Species Extinction: DDT is Not The Only Culprit

The banning of a dangerous pesticide came in time but man would not allow a little bird to survive.

Pictured above is a marshy wetland area near Merritt Island created by the St. John’s River which meanders slowly from south to north through the state of Florida. It was the former home of the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, a non-migratory songbird that was found ony in this part of the country and a part of it now is a National Wildlife Reserve.


It was back before World War II when the pesticide popularly known as DDT was introduced to control the mosquito population around the area that is now the site of the Kennedy Space Center. That chemical entered the food chain and reduced the population of the sparrows by 70 percent. However, that still left 600 breeding pairs–sufficient for the species to rebound over time but man was notfinished with his never ending battle against the pesky mosquito.

Merritt Island was flooded in an attempt to destroy the insects’ breeding areas. The effect was to devastate the sparrows’ nesting grounds and their numbers severly declined. To make matters worse marshes around the river were drained in order to accommodate construction of I-95 and by 1979 only six of the dusky seaside sparrows remained on earth–all males.

Sadly, the last remaining bird of the species died in 1987 and the dusky seaside sparrow was officially declared to be extinct in 1990. Mosquitos continue to thrive in the area around the Kennedy Space Center.