Bitterroot Rebel With a Cause

Genetic, Genital Damage in Montana Wildlife?

By Joan Melcher, Guest Writer, 9-14-09

	A white-tailed buck at the National Bison Range with malformed scrota. Photo by Eugene Beckes.

This article first appeared in the Miller-McCune online magazine.

Hard as it is to be a voice in the wilderness, Judy Hoy has been sounding an alarm in Montana for more than 13 years. Public officials haven’t been listening, she says.

Hoy has been documenting changes—mutations, really—in various ungulate species like deer, publishing her findings in places like the Journal of Environmental Biology. Among her concerns: she’s seen malformed genitalia among male white-tailed deer, which could be the result of pesticide exposures, she theorizes.

Such observations are not unique. More and more scientists are documenting reproductive changes in male animals, from cricket frogs to polar bears. But Hoy says she’s received little response from governmental agencies in Montana. Meanwhile, the trends she sees—and the reproductive abnormalities—are continuing.

White-tailed deer came into Hoy’s line of vision 30 years ago when her husband, Bob Hoy, began collecting road-killed deer as a warden with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks department. Beginning in 1980, Judy Hoy, a former elementary school science teacher, used some of the roadkill to feed wildlife she nursed at her Bitterroot Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

In 1996, the Hoys noticed something strange among the roadkill.

“It started with Buck No. 9,” Judy said. “We called him that because he was the ninth buck we had seen with malformed genitalia.”

From late 1996 through 1997, the Hoys examined 54 male deer aged 3 months to 1 year. Only about a third of those animals had what the couple, over decades of observation, had come to consider a normal scrotum and a normal placement of genitals. Thirty had a scrotum that was misaligned, with one testes positioned in front of the other; one had no scrotum; one had misplaced organs; and nine had ectopic testes, which are positioned between the body wall and the skin.

The next year, 25 of 49 males they studied had genital anomalies. Between 1998 and 2000, two-thirds of the bucks they examined had abnormalities. Hoy took notes, kept data, shot photos and began calling Montana’s FWP.

Hoy says she tried to interest wildlife scientists in the University of Montana’s Wildlife Biology program to pursue further study. She also showed photos or deer carcasses to state officials or veterinarians. In 2000, frustrated at the lack of response, Hoy sought out Wisconsin resident William Croft, a physician and veterinarian who works as a consultant in environmental toxicology, pathology and biochemistry.

Croft drove to Montana to examine Hoy’s white-tailed deer. He found, after viewing Hoy’s records and photos, that eight of 10 dead deer “clearly demonstrated abnormal development.” Out of 114 bucks he examined, he found 70 abnormal male deer.

Croft also examined a variety of mammals and birds to investigate another of Hoy’s concerns: lack of development in facial bones that causes a serious underbite. (Hoy says animals with this problem may not be able to consume enough while suckling or grazing.)

“These and other animals examined, observed and photographed by Judy Hoy clearly demonstrate abnormal development within the white-tailed deer, elk, bird, goat, and toad populations and represent serious health changes within the wildlife of the Bitterroot Valley of Stevensville, Montana,” Croft concluded. He had his report notarized and sent it to the Ravalli County commissioners.

Hoy kept at it. In 2001, the Journal of Environmental Biology published a study in which she and her husband—with co-authors Douglas Seba (a marine scientist with expertise in organochlorine pesticides) and Theodore H. Kerstetter (a Humboldt State University zoology professor)—postulated that pesticide exposure was the cause of the abnormalities. The paper did not link the two conclusively. But Hoy believes the abnormalities could be linked to chemicals that affect the endocrine system, which involves the intricate and mysterious interplay of hormones, organs and tissues that regulate metabolism and other functions, including reproduction.

The root of the problem?

The underbite Hoy had noted has been linked to hypothyroidism and disruption of the thyroid system, which is a part of the endocrine system. Like a detective at a murder scene, Hoy began examining different endocrine-disrupting compounds, eliminating suspects one by one. Then she met up with chlorothalonil, a broad-spectrum pesticide-fungicide. It had been Montana’s go-to fungicide in 1994, when neighboring farmers in Idaho were fighting potato blight.

