Glyphosate-Based Herbicides Produce Teratogenic Effects on Vertebrates by Impairing Retinoic Acid Signaling

by Alejandra Paganelli, Victoria Gnazzo, Helena Acosta, Silvia L. Lopez, and Andres E. Carrasco

here's the link to the pdf: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/tx1001749

... tell me if you can access that or not. Or not.

Dear Darrell Dexter,

I am given to understand that there are only 11 days before the Government of Nova Scotia begins to actively encourage the slaughter of coyotes for their pelts. I hope I am mistaken, I hope that by the time this message reaches you, the proposal will no longer be considered worthy of any kind of serious consideration. Have you not heard any coherent counter-arguments? How about the fact that basing any policy on instigating an animal's mistrust and fear of humans is purely monstrous? This, at a time when human beings are invading every remote corner of Nova Scotia with clear cutting and open surface mining!The government's plan does not belong as part of a healthy or good relationship with non-humans, it could not be considered as part of a healthy, necessary, eco-centric paradigm. The proposed cull is the kind of idea that inhabited the empty and rotten skulls of our poor misguided forefathers.Do you seriously believe the coyotes to be at fault in these stories of “attacks”? Haven't you considered how the human beings are the perpetrators of misbehavior? Your reaction, and the documentation that your office has circulated, seems hysterical – completely unreasonable - to the extreme. You ought to publicly retract your position, because this plan can only embarrass you and your office in the future.Your reply letter refers firstly to “experts in wildlife management agencies in other jurisdictions”. In such case, perhaps you can reveal to me where in North America has a cull of coyotes proven to be effective in the control of the animals? Aren't you aware that programs of culling, everywhere that such projects have been undertaken, have resulted in increased litter sizes and overall population increase? It is a strategy that other places have long ago abandoned, owing to its dismal failure. You refer to “aggression towards humans by all potentially dangerous wildlife” and, as such, I need to suggest that your office study the Animal Behaviour literature. I insist that many of these encounters are not the product of animal aggression, at all, but the product of ignorant and bumbling human beings.You office distributed a form letter which reads “The Province of Nova Scotia has taken the aggressive coyote situation seriously, and considered many options for addressing this matter” How can you say that you have “considered” anything? Culls have never worked! It seems to me that you have done nothing but listen to the braying of gun and hunting advocates and lobbyists. Your response letter particularly alarmed me, given how noteably abnormal Nova Scotian coyotes are, compared to their less wolf-like cousins in the prairies, if indeed you intend to investigate all reports of “overly bold, or other abnormal behaviours”! Please note, that would include all behaviours of Nova Scotian coyotes. They are special, unique in the world, new, and intelligent creatures. They are strong and they are survivors. Human beings need to study and be educated on how to interact intelligently with them.You wrote also that you “will institute a $20 incentive for every coyote pelt sent to market by fur harvesters during the regular trapping season.” And that's really what it's all about, isn't it? They will pay you for licenses, and you will pay them for pelts. I see NO science behind the regulation of hunting in Nova Scotia. (Just as the government of Newfoundland perused none of the science while instituting decisions that produced the collapse of the cod fishery.)As long as you are making decisions based on political reasons, and not scientific reasons, you may as well stop the charade that anything you do is based on Reason. The decisions of your office are not based on Reason. They are based on petty profits. You are only fuelling public hysteria, and distancing people from the Earth, which they must now at least begin to appreciate, study, and understand. I have no doubt that you can only be successful at increasing “the rate of negative experiences/ interactions for coyotes with humans,” and furthermore, I think that that is the most disgusting, sickening reason for a policy that I have ever heard.