Earth in Mind, a book by notable environmental educator David Orr, opens with two memorable and frightening statistics:
- Male sperm counts worldwide have fallen by 50% since 1938;
- There has been a marked decline in populations of amphibians - frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts - world-wide.
I first encountered David Orr's book in 2004, when, as a bright-eyed young instructor in an urban community college, I sought to share with my inner-city students the beauty and value of nature. I particularly wanted them to understand the urgency of the species extinction disaster that is facing all inhabitants on this planet - humans, animals, plants, even fungi. Orr's statistics eloquently articulated the inextricable bond between human and environmental health.
Enviroblog readers are very familiar by now with the dangers synthetic industrial chemicals pose to human reproduction, especially normal reproductive development of baby boys. Endocrine disrupting-chemicals, such as phthalates and bisphenol A, have been strongly associated with problems in fetal development and fertility.
It now appears that animals in the wild are as much or even more at risk for reproductive disorders and other toxic effects that threaten their survival. We can let the numbers speak for themselves. As reported by Amphibian Ark, a conservation organization, half of the approximately 6,000 species of amphibians may become extinct, and the remaining half is in trouble.
Scientists have fiercely debated the primary cause of the decline of the amphibian population. Certainly, loss and fragmentation of habitat, degraded air and water quality and changes in ecosystem structure because of climate change have contributed to the disappearance of frogs from our rivers and streams.
New research strongly indicates that amphibians are especially at risk from widespread application of agricultural pesticides.