yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

How Pesticide Misuse Is Killing Africa's Wildlife | National Geographic


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Throughout Africa, people are using poisons as weapons to kill wildlife, and pesticides are the most common ones. As human populations across the continent continue to grow, farmers and herders compete with animals for shrinking land and resources. Farmers must safeguard their crops and chimps and elephants. Herders kill lions and leopards in retaliation for eating their cattle.

People have small animals like doves and ducks for meat, but instead of killing them with guns or traps, some have resorted to using inexpensive and deadly insecticides and herbicides. What they may not know is that this causes a disastrous trickle-down effect into the rest of the ecosystem. When herders add poison to carcasses used to bait lions, the same carcasses may be eaten by vultures and eagles, which themselves are then poisoned.

When villagers drop poison in a pond to kill fish and ducks for food, other animals like otters and hippos drink that water and die. When farmers sprinkle pesticides on seeds and fruits used to bait elephants, other animals like storks and insects also eat the poisoned food. People who consume poisoned meat and water without knowing it can get sick as a result.

As you can see, all of these situations do not only affect the targeted animals but end up harming so many others as collateral damage. But where do the pesticides come from? Some are manufactured in the United States, and others come from India and China. These lethal synthetic formulas made with carbofuran and carbosulfan are banned in many parts of the world, but they're sold legally for agricultural purposes in Africa, where they're widely available as over-the-counter products in kiosks and stores.

Human demands are always increasing, so poisonings are likely to increase too. [Music]

More Articles

View All
15 Financial Milestones That Bring the Most Joy
You know it’s kind of funny when most people start a proper financial journey when they’re at the point of “this is it, okay, I’m done living this way, I’m getting my together.” Well, they think they know what kind of milestones will bring them the most j…
Astronaut Mike Massimino Talks with Kids | One Strange Rock
So how do you go Ah ha! How do you think? What happened? You’re rubbing your head. Oh, no. Right here is just aching. It is? Yeah, I don’t know why. Is it the conversation? Like my brain is just so excited. Your brain is so excited? Yeah. I’ve ne…
Adding & subtracting rational expressions: like denominators | High School Math | Khan Academy
So let’s add six over two x squared minus seven to negative three x minus eight over two x squared minus seven. And like always, pause the video and try to work it out before I do. Well, when you look at this, we have these two rational expressions and w…
What is a pronoun? | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy
Hello grammarians! We’re going to start talking about pronouns today, and of course that begins with the question: What are pronouns? Allow me to answer that question by way of a demonstration. Emma laughed so hard, milk came out of Emma’s nose. Zach lif…
How a 22 year old got 500 LISTINGS as a PART TIME Real Estate Agent
In my first year, I have these moments where I wanted to quit. I was just like, this is not for me, you know? Maybe real estate’s not for me. Maybe I got so frustrated. I was helping this dude out, and then like halfway through, he’s like, you know what? …
The Controversial Physics of Curling - COLD HARD SCIENCE - Smarter Every Day 111
Hey, it’s me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day. So in the last episode, I explained that it’s not always the most athletic team that wins in sport; sometimes it involves the physical manipulation of objects, so sometimes it’s the most intelligent …