By Paul Raymond Doyon 3-20-8
I live in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, The People's Republic of China. Yunnan Province is one of the cleanest and most pristine areas of China and Kunming City is also called the City of Eternal Spring since the weather here is quite pleasant throughout the year. However, it might as well be called "The City of The Silent Spring."
It is eerily odd but this city is strangely devoid of bugs I see virtually no insects in this city except for the occasional mosquito or the occasional cockroach. No ants, no spiders, no butterflies, no bees, no flies, no caterpillars, and so on down the line. I also see virtually no birds I look up in the sky and there are no birds traversing it. When I go to bed at night I do not hear the sounds of crickets; and when I wake up in the morning I do not hear the chirping sound of birds.
And from what I can tell by reading media reports on the Internet, this phenomena of the sudden disappearance of life forms (insects, amphibians, fish, bats, birds, etc.) is happening all over the world. Just last year, the fact that there is (and has been) a worldwide die-off of bees was finally taken up by the media. The frogs have been dying for years (although originally they were "mysteriously" showing up with deformities.) Now, just at the beginning of January 2008 a Swedish journalist sent me a report by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) about the disappearance of tens of millions of birds across North America HYPERLINK http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=372
What the heck is going on? And when are we going to do something about this? This is pretty serious stuff. If all the insects, amphibians, and birds are disappearing, how much longer will it be until we mammals start disappearing? (After all, many of us are already getting sick. There are about 80 immune system disorders we didn't have 20 years ago.) Albert Einstein made some kind of prediction that once the bees are gone, mankind would only have four or so more years left.
While the CBC report mentioned things like pesticides, urban sprawl, factory farming, deforestation, and so on, as possible causes, they conveniently failed to mention one other highly likely reason Microwave Radiation from Cell Phone Antennas (which the CBC also conveniently installs on its own towers a visible sign of CBC's cushy relationship with the cell phone industry and perhaps the reason they failed to mention the latter possible if not probable reason for the Avian Decline).
While the media is failing to direct our attention at the possible real cause of this extremely ominous situation possibly because of its lucrative and cushy relationships with the mobile phone industry one agency of the United States government is taking a more sober interest into this grave problem. Under the auspices of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS) and under the direction of Albert M. Manville II, Ph.D., Senior Wildlife Biologist, Division of Migratory Bird Management, the following report was issued on May 10th, 2007:
"U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Concerns Over Potential Radiation Impacts of Cellular Communication Towers on Migratory Birds and Other Wildlife Research Opportunities." HYPERLINK
Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why would a government agency be interested in saving wildlife? Don't they also have cushy relationships with industry and aren't they more concerned with protecting corporate profits?" Well, this is the US Fish and Wildlife Service not the DoD, FCC, FDA, FBI, or CIA. (We'll just have to cross our fingers that someone in one of those other agencies doesn't go and assassinate Dr. Manville.) Dr. Manville does really seem to be concerned about saving wildlife. And moreover, as is stated in the report: The USFWS [is] entrusted by Congress and required by statutes and regulations, to manage and protect migratory birds (and other fauna [ESA]) under authority of
[the] Migratory Bird Treaty Act
[the] Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, and
[the] Endangered Species Act.
This report informs us of the overall declining bird population (up to 50 million a year), increasingly threatened bird species, and how this is related to the massive expansion in cellular communication and the exponential increase in the number of cell-phone towers blanketing our landscape. One study of particular interest in the report is the survey of two berry farms in similar habitats in western Massachusetts. At one farm, where there are no cell phone towers, there are abundant signs of wildlife: e.g. migrating and resident birds, bats, small and large mammals, and insects including bees. However, at the other farm with a cell-phone tower located adjacent to the berry patch, there are virtually no signs of wildlife: tracks, scat, feathers, etc. Here the berries on bush go uneaten by birds and insects while the ripened berries that have fallen to the ground are going uneaten by animals: turkey, fox, and other wildlife.
According to a report published on May 29th, 2007, entitled "Phones & Vanishing Birds" HYPERLINK The sparrows have disappeared completely from the cities at least four years ago in Britain, as mobile phones grew in popularity. Third generation (3G) mobile phones were introduced in 2003, and there were over 65 million users in the UK by the end of 2005, more phones than people. (ISIS 2007)
There is ample evidence to suggest that it is indeed long-term exposure to microwave radiation especially from 3G GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) digital-phone technology that is killing the birds. Scientists at the Research Institute for Nature and Forests in Brussels, Belgium, have produced the first evidence that mobile phone base stations are affecting the reproductive behaviour of wild sparrows. This finding comes as mobile phones are held suspect in the massive collapse of bee colonies all over the United States and Europe.
Fewer house sparrow males were seen at locations within relatively high electric field strengths of GSM base stations. (ISIS 2007) Further evidence comes from researcher Alfonso Balmori in Spain: Alfonso Balmori, a conservation biologist in Valladolid, Spain, reported a significantly lower number of white stork (Ciconia ciconia) fledglings in nests close to mobile phone transmitters compared to nests further away. (ISIS 2007) Could the above also be related to the decrease in fertility found in humans living in advanced countries? (There are now numerous research studies supporting this hypothesis.)
Balmori also found difference in how the birds behaved close to the phone antennae. Young birds died from unknown causes, and bird couples frequently fought while constructing their nests. Sticks fell to the ground, and the couple failed to make any headway. Some nests were never completed and the storks remained passively in front of the antennae. (ISIS 2007) One is here also reminded of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and teenagers with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) not to mention increases in violence.
The observations in urban sparrows and the white stork population suggest that microwave radiation interferes with reproductive behaviour and breeding success, which would have decimated the wild populations. But that's not the whole story.
Several million birds of 230 species die each year from collisions with telecommunications masts in the United States during migration. Accidents happen mainly in the night, in fog, or bad weather, when birds might be using the earth's magnetic field for navigation, and could be seriously disoriented by the microwave radiation from telecommunication masts. (ISIS 2007)
While the above studies have looked at the decline of urban house sparrows and white storks, it is more than likely that this microwave radiation is affecting other if not all bird species.
In the UK, where the allowed radiation level is 20 times higher than in Spain, a decline of several species of urban birds has occurred, coinciding with the increasing installation of mobile phone masts. (ISIS 2007)
Birds (and insects and other small animals) would naturally be the first to obviously be affected by this increase in ambient radiation since naturally they have smaller bodies and hence less flesh to be penetrated by exposure to microwaves. Birds are good candidates as biological indicators for low-intensity electromagnetic radiation (EMR); they have thin skulls, their feathers can act as dielectric receptors of microwave radiation, many species use magnetic navigation, they are very mobile and possible psychosomatic effects are absent, as Everaert and Bauwens point out. (ISIS 2007)
Finally, chicken embryos exposed to microwave radiation from cell phones have shown both deformity and mortality.
Another important factor is that chicken embryos subjected to the radiation from a cell phone in the laboratory suffered much higher mortalities than non-exposed controls. Some years ago researchers in Russia showed that continuous exposure of the chick embryos during the 21 days of embryonic development resulted in 75 percent of the embryos dying, compared with 16 percent in the controls. (ISIS 2007)
The evidence keeps piling up as more and more studies appear that show that this microwave radiation is indeed insidiously killing (not only ourselves but also) our precious birds, amphibians, and insects. Many peer-reviewed studies relating to the destruction of birds, animals, and plants by microwave radiation can be found listed on the Website of Joris Everaert (biologist, ecologist, and photographer): HYPERLINK
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