nor were birds the only forms of life immediately affected. A local veterinarian re po rted that
his office was full of clients with dogs and cats that had s udde nly s ickened. Cats , who s o
meticulously groom their coats and lick their paws, seemed to be most affected. Their illness
took the f orm of s evere diarrhea, vomiting, and c onvuls ions. The only advice the ve terina rian
could give his clients was not to let the animals out unneces s arily, or to was h the paws
promptly if they did s o. (But the chlorina ted hy drocarbons cannot be was hed even from f ruits
or vegetables, so little protection could be expected from this measure.)
Despite the insistence of the City-County Health Commis s ioner that the birds mus t have been
killed by ‘s ome other kind of s praying’ and that the outbreak of throat and ches t irritations that
followed the expos ure to aldrin mus t have been due to ‘something else’, the local Health
Department received a cons tant s trea m of complaints. A promine nt Detroit internist was called
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