I know, I know, I am supposed to be working tonight…trust me, this will only take a few minutes to write. It is short and I am a fast typist. 40 words per minute fast? I don’t know, I will leave that to the professionals *cough* Jon *cough*

Anyway, CNN had a little story about bald eagles and the amazing come back they have staged in the past 30 years. The title of the piece is:

Bald eagle soaring ’success,’ but at what cost?

They cover that when the bald eagle went on the Endangered Species List, “there were only 417 breeding pairs in the lower 48″ and now there are 9,789 breeding pairs. That is a stunning success.

But then comes the At What Cost? part of the piece.

But Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity conservation group said this victory comes at a price — loss of eagle habitat protection.

The bird’s nesting grounds were protected as long as the bald eagle was considered a “threatened” species. But the less restrictive eagle protection act does not put eagle habitats off-limits.

Suckling said he worries that without habitat protection, developers will move into critical bald eagle areas, push the birds out and reduce their numbers.

“There is big money to be made in cutting down and developing bald eagle habitat,” he said.

Boo Hiss! Evil developers! Big money! Dirty Capitalist Swine! Yeah, yeah, yeah, cry me a river.

I am sure that there will always be pressures on the bald eagle, as on all wildlife. It is just part of life, but there’re ways of co-existing and some sort of middle ground will be found.

The thing is, one of the main reasons for the decline in the bald eagle was the widespread use of DDT.

DDT was banned in the US and across the world, not just for the bald eagle but for some other unfounded reasons. Yay for the environment! Down with evil corporations who make evil chemicals! Yay!

But…

Do you realize that there have been millions of deaths due to malaria since the banning of DDT?

Yep, seems that DDT was God’s gift to man to kill mosquitoes. It works great. When DDT was in use, malaria was quickly going the way of smallpox in being eradicated.

But not now.

DDT used in limited applications could save hundreds of thousands of lives a year. It was good that widespread agricultural use was banned, but banning it for mosquito control condemned millions to an early death.

That should have been the At What Cost? part of the story.

Funny how that did not even make it into it.

Funny.

Some links on bringing back DDT:

National Review
National Reivew - World Bank
Baltimore Sun - Very good read

Bring Back DDT!