194:. A keen ornithologist since childhood, Puleston was happy to watch the ospreys that came to the island every year. On his arrival at Long Island in 1948 he wrote "they were everywhere, repairing their huge stick nests on dead trees, utility poles and platforms erected especially for them. They even nested in the middle of towns and raised chicks right along the highways, oblivious to traffic." They bred so successfully that on a 1948 visit to the nearby
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Puleston began keeping records of the nests on
Gardiners Island and their reproductive history, and over several years a dramatic fall in the number of active nests and chicks became apparent. Investigating further, he found that the eggs in the nests had been dented and crushed by the weight of the
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The
Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission regularly sprayed the Long Island countryside with DDT, and refused to accept evidence that this was having any deleterious effect on ospreys and other wildlife. By 1966, there were fewer than 50 active nests on Gardiners Island, with only four chicks
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Puleston tested eggs that had failed to hatch at
Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he worked. High concentrations of DDT residues were found in the eggs, with scientists concluding that the pesticide must interfere with the female osprey's ability to produce normal eggshells. "Using DDT to
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As
Puleston and his colleagues had hoped, as the amount of DDT residues in the environment dropped, osprey numbers on Long Island began to recover. By 1992, there were 226 nests on the island and more than 60 on Gardiners Island with 260 fledged chicks. Other species including
260:(EDF) and Puleston became its first chairman, a position he held for five years. The EDF went on to win further bans in other states and finally, its goal of a nationwide ban in 1972. It subsequently became one of the largest environmental organisations in America.
67:, followed by an unsatisfying stint working in a bank. In 1931 he and a friend, with scant funds, set off to sea from England in a small sailing boat, across the Atlantic, and spent the next six years sailing around the world. One obituary recorded:
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had been published. The book discussed the detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. Carson said that DDT had been found to cause thinner egg shells, reproductive problems and ultimately the death of birds.
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Puleston married his wife
Elizabeth Ann ("Betty") Wellington of Brookhaven, New York on February 2, 1939. They had two sons and two daughters: Dennis (1940), Jennifer (1943), Peter (1946), and Sally (1949). The eldest son,
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Puleston retired from
Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1970. He subsequently made more than 200 trips around the world as a lecturer, and acted as senior naturalist on two scientific expeditions to the Siberian
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and his artist mother encouraged him to draw. He went on to become a talented wildlife artist. From an early age he was interested in boats and sailing. He studied biology and naval architecture at the
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Puleston was sent to the
Pacific, where he trained American forces on the craft, and then organised a training school in its use for the British in India. He took part in amphibious operations in the
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in total. It became clear that unless urgent action was taken, the osprey would no longer breed in the Long Island area. That same year, Puleston and a group of others filed a
26:(30 December 1905 – 8 June 2001) was a British-American environmentalist, adventurer, and designer. He is known for playing a key part in securing a nationwide ban in the
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Puleston presented the court with seven watercolours that he had painted to illustrate how DDT was destroying the food chain of the local wildlife. One showed how the
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and take part in the invasion of Iwo Jima and
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wildlife reserve he counted some 300 nests, with an average of more than two chicks fledging from each active nest.
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and dozens of fish species have also seen a substantial recovery since the DDT ban was imposed.
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in Essex, England. His uncle introduced him to his lifelong interest in
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it ate. The judge remarked "So that's why there are no more crabs in
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The following year, 1967, Puleston and his colleagues founded the
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For his son, the
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On his travels, he ate human flesh with cannibals in
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A Nature Journal: A Naturalist's Year on Long Island
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was set up in his memory by his family and friends.
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