Herbicide Chapter 6 Analysis

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Chapter 6:

Plants are very important to live. If it is useful, people grow it in excess. If it’s harmful, people want to get rid of it. Plants of different species interact with one another and the removal of one can affect the others. The use of weedkillers does not harm this intricate relationship of plants. For example, sagebrush allows the retention of moisture which might have helped the grass the farmers have planted but they have killed everything in the way of the growth of the new grass. The removal of the sagebrush also ruins the lives of animals that need it (antelope and sage grouse). A removal of one species of plant can easily affect the whole ecosystem, potentially crippling it.

Use of herbicide on roadsides can damage the aesthetic appeal and the environment around it. The shrubs …show more content…

Chapter 7:

Animals suffer from areas being sprayed and are not able to recover due to the fact that areas get resprayed before they could recover. Other animals which regularly visit the area are also affected. This can be seen with this total extermination called upon the Japanese beetle where the bird population was wiped out. This also happened when the insecticide Aldrin was dropped causing the bird population to drastically decrease as a result. The bird population would decrease since the insects were part of the bird 's diet. People were also affected since they developed illnesses.

The worst scenario can be seen with the use of Dieldrin. Squirrels, domesticated animals, and other animals were affected by its poison. Aldrin was then used afterward to further eliminate the beetles but caused more casualties. It was later found that a disease which affects the beetles were more effective, one was called milky disease. The insect control official claimed it was too expensive but did not take into account the high costs of the effects of their insecticides to humans and