Environmental Contaminants

Chesapeake and Delaware Bays are the largest estuaries on the east coast of the United States. They support extensive fisheries and provide critical habitat for many species of wildlife. These Bays are surrounded by vast agricultural andindustrialized regions, with urbanized areas, all of which are a source of pollution that can affect natural resources. We have long monitored contaminants in this...

Living things are intricately connected to each other and to the air, water, and soil that surrounds them. Our research looks at how contaminants move through the environment and living things to understand the chemical and physiological processes and ecological factors that influence exposure and risk in wildlife.

The Challenge: Neonicotinoid pesticides act as agonists of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) and are designed to be lethal to insects while theoretically posing little to no threat to vertebrates. The perceived safety of neonicotinoids has led to a sharp increase in their use in the United States and globally, since they were first introduced in 1994. The use of the neonicotinoid...

The Challenge: The use of flame retardants (FRs) as additives in a variety of consumer use products, including plastics, textiles, and electronics, is projected to continue and increase for the foreseeable future. Because of unanticipated environmental problems, some FRs have either been banned, restricted, or are being phased-out and replaced by other new and presumably safer FRs. Regrettably...

Treating or “dressing” of seeds with pesticides is a commonly used method to enhance crop yield in agriculture. Regrettably, such treated seeds can be ingested by wildlife, and depending on the extent of exposure, can cause adverse effects.

One of the hallmarks of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID) is the difficulty in predicting potentially toxic effects.Diclofenac is one such NSAID that devastated Asian vulture populations when they fed upon carcasses of livestock treated with the NSAID diclofenac.Because these drugs are widely used, we studied the potential hazard of diclofenac in New World vultures.

Flame retardants are a class of commonly used household and industrial products. Because of widespread use, there is concern that their presence in the environment can potentially pose a hazard and risk to wildlife.

Scientists and natural resource managers often seek information on the effects various environmental stressors on wildlife.To facilitate this activity, we created a database focused on environmental contaminant exposure and adverse effects in wildlife residing in coastal and estuarine habitat.The Contaminant Exposure and Effects-Terrestrial Vertebrates database is searchable and relatively easy to...

The Challenge: The Department of the Interior (DOI) and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration are trustees for a wide variety natural resources that belong to all Americans. Additional natural resources are overseen by Native American tribes, states, and other federal agencies. Migratory birds are an example of a trust species for DOI, under the US Fish and Wildlife Service. When wild...