West Nile Virus Spraying Not To Blame

Critics of pesticide spraying to control West Nile virus claim it is threatening bird populations.

Rubbish, says one expert in environmental risk assessement.

Writing recently in an op-ed piece for the Heartland Institute’s Environmental News, Angela Logomasini, director of Risk and Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, argued that West Nile virus and other factors in the natural environment pose far greater threats to birds and other wildlife than pesticide spraying.

She cited data from the Centers for Disease Control revealing that WNV killed birds from at least 138 species, including some that are endangered. By one estimate, as many as 400,000 great horned owls may have succumbed to the disease last year alone.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 14, 2004 10:54 AM