PCB was used in everything from electrical equipment to fluids for vehicles to sprays to keep the dust down in the summer on country roads. They're flushing into the lake and we're seeing them potentially impacting our loon population," said Grade.ĭDT was a pesticide used heavily in the 1940s and 1950s in orchards. "Here we are decades after the fact, and these are still showing up in these sediments. Ever since, they’ve been testing no longer viable eggs in look nests on local lakes and what her team has discovered is a disastrous chemical cocktail lurking in the egg, including banned chemicals DDT and PCB.
Grade has been tracking a disturbing decline in the birds' population since the mid-2000s. "These contaminants are ubiquitous and they're persistent and it makes one shudder to think what might all be out there that just hasn't been identified," said Tiffany Grade, a biologist at the Loon Preservation Committee. While they may be at their most elusive in the winter, there’s a group trying to prevent the beloved bird from disappearing altogether at the hands of an invisible enemy. This time of year, common loons leave their lake homes before they freeze to bob and fish in the warmer waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Even with bare branches still anticipating winter snow, the landscape of New Hampshire’s lake region holds an estimable, eerie beauty.Īlong with foliage, this time of year also sees an absence of one of New England's beloved waterfowl that is a haunting fixture along lakeshores.
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