Birds elimination

A 5-kg osprey makes a regular diet of minnows from a pesticide-contaminated farm pond. The minnows contain 1 ppm of pesticide and the bird eats 200 g of them daily. Estimate the steady-state burden of pesticide accumulated by the osprey. (Assume the birds eliminate 20% of their body burden of the pesticide per week.)... 

In addition to their role as components of nucleoproteins, purines and pyrimidines are vital to the proper functioning of the cell. The bases are constituents of various coenzymes, such as coenzyme A (CoA), adenosine triphosphate (ATP), guanosine triphosphate (GTP), cytidine triphosphate (CTP), diphosphopyridine nucleotide (DPN), triphosphopyridine nucleotide (TPN), and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). A pyrimidine derivative, cytidine diphosphate choline, is involved in phospholipid synthe another pyrimidine compound, uridine diphosphate glucose, is an important substance in carbohydrate metabolism. Cytidine diphosphate ribitol functions in the biosynthesis of a new group of bacterial cell-wall components, the teichoic acids. While mammals excrete nitrogen derived from protein catabolism in the form of urea, birds eliminate their nitrogen by synthesizing it into the purine compound, uric acid. 

Water birds have not been shown to be directly affected by acidification. However, the prey of waterbirds may be of concern as these lower food-chain organisms may have elevated levels of toxic metals related to acidification of their habitat. Moreover, most water birds rely on some component of the aquatic food-chain for their high protein diet. Invertebrates that normally supply caJcium to egg-laying birds or their growing chicks are among the first to disappear as lakes acidify. As these food sources are reduced or eliminated due to acidification, bird habitat is reduced and reproductive rate of the birds is affected. The Common Loon is able to raise fewer chicks, or none at all, on acidic lakes where fish populations are reduced 37 and 5S). However, in some isolated cases, food supplies can be increased when competitive species are eliminated (e.g.. Common Goldeneye ducks can better exploit insects as food when competition from fish is eliminated). The collective influences of acidification are difficult to quantify on a specific area basis but for species that rely on a healthy aquatic ecosystem to breed, acidification remains a continuing threat in thousands of lakes across eastern North America 14). 

One study conducted in Britain between 1983 and 1989 was of barn owls found dead in the field 10% of the sample of 145 birds contained anticoagulant rodenticide residues in their livers, and difenacoum and brodifacoum were prominent among them (Newton et al. 1990). In another study, barn owls were fed rats that had been dosed with flocoumafen. It was found that a substantial proportion of the rodenticide ingested by owls was eliminated in pellets (Eadsforth et al. 1991). The authors suggest that exposure of owls to rodenticides in the field may be monitored by analysis of pellets dropped at roosts or regular perching places. 

Even bird embryos are sensitive to odors. If domestic fowl embryos were exposed to odors 1 day before hatching (including dichloroethane, formic acid, cineole, and amyl acetate) they responded with increased heart rate, beak clapping, and head shaking to the first three compounds. Amyl acetate had inconsistent results. Blocking the nostrils with wax eliminated the responses (Tolhurst and Vince, 1976). 

In chickens a pattern similar to a capacity limited-elimination was noticed. The cause may be either a capacity limitation in the SDM metabolism (hydroxylation ) of SDM or extensive drug reabsorption from the cloaca occurring at night(known as chrono-pharma-cokinetics). In the chicken, 58 % of the intravenously administered dose is lost, which is also reported for other birds (24). Thus birds must possess additional metabolic pathways. 

As reviewed by Ujvary some of the earliest natural product-based pesticides were those for the elimination of vertebrate pests. For example, strychnine (Fig. 19), obtained from seeds of Strychnos nux-vomica, is a rodenticide that is an antagonist to the neurotransmitter glycine and is used against a few mammal species, as well as pest birds and fish. The first generation of anticoagulant rodenticides were based on dicoumarin. 

The most common mode of aircraft detection is radar. Essentially, radar is the detection of radio waves that have been thrown out and which bounce off objects returning to the site of origin. Today s radar, if properly used, can help identify the location, speed, and identity of the aircraft. The radar cross-section (RCS) of an aircraft is how much echo the plane sends from radar. Birds have an RCS of about 0.01 m. The Stealth Bomber has an RCS of 0.75 m. The Stealth Bomber and many stealth aircraft gain their stealth character from both the shape of the aircraft and the presence of radar absorbing material (RAM), which is made to absorb and eliminate radio waves rather than reflect them. Most of the RAM materials are polymeric. 

---