Hoy learned that chlorothalonil (sold under the commercial names of Bravo, Echo and Daconil) had been applied on potato fields in heavy doses that year and for several subsequent years. Many of the fields where it was used lie directly west of the valley.

In 2007, Hoy found a scientist, Diane Henshel of Indiana University, interested in conducting a study of air circulation patterns, which Hoy suspected might bring chlorothalonil wafting into the Bitterroot valley. Henshel studies environmental pollutants, particularly pollutants’ effects on developing organisms. She visited Hoy and examined animals at the rehabilitation center and reviewed Hoy’s data and photos.

In 2008, three of Henshel’s graduate students completed a baseline risk assessment for the Bitterroot Valley through air modeling. They found pesticides like chlorothalonil in the valley. And they confirmed that a metabolite of chlorothalonil is chemically akin to cyanide. The authors recommended sampling more pesticides in air, water and soil and testing for xylene, a toxic chemical released from a surgical-products manufacturer in the county. They also suggested testing the possible synergistic effect, or “cocktail effect,” of the many pesticides being used in the valley.

Henshel told local media at the time that chlorothalonil was not detected at levels high enough to cause the deformities Hoy was finding, but she did not discount what she saw at Hoy’s rehabilitation center. “I think that the jaw deformities are indicative,” Henshel said. “I think the gonadal deformities are more than indicative, and they indicate there’s a problem. You just don’t show up with these deformities.

“I think what their report says is there’s a lot more that needs to be looked at, and it really should stop being ignored,” Henshel concluded.

In April, chlorothalonil was included on a list of pesticides that will be studied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.

Meanwhile, studies have been emerging from around the globe that lend credence to Hoy’s suspicions, if not her specific concerns. Congenital hypothyroidism has been found in foals in Saskatchewan. Hermaphrodite polar bears have been found in Alaska, as well as deer with undescended testes. A small, endangered population of Florida panthers has abnormal sperm, low sperm density and undescended testicles.

Gwynne Lyons and Elizabeth Salter-Green of Britain’s CHEMTrust — an organization that focuses on the problems of manmade chemicals in the environment — brought much of the research together in a 2008 report, “Effects of Pollutants on the Reproductive Health of Male Vertebrate Wildlife — Males Under Threat.” Hoy’s paper was included in the CHEMTrust study.

“Gender bender” chemicals are affecting animals around the world, Gwynne Lyons said in a press statement, including “flounder in United Kingdom estuaries, cod in the North Sea, cane toads in Florida, peregrine falcons in Spain, and turtles from the Great Lakes in North America.”

Consciouness raising about endocrine disruptors

Endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) began emerging into the public consciousness starting in the 1960s, when headlines broke about severe birth defects caused by the prescription drug thalidomide. A decade later, daughters of women who took the synthetic estrogen DES to counter miscarriages were found to have high rates of vaginal and uterine cancer, and other health problems.

Since the 1960s, hundreds of EDCs have been identified, and a growing body of scientific study targets them as suspects in a number of health problems. In particular, studies point out that small disruptions to the reproductive system caused by hormone-disrupting chemicals can cause lasting damage.

DDT, PCBs and dioxin are among the better-known hormone-disrupting chemicals. In recent years, other EDCs have been identified, including bisphenol-A (or BPA), which has been found to leach from polycarbonate plastic baby bottles and other containers; phthalates, used in everything from children’s toys to perfume and liquid soap; and Dow Chemical’s 2,4-D, a common herbicide.

In 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act, which called for the EPA to screen and test pesticide chemicals for possible endocrine disruption. But it has taken 13 years and a lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to get the ball rolling. In April, the EPA’s screening committee released a list of just 67 pesticides—among the thousands in existence—that will be the first tested in the program. There is no mandate to screen inert ingredients, such as phthalates.

Humans, meanwhile, are among the mammals whose reproductive health could be at risk, scientists say. Sarah Jannsen, an NRDC staff scientist, says undescended testes and malformed genitals are two of the most common birth defects seen in baby boys in the United States. A recent study links these birth anomalies to phthalate exposure.

