-Caveat Lector-
MUTATED RODENTS FOUND AT KESTERSON
Hermaphroditism baffles scientists at wildlife refuge
by Eric Brazil
San Francisco Examiner, June 10, 1999
Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, already infamous as the
place where selenium poisoned thousands of birds, has just
presented scientists with a startling environmental puzzle: an
outbreak of hermaphroditic rodents.
A third of the 87 field mice, house mice, deer mice and
California voles trapped during the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's
annual biological monitoring study at the Merced County refuge
had both male and female reproductive organs.
"The number of intersex mammals was a surprising finding
to everybody," Michael Delamore, chief of the bureau's
drainage program in Fresno, said Thursday. "We're not sure what
it means, because it's new, and the phenomenon hasn't been widely
reported."
While the name Kesterson has become synonymous with
selenium, field researchers don't think that the trace element,
which can be toxic in high concentrations, has anything to do
with the increase in hermaphroditism.
Nor, according to the report by the Sacramento consulting
firm of CH2MHill, is it caused by mutation.
"If the intersex abnormality was seen across four species,
it is unlikely that it is the result of a genetic mutation and it
is probably the result of environmental influences," the report
said.
Something in the Kesterson environment is causing the
abnormality, but no one knows what.
Because Kesterson is a fairly closed system and no longer
receives drain water from San Joaquin Valley farms, it has no
obvious contaminant sources. Consequently, the report says,
"naturally occurring agents should also be considered as having a
role in this phenomenon."
"We're working with the Fish and Wildlife Service, the
EPA and the Regional Water Resources Control Board" to find out
what's going on, Delamore said.
A mouse and vole trapping program is being launched outside
Kesterson to learn whether intersex rodents are proliferating
elsewhere.
"Rarely if anywhere do folks look at critters like we do at
Kesterson," Delamore said.
Hermaphroditism has rarely been observed in Kesterson's
rodent population, according to the report. In 1995, for example,
just 3 percent of the rodents trapped showed intersex
characteristics.
In 1998, 15 of 33 house mice, seven of 30 deer mice, five of
17 harvest mice and two of seven voles showed those
characteristics. Deer and house mice also had enlarged left
testes. The findings may be conservative, because the test
animals were examined when female reproductive structures had not
yet enlarged.
Kesterson is located 14 miles north of Los Banos in Merced
County off Highway 140. For six years, beginning in 1979,
Kesterson's 12 shallow evaporation ponds - part of the 80-mile
San Luis Drain, managed by the Bureau of Reclamation - were a
sump for toxic runoff from farms in the Westlands Water District
on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
In 1985, an investigation into the cause of the death and
deformation of thousands of birds at the refuge disclosed that
selenium, a naturally occurring byproduct of agricultural runoff,
was being deposited in the ponds in massive quantities. It was
responsible for poisoning and causing birth defects in the
refuge's birds.
The same year, then-Secretary of the Interior Donald Hodel
invoked the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and closed Kesterson's
evaporation ponds. The San Luis Drain was plugged. In 1988,
Kesterson was drained; now standing water occurs there only
during wet years like 1997-98.
The bureau has spent some $50 million cleaning up
Kesterson, which is the only part of the San Luis National
Wildlife Refuge that does not allow cars. The just-published
report disclosed that the refuge still shows higher-than-normal
levels of selenium in both invertebrate and vertebrate wildlife,
in its soil and water, but that the environment is no longer the
toxic sump it was in 1985.
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