Effects of DDT Spraying for Spruce Budworm on Fish in the Yellowstone River System
- 1 July 1961
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
- Vol. 90 (3) , 239-251
- https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1961)90[239:eodsfs]2.0.co;2
Abstract
DDT was sprayed at 1 pound per acre from airplanes for the control of spruce budworm on 71,678 acres in the Yellowstone River drainage in 1957. Stream‐bottom invertebrates were reduced in number immediately after the spray. Recovery to near‐normal total numbers occurred within a year in most streams, but species composition was altered. Drift samples in one stream showed dead and dying invertebrates to be drifting in the current in great numbers. No mortality to fish was found. Chemical analysis showed that DDT up to 0.03 p.p.m. was in several samples of water from streams. In one case a trace was found 55 miles downstream from the spray area. Vegetation samples contained up to 2.3 p.p.m. of DDT. All of the 80 samples of mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) and rainbow and brown trout (Salmo gairdneri and S. trutta) analyzed contained either DDT up to 14.0 p.p.m. or DDE up to 6.53 p.p.m., or both. DDT was found in trout 85 miles below the spray area, and fish taken more than 2 years after spraying contained DDT.This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: