FOR RELEASE: 2 p.m. Eastern July 12, 2000

Contact: Roger Segelken
Office: (607) 255-9736
E-Mail: hrs2@cornell.edu

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Large portions of the Rocky Mountains may not be as pristine as once thought, according to a report by ecologists from Cornell University, the Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in the July 13 issue of the journal Nature (Vol. 408, No. 6792, pp. 181-183).

Their study, which was funded by the National Geographic Society, focused on abandoned mining districts in Colorado and a little-known species of grouse called the white-tailed ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus). According to the lead author of the report titled "Cadmium Toxicity Among Wildlife in the Colorado Rocky Mountains," the metal is affecting the ptarmigan in mining areas and may threaten some populations of the bird with extinction. Cadmium from abandoned mines may also affect other wildlife species in the area, including deer, elk, moose, rabbits, beaver and other birds, the researchers predict.

"Even humans in the region may not be immune to the effects of cadmium," said James R. Larison of Cornell and Oregon State universities.

Other authors of the Nature report are Gene E. Likens, director of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., and an adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell; John W. Fitzpatrick, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; and J.G. Crock, a chemist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver. Larison is a doctoral degree candidate at Cornell and a faculty member at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

While the extreme toxicity of cadmium has been established by short-term, lethal-dose experiments, the ptarmigan study in Colorado's Animas River watershed is the first to show the more subtle, but nonetheless important, result of chronic exposure to excess
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Contact: Roger Segelken
hrs2@cornell.edu
607-255-9736
Cornell University News Service
11-Jul-2000