written for The New York Times
SCIENTISTS who have been studying the sudden decline of the lobster population in Long Island Sound in 1999 are still months away from releasing their findings, but they said they have narrowed down the likely causes.
For the first time, lab tests prove what has long been suspected, that a pesticide used to kill mosquitoes also kills lobsters. Scientists don’t know what the concentration of the pesticide actually was in the Sound when the lobsters died and whether it was high enough to be fatal, but under laboratory conditions, lobsters died after the chemical was added to their water.
Another team of scientists found industrial chemicals in the tissue of healthy lobsters. Also, scientists know that the Sound was several degrees warmer than normal in 1999 and have proven that water that warm severely stresses lobsters in a lab. Just a few degrees warmer, and the lobsters quickly die.
Read the rest at The New York Times website by clicking here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/nyregion/closing-in-on-the-killer-of-the-lobsters.html?scp=68&sq=%22Christine%20Woodside%22&st=cse
About This Article
Scientists do not always talk about their research while it’s still going on. This article was entirely my enterprise, and I pleaded with my editor as boldly as I knew how at that time to give this article a good position. This article was published by The New York Times newspaper on March 28, 2004 and currently appears in its entirety on their website at the following address: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/nyregion/closing-in-on-the-killer-of-the-lobsters.html?scp=68&sq=%22Christine%20Woodside%22&st=cse
