| Patuxent Science Meeting 2006 Poster Abstract |
| | CSI: Patuxent - Forensic research supporting wildlife law enforcement |
| | Vyas NB, Spann JW, Hulse CS, Patterson D, Butterbrod JJ, Mengelkoch J, |
| | MacDougall K, Williams BI, Pendergrass P, Torrez M, Leffel R, Bauer W, Olson |
| | Wildlife law enforcement agents depend on forensic analyses to identify the cause of death in |
| | order to build their case. The cause of death from organophosphorus and carbamate insecticide |
| | poisonings is often not confirmed because the carcass matrices that are conventionally |
| | analyzed are not available due to decomposition and scavenging. In such cases additional |
| | methods are needed to determine insecticide exposure. Many scavenged and decomposed |
| | carcasses retain intact feet that may have come into contact with the insecticides. We tested |
| | three scenarios with respect to pesticide, foot type, and exposure to determine the temporal |
| | reliability of pesticides on weathered and decomposed feet. Results show that certain |
| | insecticides can be detected on feet for at least 28 days. We provide wildlife law enforcement |
| | agents a tool for determining pesticide exposure after a bird has been long dead and the |
| | conventional matrices are no longer available for analysis. Insecticide analysis of feet can raise |
| | the certainty of the cause of death, thereby providing valuable evidence for wildlife law |
| | Friday, September 22, 2006 |