Rachel Carson: Pelicans, the sea, and DDT

Some women, like Zola, I admire because of their athleticism, others, like Rachel Carson, for their integrity and passionate commitment to healing the earth. Carson is most well-known for her 1962 book Silent Spring, a book that landed in the hands of President Kennedy and became one of the catalysts for the environmental movement. I grew up by the Pacific Ocean, my favorite bird was the brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis), so I am forever grateful to Carson for waking up the nation to the effects of DDT.

Here's how I understand the spiral of DDT effects: bugs are eating crops, so DDT is sprayed on the crops; it rains and DDT residue runs off the foliage and into streams; the polluted water drains into the Pacific Ocean;  fish absorb the DDT from the water; pelicans make their awkward dives into the ocean and scoop up the tainted fish in their huge bills (pause for poetry intermission, a limerick by Dixon Merritt, 1910)

A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill will hold more than his belican,

He can take in his beak

Enough food for a week

But I'm damned if I see how the helican!

Then the DDT is absorbed into the pelican and for reasons I don't fully understand, the DDT thins the eggshells, so they break long before the baby pelican is ready to hatch; the brown pelican population drops nearly to nothing. Brown pelicans make the endangered species list.

The happy twist to this spiral of decay begins with Rachel Carson and Silent Spring. She loves the oceans and she is a marine biologist and writer. She compiles evidence that DDT is harming the environment and writes Silent Spring; President Kennedy reads the book (an argument for presidents who read books); he mentions it publicly in reference to pesticide concerns; DDT is eventually banned (a decade after the book's release and after Carson's death in 1964); the brown pelican population creeps up; in November 2009 Pelecanus occidentalis is taken off the endangered species list.

Thank you, Rachel Carson. You're my hero.