Editor:
Tony Greenfield tells us that North American barn swallows have declined over 90 per cent in the past 40 years; Annette Clarke says cats, which are known bird-killers, are to blame for the extinction of 34 bird species worldwide (Coast Reporter, July 13). A study of house sparrows conducted by zoologist Sainudeen Pattazhy in 2008 and 2009 found, “Continuous penetration of electromagnetic radiation through the body of birds affects their nervous system and their navigational skills.”
In the late 1960s Canadian researchers found that bird feathers are receiving aerials for microwaves: chickens exposed to relatively high microwave levels collapsed, screamed and tried to escape but, when plucked, showed no such reaction. Biologist Ulrich Warnke notes the pairs of antennas of insects are electromagnetic sensors. Scientists at Panjab University, India placed two cell phones, one in talk mode, one in listening mode in two of four beehives. They turned them on for 15 minutes morning and afternoon twice a week between February and April 2009. At the end of the experiment, the bees in the two hives with cell phones had vanished, leaving no honey, pollen or brood. In 1996 wildlife biologist Alfonso Balmori experimented on tadpoles. He placed two tanks of them on a fifth story terrace 40 metres away from four rooftop cellphone base stations and draped one with radiation-shielding cloth. After two months the mortality rate in the shielded tank was only four per cent while that in the exposed tank was 90 per cent. Many more examples of harm can be found in chapter 16 of The Invisible Rainbow, available from Sechelt Library.
Susan Fletcher, Sechelt
