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From: Elizabeth Murdock, Endangered Species Expert, National Wildlife Federation
Category: Pick a Topic
Date: 4/22/99
Time: 4:39:54 PM
Ohio is home to three threatened or endangered bird species. They are the bald eagle (threatened), the American peregrine falcon (endangered), and the piping plover (endangered in Ohio and other states, threatened in some states).
Both the bald eagle and the American peregrine falcon declined largely because of poisoning from pesticides, particularly a pesticide called DDT. These raptors ingested DDT through their prey, which had also taken in DDT. The chemical either prevented the birds from laying eggs at all or made their eggshells thin and highly breakable. DDT was banned in 1972, and now both birds are making a comeback.
The piping plover is a shore bird that lives part of each year on the shores of the Great Lakes, on sandy beaches along the Atlantic coast, and near rivers and lakes in the Great Plans. Piping plovers winter along the southern Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts. Piping plovers have declined primarily because they are losing their habitat to development on beaches, from houses to commercial centers to recreational areas. They are also threatened by road and beach vehicles.
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