Madison Person of the Week David Skelly: Bringing Carson’s Curiosity to a New Problem

Did you know that about one-fifth of the frogs in Connecticut's suburban and urban ponds are hermaphrodites? This isn't normal for frogs-and if you'd like to know what's happening, you're not the only one. Ecologist David Skelly of Madison is on the case and he might not be far from an answer.

Having parents who were outdoor enthusiasts wasn't the only feature of his childhood that's prepared him for this frog-intensive work-Dave grew up in Wilton in a house surrounded by a red maple swamp and spent most of his time outdoors.

"I grew up being kind of a feral child, I guess," he jokes. "I think today you'd get arrested for having your child stay outside all day like that, but that's what we did."

Now an ecology professor at Yale University and a member of the Madison Land Trust Board of Directors, Dave says his research was sparked by a study in 2003 that blamed atrazine, a crop pesticide, for the development of hermaphroditic frogs-specifically in the common green frog. Dave found a problem with the study's conclusion, which was based on its discovery of frogs with intersex characteristics in agricultural
areas in the western United States.

"I saw a big problem," says Dave, who lives in town with his wife Kealoha Freidenburg and their two sons Aidan and
Nathaniel. "You can only find a pattern that you look for."

Suburban and urban populations of frogs had been left out of the equation. Dave's follow-up study on ponds in the Hartford area determined that although the trait is entirely absent in undeveloped, forested areas and found at a rate of seven percent in agricultural areas, it occurs in about 20 percent of the frogs in suburban/urban areas, making it about three times more common in places where people live.

"It is unlikely that that pattern is related to atrazine exposure," Dave says. "So we started asking, 'If it's not atrazine, what is it?'"

One possible candidate is synthetic estrogen, which is designed to be active at low concentrations, passes through the body, and isn't removed by wastewater
treatment plants.

"If you expose male frogs to synthetic estrogen, you get the kinds of effects we've seen," says Dave, who also cited a Canadian study in which minnows exposed to the drug went extinct-the males gained so many female traits that the fish were unable to breed.

Despite careful laboratory testing on the part of the EPA, there has historically been no effort made to trace chemicals after they leave the body and enter the natural environment. This is where it helps to think like Rachel
Carson, who took notice of a specific problem-the effect of DDT on eggshells was only discovered after she asked the simple question of why there were fewer birds at her feeder in her
ground-breaking book Silent Spring.

"Try to imagine how many tests the EPA would have to do to see what effects [DDT] has on eggshells," Dave points out. "There's another element that we think should be added to this and that's this Rachel Carson approach: Go out and see what effects are out there."

Now, Dave's heading a study to find out whether synthetic
estrogen is in fact present in Connecticut ponds and whether it is concentrated in locations with higher rates of hermaphroditic frogs. The results will surface in March or April, but this is the start of a much longer process. After all, there are countless
other factors to consider, such as the effects of combinations of chemicals-and he's dealing with the natural environment rather than a laboratory. Despite the complexity involved, Dave sees his real-world approach as necessary to determining the causes of the changes that
humans are enacting in the
environment-and not just those found in frogs.

"It's so easy to turn this into a 'My God, this is so scary,'" he says. "People get so wigged out they don't want to eat or drink anything. We're just trying to more accurately characterize what is risky and what isn't.

"We're going to use chemicals," he acknowledges. "We should get better about which are safe and which aren't."

Isolating the chemicals that are risky and-over a longer term-removing them from wastewater is hopefully in our future. But that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do now to help solve the potential problem.

"People should bring their
expired medicines to a pharmacist [instead of flushing them]," Dave emphasizes.

To nominate a person of the week, call 203-245-1877, ext. 6146 or email j.matteis@shorepublishing.com.