Continued implication of the banned pesticides carbofuran and aldicarb in the poisoning of domestic and wild animals of the Canary Islands (Spain)

Abstract

Although nowadays the intentional poisoning of domestic and wild animals is a crime in EU, in the past the poison was used in rural areas of a number of European countries to kill animals that were considered harmful for human activities. In Spain evidences indicate that intentional poisonings continue to occur throughout the entire country nowadays. This situation seems to be of particular concern in the Canary Islands (Spain), where this study was performed. Our results confirmed that 225 animals were poisoned by pesticides over the study period (32 months; 2010-2013). The intentionality of the poisoning was confirmed in 117 cases. It has to be highlighted that the other 108 animals also died by pesticide poisoning, although the intentionality was only suspected. This incidence is currently the highest reported in any region from European Union. The pesticides carbofuran, bromadiolone, brodifacoum and aldicarb were the most frequently detected involved. Among the affected species, it has to be highlighted that endangered species are frequently affected in poisoning incidents. Notably, chemicals banned in the EU (carbofuran and aldicarb) were identified in approximately 75% of cases, and in almost 100% of baits, which suggests that these pesticides are still available to the population. Several circumstances may explain these results. Firstly, little control over the sale and possession of pesticide products, and the potential existence of an illegal market of pesticides banned in the European Union in the neighbouring African continent. In addition, the limited awareness of the population about the dangerousness of these compounds, for the environment, animals, or even people, make the situation very worrying in these islands. Stronger regulations, control of legal and illegal pesticide use, development of educational programs and legal action in poisoning incidents are needed to decrease the impact of pesticide misuse on wildlife and domestic animals.

Protective effects of perennial herb, against furadan 3G induced cytotoxicity in Melissa officinalis Channa punctatus

“…Furadan 3G (2, 3-dihydro-2, 2-dimethyl-7-benzofuranyl methylcarbamate) is used as a broad spectrum systemic carbamate pesticide for agriculture.Although, it is already banned in the United States and some European countries (Ruiz-Suárez ., 2015), it is still used as a potent crop protection chemical in most of the Indian states (Mishra and Sharma, 2011). Furadan 3G is one of the preferred pesticides used to protect crops by killing insects, nematodes and parasites (Wandan ., 2011).…”

Effect of Aldicarb Exposure on Cellular Immunity and Antioxidant Capacity in Kun-ming Mice

“…Aldicarb, an N-methyl carbamate pesticide, has many hazardous effects on humans and animals [2] [3]. In the past decades, control actions to ban or severely restrict aldicarb use have been achieved by Europe and other countries due to its toxic effects [4]. However, aldicarb is still used in agriculture in some developing countries including China [5] [6].…”

Validated analytical methodology for the simultaneous determination of a wide range of pesticides in human blood using GC–MS/MS and LC–ESI/MS/MS and its application in two poisoning cases

“…Nevertheless, it has been shown that legal and commercial restrictions have not influenced the intentional illegal use of some pesticides as poisons [16,17]. For this reason for the selection of the 109 pesticides included in this multiresidue method we have mainly taken into account their known toxicities for either humans and other mammals (Table 1), and also according to the available data, the frequency with which these compounds have been implicated in human poisonings [14,15], regardless of whether their use is currently allowed or not.…”

“…This methodology is based on a liquid-liquid extraction, clean-up, chromatographic separation, and detection by QqQ operated in the MRM mode, and has been successfully applied to the detection of the toxicant involved in 2 recent cases of poisoning by an unknown pesticide that were submitted to our laboratory. Besides, this methodology has been also applied in our laboratory to the identification of the pesticides in matrices other than blood [16].…”