“We don’t keep very good records here,” Jannsen said, “but in Western European countries, they’ve seen a dramatic increase in these conditions in last 40 years. Why is it happening? We probably can’t pinpoint one chemical. It’s probably a combination of several chemicals.”

Focused on Chlorothalonil

Hoy grew up on a ranch. She wears jeans with a large belt buckle and her hair in tight ponytails. She and her husband are no-nonsense Montanans. Their living room centers around two recliners and a television set, with Judy’s computer and files taking up a corner area next to a massive stone hearth. The dining room table is stacked with papers, books and studies.

Hoy is clearly on a mission, and conversation with her is largely one-sided. She almost snorts when she refers to state FWP staffers, who she said dismiss her photos and other evidence by saying, “ ‘Judy wants everything to be perfect.’”

Even her defenders note her tendency to alienate. Linda Dworak, a physician and veterinarian who lives in the valley, put it this way in a 1998 letter she wrote to the editor of a weekly newspaper: “Hoy is easy to discount. She lacks credentials of scientific training, she draws conclusions prematurely, she overstates findings, and her determined persistence results in a sometimes brash demeanor that makes her message difficult to absorb. But, whatever one might think of her methods, Hoy’s concerns are valid.”

Today, however, Hoy’s concerns may have finally found some traction. Reports and studies in the summer of 2009 verify a decline in ungulate populations in Montana. Newspaper stories have mentioned steep declines in the elk population in the Bitterroot Valley (wolves are the FWP’s prime suspects). A July study by Montana State University researchers showed poor nutrition and lower birth rates in elk populations in the Yellowstone National Park ecosystem. The researchers tied the problems to predation by wolves—but also noted that elk living in the presence of wolves had lower levels of progesterone, a hormone necessary to maintain pregnancy.

Hoy’s fervor to indict chlorothalonil and, more broadly, to bring attention to possible effects of EDCs, has led her to publish in places unlikely to win her many academic allies. One article that documented findings of underbite in several species in the Bitterroot Valley appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation. The website Quackwatch.org, lists the foundation as an organization that engenders “considerable mistrust.”

When Hoy’s name comes up, two camps form: those who trust her observations and research, and those who call her names and mistrust her findings. But locals in the first camp increasingly come to Hoy with reports of abnormalities.

“They bring their goats, dogs, horses here,” she said. “I ask them if they’re ready to write a letter yet.”

Gary Haas, a local taxidermist with 17 years in the Bitterroot, recounted a hunting trip he was on with a longtime hunting partner. The man, who had worked for the FWP, was surprised to learn Haas was working with Hoy.

“‘She has no formal education,’” Haas recalled him saying. “I told him, ‘Guess what? You don’t need a formal education to see that something’s wrong.’”

In a recent interview, Neil Anderson, the wildlife laboratory supervisor for the FWP, portrayed Hoy as a “passionate person” who tends to “see malformations” wherever she looks. He said populations of deer in the valley are normal, and FWP rangers are not finding anomalies.

Anderson said there is a need for clear data supporting cause-and-effect before the agency would act. “She may be on to something,” Anderson said. “But I don’t have a way of proposing a study that would cost multimillions of dollars on the evidence we’ve seen.”

Still, Hoy keeps at it. Today she records data by examining roadkill and examining fawns rescued by neighbors. Her latest numbers, for 2006 through June 2009, show that only six of 33 male fawns examined had bilateral scrotums; 26 had the left testes positioned in front of the right, and one had no scrotum formed. She has also continued to find a malformed facial structure across several species, usually an underbite.

Haas, the taxidermist, has seen the incidence of this in white-tail deer increase noticeably in recent years. He said he has talked with several traditional taxidermists (he uses an alternative approach, enlisting flesh-eating beetles to clean bones and skulls) who are “having a difficult time trying to mount these animals because they have a short lower lip—what they call a parrot lip. Many of them can’t really close their mouths.”

Haas, who has a degree in wildlife biology, is turning over his data on this “malocclusion” to Hoy for a study she is working on.

“I’ve seen what she’s talking about — orientation of testicles on bucks and the changes in the jaws,” he says. “I can’t deny that there’s something out there. There’s something wrong.”

To see more from Joan Melcher, go to Miller-McCune.com.

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