effect on the bird populations could eas ily have been foretold. Bro wn th ras hers , s tarlings ,
meadowlarks, grackles, and pheasants were virtually wiped out. Robins were ‘almost
annihilated’, according to the biologis ts ’ report. Dead earthworms had been s een in numbe rs
after a gentle rain; probably the robins had fe d on the pois one d worms. For othe r birds , too,
the once beneficial rain had been changed, through the evil power of the pois on introduced
into their world, into an agent of des truction. Birds s een drinking and bathing in puddles left by
rain a few days after the spraying were inevitably doomed.
The birds that s urvived may have been rendere d s terile. Although a few nes ts were found in the
treated area, a few with eggs , none contained young birds. Among the mammals ground
squirrels were virtually annihilated; their bodies were found in attitudes characteristic of violent
death by pois oning. Dead mus krats were found in the treated areas , dead rabbits in the fields.
The fox s quirrel had been a relatively common animal in the town; after the spraying it was
gone. It was a rare farm in the Sheldon area that was blessed by the presence of a cat after the
war on beetles was begun. Ninety per cent of all the farm cats fell victims to the dieldrin during
the firs t s eas on of s praying. This might have been predicte d becaus e of the black record of
these poisons in other places. Cats are extremely sensitive to all insecticides and especially so, it
s eems , to dieldrin. In wes tern Java in the cours e of the antimalarial program carried out by the
World Health Organization, many cats are reported to have died. In central Java so many were
killed that the price of a cat more tha n doubled. Si milarly, the Worl d Health Organization,
s praying in Venezuela, is reported to have reduced cats to the status of a rare animal.
In Sheldon it was not only the wild creatures and the domes tic compa nions that we re s acrificed
in the campaign against an ins ect. Obs ervations on s everal flocks of s heep and a herd of beef
cattle are indicative of the pois oning and death tha t threatened livestock as well. The Natural
History Survey report describes one of these episodes as follows:
The sheep ...were driven into a small, untreated bluegrass pasture across a gravel road from a field which
had been treated with dieldrin spray on May 6. Evidently some spray had drifted across the road into th e pasture,
for the s heep b egan to show sympto ms of intoxication almost at once...They lost interest in food and displayed
extr e me r es tl es s ness , following the pasture fence around and around apparently searching for a way out...They
r efus ed to b e dr i ven, bl ea ted almost continuously, and stood with their heads lowered; th ey were finally carried
fr om th e pa s tur e.. .Th ey di s pla yed gr ea t des i r e for wa ter. Two of th e sheep wer e found d ead in the stream passing
through the pasture, and the r emaining s heep w er e r ep ea tedl y dr i ven out of the s tr ea m, s ev er a l ha vi ng to be
dragged forcibly from the water. Three of the s heep ev entua l l y di ed; thos e r ema i ni ng r ec over ed to a ll outwa r d
appearances.
This , then, was the picture at the end of 1955. Although the chemical war went on in
succeeding years, the trickle of res earch funds dried up completely. Reques ts for mone y for
wildlife-ins ecticide res earch were included in annual budgets s ubmitted to the Illinois
legislature by the Natural History Survey, but were invariably among the first items to be
eliminated. It was not until 1960 that money was s omehow found to pay the expens es of one
field assistant—to do work that could eas ily have occupied the time of four men.
The des olate picture of wildlife loss had changed little when the biologis ts res umed the s tudies
broken off in 1955. In the mea ntime, the che mical had been changed to the even more toxic
aldrin, 100 to 300 times as toxic as DDT in tests on quail. By 1960, every species of wild mammal
known to inhabit the area had s uffered loss es. It was even wors e with the birds. In the s mall
town of Donova n the robins had bee n wipe d out, as had the grackles , s tarlings , and bro wn