Diana Buckland Global Recognition Campaign http://www.wtv-zone.com/infchoice/mcs_australia.html

TAINT MISBEHAVIN' (Grist Magazine)
Pollution Causes Animals to Act All Freaky

It seems to some folks that humans behave in more and more bizarre
fashion these days, but animals have tended to go about their animal
business in a generally ordinary fashion. No more: Ubiquitous chemical
pollutants known as endocrine disruptors -- everything from heavy metals
to PCBs -- are altering animal behavior in zany ways. Male gulls are
trying to mate with each other. Goldfish are hyperactive. Macaques are
roughhousing more roughly. Newts can't find each other to mate. It's
kind of funny, only not. According to two major new reviews in the
journal Animal Behaviour, these behavioral disruptions could pose a
larger threat to animals' survival than previously thought. The
researchers say different concentrations of pollutants can cause
different, sometimes contradictory, behaviors, and they argue it's high
time for biologists and toxicologists to work together more closely.
"The most important point" of the studies, says researcher Dustin Penn,
"is the incredible amount of evidence that this is a widespread
problem."

straight to the source: New Scientist, Andy Coghlan, 03 Sep 2004
http://www.grist.org/cgi-bin/forward.pl?forward_id=3003