Author: Amy Freitag

It takes a team from New Zealand to figure out that the US has its pesticide regulation wrong: toxins don’t act in the wild as they do in the carefully controlled and designed lab dosings.  Sounds reasonable, right?  Well, a recent article in the Journal of Applied Ecology by Kelly et al. was the first to describe Roundup’s ability to act synergistically with a parasitic worm.  Commercial formulations of Roundup, the most commonly used herbicide in the world, were found to increase the production of a parasitic worm’s (Telogaster opisthorchis) while at the same time decreasing a fish’s (Galaxias anomalus) immune system’s ability to fend off the parasite.

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I recently attended a public hearing for a proclamation in the state of North Carolina that proposed to ban large-mesh gill nets in two areas of the state’s estuaries where sea turtle encounters have recently increased. There’s a large back story to both sides of the case and a lot of emotional motivation on both sides, leaving science flattened in the wake of charismatic leaders promoting their personal values. In fact, science became a bit of a flattened tool, left on the ground until useful to pick up and brandish, like a much-forgotten sword cast aside until it’s in a handy spot mid-battle. The meeting started as a classic jobs versus the environment case, but a few hours into the public comment period, I began to realize why this particular meeting had attracted the attendance of well over 300 people. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, but at the crossroads of some of the largest debates in commercial fishing.

Read More “Public fence-sitting then falling to one side” »